On the Justice System, Presumption of Innocence & the Me Too Movement

Me Too Movement

The Me Too movement (or #MeToo movement), with many local and international alternatives, is a movement against sexual harassment and sexual assault.[1][2][3] #MeToo spread virally in October 2017 as a hashtag used on social media in an attempt to demonstrate the widespread prevalence of sexual assault and harassment, especially in the workplace.[4][5][6] It followed soon after the sexual misconduct allegations against Harvey Weinstein.[7][8] Tarana Burke, an American social activist and community organizer, began using the phrase "Me Too" as early as 2006, and the phrase was later popularized by American actress Alyssa Milano, on Twitter in 2017. Milano and Michael Baker encouraged victims of sexual harassment to tweet about it and "give people a sense of the magnitude of the problem".[9][10] This was met with success that included but was not limited to high-profile posts from several American celebrities, including Gwyneth Paltrow,[11] Ashley Judd,[12] Jennifer Lawrence,[13] and Uma Thurman.[14]

Source: Me Too movement - Wikipedia

MeToo on Twitter

Believe Women

"Believe women" is an American political slogan arising out of the Me Too movement.[1] It refers to the perceived necessity of accepting women's allegations of sexual harassment or sexual assault at face value. Sady Doyle, writing for Elle, argues that the phrase means "don’t assume women as a gender are especially deceptive or vindictive, and recognize that false allegations are less common than real ones."[1]

The slogan has been criticised for encouraging a presumption of guilt. Michelle Malkin, writing for The Daily Signal, suggests that it is a form of virtue signalling.[3]

Source: Believe women - Wikipedia

BelieveWomen on Twitter

While much of this movement has focused on the entertainment industry it is for all women and particularly those exploited by men in positions of authority over them. While it goes beyond criminal activity and extends to inappropriate and socially unacceptable behaviour much of it is focused on how the justice women treats women who are victims of sexual assault and exploitation.

The Big Five Principles of Our Justice System

So we will start by looking at what I see as the big five principles of our Justice System.

 

Blackstone's Ratio

In criminal law, Blackstone's ratio (also known as the Blackstone ratio or Blackstone's formulation) is the idea that:

It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.[1]

As expressed by the English jurist William Blackstone in his seminal work, Commentaries on the Laws of England, published in the 1760s.

Other commentators have echoed the principle; Benjamin Franklin stated it as, "it is better 100 guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer".[4]

Source: Blackstone's ratio - Wikipedia

Presumption of Innocence

The presumption of innocence is the principle that one is considered innocent unless proven guilty. It was traditionally expressed by the Latin maxim ei incumbit probatio qui dicit, non qui negat (“the burden of proof is on the one who declares, not on one who denies”).

In many states, presumption of innocence is a legal right of the accused in a criminal trial, and it is an international human right under the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 11. Under the presumption of innocence, the legal burden of proof is thus on the prosecution.

Source: Presumption of innocence - Wikipedia

The principle, now protected by section 11(d) of the Charter, that everyone accused of a crime is presumed to be innocent until the Crown has proven the accused’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt to the satisfaction of a judge or jury.

Source: Presumption of innocence - Irwin Law

Beyond Reasonable Doubt

Reasonable doubt is a term used in jurisdiction of common law countries. Evidence that is beyond reasonable doubt is the standard of evidence required to validate a criminal conviction in most adversarial legal systems.[1]

Generally, prosecutors bear the burden of proof and are required to prove their version of events to this standard. This means that the proposition being presented by the prosecution must be proven to the extent that there could be no "reasonable doubt" in the mind of a "reasonable person" that the defendant is guilty. There can still be a doubt, but only to the extent that it would not affect a reasonable person's belief regarding whether or not the defendant is guilty.

Source: Reasonable doubt - Wikipedia

The evidence here must be so complete and convincing that any reasonable doubts as to the guilt of the accused are erased from the minds of the judge or jury.

The evidence here must be so complete and convincing that any reasonable doubts as to the guilt of the accused are erased from the minds of the judge or jury. This is the rigorous standard of proof that the Crown prosecutor is required to meet for each element of the offence in a criminal case.

Source: Beyond a reasonable doubt - Irwin Law

Jury Trials

A jury trial, or trial by jury, is a lawful proceeding in which a jury makes a decision or findings of fact. It is distinguished from a bench trial in which a judge or panel of judges makes all decisions.

Jury trials are used in a significant share of serious criminal cases in almost all common law lawful systems (Singapore, for example, is an exception), and juries or lay judges have been incorporated into the legal systems of many civil law countries for criminal cases.

Source: Jury trial - Wikipedia

Adversarial Justice System

The adversarial system or adversary system is a legal system used in the common law countries where two advocates represent their parties' case or position before an impartial person or group of people, usually a jury or judge, who attempt to determine the truth and pass judgment accordingly.[1][2][3] It is in contrast to the inquisitorial system used in some civil law systems (i.e. those deriving from Roman law or the Napoleonic code) where a judge investigates the case.

The adversarial system is the two-sided structure under which criminal trial courts operate that puts the prosecution against the defense.

Source: Adversarial system - Wikipedia

The Question of Consent and Credibility

The Law of Consent in Sexual Assault

Canada has a broad definition of sexual assault. It includes all unwanted sexual activity, such as unwanted sexual grabbing, kissing, and fondling as well as rape.

Sexual activity is only legal when both parties consent. Consent is defined in Canada’s Criminal Code in s. 273.1(1), as the voluntary agreement to engage in the sexual activity in question. The law focuses on what the person was actually thinking and feeling at the time of the sexual activity. Sexual touching is only lawful if the person affirmatively communicated their consent, whether through words or conduct. Silence or passivity does not equal consent.

Source: The Law of Consent in Sexual Assault - LEAF

Further information:

Brochure: Respect Sexual Consent - Royal Canadian Mounted Police

No Means No: Understanding Consent to Sexual Activity (Public Legal Education and Information Service of New Brunswick)

Let us start by rephrasing Benjamin Franklin's version of the Blackstone ratio with a more specific reference.

"it is better 100 rapists should escape than that one innocent man should suffer"

It does not sound quite so enlightened when made more specific. But that is close to reality due to the difficulty obtaining convictions in sexual assault cases. These are cases where there are often no witnesses except the victim and the accused and while there might be forensic evidence this can only prove whether a sexual act took place but not the key factor in guilt which is whether or not there is consent. So we are left with a “he said she said” scenario.

And in the “he said she said” scenario the truth become a matter of credibility and in our society one's credibility has been tied to one's social status – the ”he's a respected member of the community, he couldn't be lying” factor. Not to mention the reluctance to even report assaults committed by people in positions of power over others because of potential repercussions and the fact one won't be believed anyway. With the Me Too Movement we have seen that particularly in the entertainment industry.

But it is even more insidious (and evil) in regards to the exploitation and sexual assault of children. We have seen numerous cases of what can only be called sex assault rings comprised of so-called respectable members of the community targeting vulnerable at risk children with perceived low credibility simply because these “respected” people knew they could get away with it. And they did for too many years just because of the credibility attached to their social status.

The social standing and supposed moral credibility of religious leaders left them immune from suspicion for years and even when their institutions (one in particular) were made aware of numerous instances of assaults they was swept under the rug because protecting the reputation of the institution was more important than justice or protection for the victims.

So how do we deal with assessing credibility in sexual assault cases where it is a case of believing the victim or the accused.

Should we abandon the concept of proof beyond a reasonable doubt and adopt the preponderance of evidence/balance of probabilities concept used in civil cases.

Preponderance of the evidence

Preponderance of the evidence, also known as balance of probabilities, is the standard required in most civil cases and in family court determinations solely involving money, such as child support under the Child Support Standards Act. It is also the burden of proof of which the defendant must prove affirmative defenses or mitigating circumstances in civil or criminal court. In civil court, aggravating circumstances also only have to be proven by a preponderance of the evidence, as opposed to beyond reasonable doubt (as they do in criminal court).

The standard is met if the proposition is more likely to be true than not true. The standard is satisfied if there is greater than fifty percent chance that the proposition is true. Lord Denning, in Miller v. Minister of Pensions,[12] described it simply as "more probable than not." Until 1970, this was also the standard used in juvenile court in the United States.[13]

Source: Burden of proof - Preponderance of the evidence (law) - Wikipedia

Balance of Probabilities

A standard of proof satisfying a judge or jury that the facts at issue probably occurred as alleged. Sometimes referred to as a preponderance of the evidence or a 51 percent likelihood of occurrence.

Source: Balance of probabilities - Irwin Law

I would suggest we do not want to abandon the principle of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt and create a potential new problem of increased unwarranted convictions.

Rather I would suggest instead that judges instructions to juries make it clear that the standard for believing accusers and witnesses is not certainty, which is impossible to have, but rather reasonable belief in the credibility of the witness. In the words of the Me Too Movement judges must give jurors the right to Believe The Women if they reasonably believe them to be credible. The ultimate safeguard being that all 12 jurors must concur for a conviction to occur.

Broader Problems with the Justice System

There are are broader problems with our Justice System than how it deals with sexual offences.

The fist thing we should note is that we did not choose our Justice System. There was no process of examination of options or analysis undertaken . We simply inherited it, like our system of constitutional monarchy and parliamentary government, from the British. That is not necessarily a bad thing.

But our adversarial Justice System does have its problems.

It has been described as a matter of story telling with whoever tells the best story being the winner. In modern day story telling, which is done most often through TV and movies, the best story telling often involves who employs the best actors and the most effective special effects. In the case of the Justice System we are talking about the most expensive lawyers, investigators, and expert witnesses. No matter what the facts are the quality of the legal defence can be the biggest factor in a court's decision.

As well, all the facts are not necessarily available to the court for various legal reasons. If the state uses illegal means to gather evidence it is not available to the court. This is done to ensure the game is played fairly. This is, of course, a difficult matter and peoples' legal and constitutional rights are hardly “technicalities”. But would it not be better to punish those involved in illegal activity separately rather than having courts make decisions without all the facts.

Money can be the biggest factor in the outcome of a case. If you are poor, depending on legal aid or public defenders, you are at a disadvantage against the resources of the state. On the other hand if you are extremely wealthy your legal resources are much greater than those of the state.

There are other options than the adversarial system.

Inquisitorial system

An inquisitorial system is a legal system where the court or a part of the court is actively involved in investigating the facts of the case, as opposed to an adversarial system where the role of the court is primarily that of an impartial referee between the prosecution and the defense. Inquisitorial systems are used primarily in countries with civil legal systems as opposed to common law systems. Countries using common law, including the United States, may use an inquisitorial system for summary hearings in the case of misdemeanors such as minor traffic violations. The distinction between an adversarial and inquisitorial system is theoretically unrelated to the distinction between a civil legal and common law system. Some legal scholars consider inquisitorial misleading, and prefer the word nonadversarial.[1] The function is often vested in the office of the public procurator, as in China, Japan, Germany, and Scotland.

Source: Inquisitorial system - Wikipedia

The main criticism of such system is that you have one institution, the court, acting as prosecutor, defence, judge and jury. It is a system that would require a huge degree of confidence in the impartiality of the state for it to have credibility with the public.

My own sense is that we would be better off reforming our current system and I would start by looking at sentencing.

Sentencing

The first thing we need to look at are minimum sentences. Zero tolerance and minimum sentences are both concepts based on the idea that circumstances do not matter and no one can be trusted to exercise discretion.

Background on Minimum Sentences

Cleaning up the mandatory minimums mess (Policy Options)

Mandatory-minimum sentencing rules unravelling into patchwork (The Globe and Mail)

Federal government urged to rein in mandatory minimum sentences (The Toronto Star)

Sentencing Based on Accountability, Restitution and Rehabilitation

When it comes to sentencing, one thing the adversarial nature of our Justice System does is create an inclination for sentencing based on punishment and revenge rather than accountability, restitution and rehabilitation.

But there is a sentencing model that does just that, Restorative Justice, using processes such as Sentencing Circles to bring offenders, victims and communities together.

Restorative Justice

Restorative justice is an approach to justice in which the response to a crime is to organize a mediation between the victim and the offender, and sometimes with representatives of a wider community as well. The goal is to negotiate for a resolution to the satisfaction of all participants. This may include a restitution to be given from the offender to the victim, or to take steps to prevent the offender from causing future harm.

A restorative justice program aims to get offenders to take responsibility for their actions, to understand the harm they have caused, to give them an opportunity to redeem themselves and to discourage them from causing further harm. For victims, its goal is to give them an active role in the process.[1] Restorative justice is founded on an alternative theory to the traditional methods of justice, which often focus on retribution. However, restorative justice programs can complement traditional methods.

Academic assessment of restorative justice is positive. Most studies suggest it makes offenders less likely to reoffend. A 2007 study also found that it had the highest rate of victim satisfaction and offender accountability of any method of justice.[2] Its use has seen worldwide growth since the 1990s.[3] Restorative justice inspired and is part of the wider study of restorative practices.

Source: Restorative justice - Wikipedia

Restorative justice

An approach to justice issues that focuses on reconciliation and repair of harm as opposed to conventional retributive approaches. In R. v. Gladue, [1999] 1 S.C.R. 688, Cory and Iacobucci JJ. wrote: “In general terms, restorative justice may be described as an approach to remedying crime in which it is understood that all things are interrelated and that crime disrupts the harmony which existed prior to its occurrence, or at least which it is felt should exist. The appropriateness of a particular sanction is largely determined by the needs of the victims, and the community, as well as the offender. The focus is on the human beings closely affected by the crime” (at 726).

Source: Restorative justice - Irwin Law

Sentencing circles

Sentencing circles (sometimes called peacemaking circles) use traditional circle ritual and structure to involve all interested parties. Sentencing circles typically employ a procedure that includes: (1) application by the offender; (2) a healing circle for the victim; (3) a healing circle for the offender; (4) a sentencing circle; and (5) follow-up circles to monitor progress.

Restorative justice - Sentencing circles - Wikipedia

Circle sentencing

A method of sentencing sometimes used with Aboriginal offenders (and occasionally with other offenders). Typically, the judge, lawyers, police, offender and parents, victim, and other community members and professionals sit in a circle. Everyone has an opportunity to express their feelings about the offence and offender, and their views about an appropriate sentence. If a consensus emerges about an appropriate sentence, the judge will usually impose this sentence, though the judge is not obliged to do so. A body of jurisprudence deals with the appropriateness of circle sentencing for adults, and section 41 of the YCJA recognizes the judicially convened “conference,” which includes the possibility of circle sentencing.

Source: Circle sentencing - Irwin Law

Postscript

Outside of the Justice System we can believe as we choose, no “beyond a reasonable doubt” is required for individuals to use their own judgment as to their own beliefs about individuals' guilt.

As well, individuals, employers, organizations, etc. are completely entitled to hold people to higher standards than whether they committed a crime or not. In fact they should. Criminal responsibility is a pretty low standard, especially for people in positions of public trust or control over others lives, whether it be in the workplace or elsewhere.

The George Zimmerman Verdict and The British Justice System

The not guilty verdicts in the George Zimmerman trial for the murder of Travyon Martin may be a result of the British criminal justice system (that is shared by both Canada and the United States) and it's most important principle that it is better that the guilty go free than the innocent be convicted.

One of the earliest expressionless of this principle was Blackstone's formulation: "It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer", further amplified in the United States by Benjamin Franklin: "It is better 100 guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer".

This principle is expressed in practice by the principle that juries must find an accused guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in criminal prosecutions.

So we have a jury presented with a case involving an altercation with no witnesses and a defendant that apparently has significant injuries and that, along with other factors, may be enough to create reasonable doubt in the jurors minds and thus a not guilty verdict.

None of that changes the fact that Zimmerman, having a vigilante attitude, profiled Martin (whether racially or otherwise) and pursued him even after being advised not to by authorities - a chain of events set in motion by Zimmerman and controlled by him that led to the death of Trayvon Martin who was doing nothing wrong when Zimmerman set these actions into motion.

A reasonable person would conclude that, even if not criminally guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, George Zimmerman was responsible for the death of Trayvon Martin.

One would expect a very different outcome if a wrongful death claim was filed against Zimmerman where the standard of proof would not be beyond a reasonable doubt but a preponderance of the evidence.

Federal prosecution under federal civil rights law may also result in a different outcome.

The U.S. Department of Justice said Sunday it would review the Travyon Martin-George Zimmerman case to determine if it should consider prosecuting Zimmerman, who was acquitted in a Florida court in the shooting death of the unarmed black teenager.

"Experienced federal prosecutors will determine whether the evidence reveals a prosecutable violation of any of the limited federal criminal civil rights statutes within our jurisdiction, and whether federal prosecution is appropriate in accordance with the Department's policy governing successive federal prosecution following a state trial," said a statement released by the department.

As further events unfold we should all heed United States President Obama's call for calm.

Jack Layton - In His Own Words

August 20, 2011
Toronto, Ontario

Dear Friends,

Tens of thousands of Canadians have written to me in recent weeks to wish me well. I want to thank each and every one of you for your thoughtful, inspiring and often beautiful notes, cards and gifts. Your spirit and love have lit up my home, my spirit, and my determination.

Unfortunately my treatment has not worked out as I hoped. So I am giving this letter to my partner Olivia to share with you in the circumstance in which I cannot continue.

I recommend that Hull-Aylmer MP Nycole Turmel continue her work as our interim leader until a permanent successor is elected.

I recommend the party hold a leadership vote as early as possible in the New Year, on approximately the same timelines as in 2003, so that our new leader has ample time to reconsolidate our team, renew our party and our program, and move forward towards the next election.

A few additional thoughts:

To other Canadians who are on journeys to defeat cancer and to live their lives, I say this: please don’t be discouraged that my own journey hasn’t gone as well as I had hoped. You must not lose your own hope. Treatments and therapies have never been better in the face of this disease. You have every reason to be optimistic, determined, and focused on the future. My only other advice is to cherish every moment with those you love at every stage of your journey, as I have done this summer.

To the members of my party: we’ve done remarkable things together in the past eight years. It has been a privilege to lead the New Democratic Party and I am most grateful for your confidence, your support, and the endless hours of volunteer commitment you have devoted to our cause. There will be those who will try to persuade you to give up our cause. But that cause is much bigger than any one leader. Answer them by recommitting with energy and determination to our work. Remember our proud history of social justice, universal health care, public pensions and making sure no one is left behind. Let’s continue to move forward. Let’s demonstrate in everything we do in the four years before us that we are ready to serve our beloved Canada as its next government.

To the members of our parliamentary caucus: I have been privileged to work with each and every one of you. Our caucus meetings were always the highlight of my week. It has been my role to ask a great deal from you. And now I am going to do so again. Canadians will be closely watching you in the months to come. Colleagues, I know you will make the tens of thousands of members of our party proud of you by demonstrating the same seamless teamwork and solidarity that has earned us the confidence of millions of Canadians in the recent election.

To my fellow Quebecers: On May 2nd, you made an historic decision. You decided that the way to replace Canada’s Conservative federal government with something better was by working together in partnership with progressive-minded Canadians across the country. You made the right decision then; it is still the right decision today; and it will be the right decision right through to the next election, when we will succeed, together. You have elected a superb team of New Democrats to Parliament. They are going to be doing remarkable things in the years to come to make this country better for us all.

To young Canadians: All my life I have worked to make things better. Hope and optimism have defined my political career, and I continue to be hopeful and optimistic about Canada. Young people have been a great source of inspiration for me. I have met and talked with so many of you about your dreams, your frustrations, and your ideas for change. More and more, you are engaging in politics because you want to change things for the better. Many of you have placed your trust in our party. As my time in political life draws to a close I want to share with you my belief in your power to change this country and this world. There are great challenges before you, from the overwhelming nature of climate change to the unfairness of an economy that excludes so many from our collective wealth, and the changes necessary to build a more inclusive and generous Canada. I believe in you. Your energy, your vision, your passion for justice are exactly what this country needs today. You need to be at the heart of our economy, our political life, and our plans for the present and the future.

And finally, to all Canadians: Canada is a great country, one of the hopes of the world. We can be a better one – a country of greater equality, justice, and opportunity. We can build a prosperous economy and a society that shares its benefits more fairly. We can look after our seniors. We can offer better futures for our children. We can do our part to save the world’s environment. We can restore our good name in the world. We can do all of these things because we finally have a party system at the national level where there are real choices; where your vote matters; where working for change can actually bring about change. In the months and years to come, New Democrats will put a compelling new alternative to you. My colleagues in our party are an impressive, committed team. Give them a careful hearing; consider the alternatives; and consider that we can be a better, fairer, more equal country by working together. Don’t let them tell you it can’t be done.

My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.

All my very best,

Jack Layton


Source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2011/08/22/pol-layton-last-letter.html

Towards a Green Social Democratic Economy

Background/Context

Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit.[1][2][3][4] Characteristics central to capitalism include private property, capital accumulation, wage labor, voluntary exchange, a price system and competitive markets.[5][6] In a capitalist market economy, decision-making and investments are determined by every owner of wealth, property or production ability in financial and capital markets, whereas prices and the distribution of goods and services are mainly determined by competition in goods and services markets.[7][8]

Social democracy is a political, social and economic philosophy that supports economic and social interventions to promote social justice within the framework of a liberal democratic polity and a capitalist mixed economy. The protocols and norms used to accomplish this involve a commitment to representative and participatory democracy, measures for income redistribution, regulation of the economy in the general interest and social welfare provisions.[1][2][3] In this way, social democracy aims to create the conditions for capitalism to lead to greater democratic, egalitarian and solidaristic outcomes.[4]

The Green New Deal is an ambitious plan for how we can eliminate poverty and create millions of jobs while tackling the biggest threat of our time: climate change. It involves massive public investment in clean energy, transit and climate adaptation work. But the vision is bigger than that: it’s about transforming our entire economy to be safer and more fair, and give everyone a better life. First proposed in the U.S., the Green New Deal is now spreading around the world. In 2015, we joined with dozens of movement leaders to draft the The Leap Manifesto, a 15-point plan for how Canada can decarbonize its economy based on principles of justice. We’re excited about the Green New Deal because it’s even more ambitious than the Manifesto, and it’s being backed by both grassroots movements and politicians.

The Failure of Capitalism

If you are part of the 1%, or perhaps even the top 10%, of wealthy people that call themselves capitalists you are probably wondering what the nonsense of the heading above is. Capitalism is working just fine for you.

But if you are not one of the owners of the means of production, but are the means of production, part of the masses that actually produce the wealth and services that our society depends on you see it completely differently. Indeed even the capitalists themselves are recognizing the market system as it currently works does not serve society and are rethinking the idea that corporations only duty is to shareholders profits and are suggesting corporations also have a responsibility to workers, customers and society. Or at least they want the public to think they have such concerns as a means of placating the masses to prevent the complete abolition of capitalism.

Capitalism unfortunately is based on a lot of assumptions and mythology which simply is not true. Shall we look at some of them.

 

If everyone acts in their own self interest the interests of the society will be served is one of the basic tents of capitalism. Unfortunately it is just a poorly presented justification for greed.

The market will ensure fair prices and wages and an effective distribution of resources to where they are most needed. Clearly not working.

What's good for General Motors is good for America, or more generically, what is good for the mega corporations is good for the country and the society. Has the laughter died down yet.

Competition will ensure the survival of the best ideas and most efficient implementation of them and the failure of the poorest. UNLESS you are too big to fail, then state socialism will bail the capitalists out with the workers money.

No one is too rich and there is no need for income or wealth redistribution because the earth has infinite energy and resources and infinite capacity for development and the environmental impacts that go along with that and there are no limits to growth. Everybody can become a billionaire if they just make the effort. The poor are just lazy. No comment necessary.

Need I go on.

Fortunately social democracy does not require, nor seek, the elimination of private ownership. It only seeks to build a fair society where everyone can contribute with a fair distribution of wealth.

Inequality

We have all read the statistics on wealth and income inequality. It seems unnecessary to repeat them here. But here are a few citations anyway.

The world’s richest 1 percent, those with more than $1 million, own 45 percent of the world’s wealth. (Global Inequality - Inequality.org)

Last year 26 people owned the same as the 3.8 billion people who make up the poorest half of humanity. (5 shocking facts about extreme global inequality and how to even it up | Oxfam International)

Billionaires in Canada have increased their wealth by $20 billion over the last year, says a new Oxfam report on global inequality. In the same time, the 4.5 per cent of the country's wealth held by the poorest half of Canadians remained static. (Obscene gap between rich and poor, says Oxfam | National Observer)

Since 1990, the richest group of Canadians has increased its share of total national income, while the poorest and middle-income groups has lost share. (Income inequality - Canada and world results)

Income inequality in America is the highest it’s been since Census Bureau started tracking it, data shows (The Washington Post)

I wrote this about excessive wealth in an earlier blog post, THE FIFTH COLUMN: On Inequality, Democracy and Taxing the Rich – A Modest Proposal.

So what is excessive income and wealth. There are many ways to measure that, many statistical, but I propose a simpler definition – the amount of wealth and income where increases have no discernible effect on ones way of life or standard of living, where the increase is simply not noticeable in one's day to day life. Let's be generous to the wealthy in determining such levels. I propose an annual income of $1 million dollars and total assets of $100 million as the level that triggers “excessive income and wealth”. Above that no one notices without reading their financial statements.

The thing about excessive wealth is that it makes minuscule difference to the recipients but could make all the world of difference to the poor and underprivileged and to society as a whole if used for the common good. I will not even attempt to list what all that excessive wealth could do if devoted to the common good of society .

But there is another side to excessive income and wealth – it is highly undemocratic. The rich do not cling to their excessive wealth because it makes a difference to their daily lives. They cling to it because it gives them economic and political power. It is not just a matter of economic inequality, is a matter of political inequality.

Democracy is based on equality, one person one vote. Economic power is political power. Excessive wealth skews political power so that the wealthy have more of it. Excessive wealth is inherently undemocratic.

The argument that the rich are simply smarter or work harder simply does not hold water (to use an expression). The extremely wealthy are in that position because of privilege or in a few exceptional cases just plain dumb luck. But there is no moral justification for such extreme levels of wealth and inequality, particularity when you take into account the amount of economic and political power that provides which negates any sense of democracy we think may exist in our societies.

Climate Change

This inequality is taking place in a time of environmental crisis. No need to go on and on about the scientific consensus here. Just a few citations for the record.

UNITED NATIONS UN Climate Change Summit 2019

Major Reports - Climate Change - A Global Issue - Research Guides at United Nations Dag Hammarskjold Library

Canada’s Changing Climate Report | Natural Resources Canada

Some people suggest the solution to climate change lies in the hands of a few big corporations. Others think it only involves moving away from fossil fuels. But in reality avoiding future environmental disaster requires a major remaking of our economy from one based on the concept of unlimited consumption, waste and growth to one based on sustainable living and sustainable development (remember that). We need to refocus our society away from the concept of increasing our standard of living, where standard of living is defined by how much stuff (energy and resources) we consume to one based on increasing our quality of life, where quality of life is defined by how satisfied we are with our life experiences, in effect by how “happy” we are.

Tackling Climate Change and Inequality: An Opportunity to Build a New Society

Too big crises at once. How do we prioritize our response. Fortunately we do not. This is indeed an opportunity to use our responses to both these crises to build a better society.

So let us first look at the so-called “elephant in the room”, the idea that actually doing something significant about inequality is an extreme radical idea that involves stealing the wealth of the mega rich.

Let us assume that we are in an economy where the richest people earn up to a million dollars annually, making more than 10-20 times the income of average workers and that the richest people could acquire wealth of up to $100 million dollars, 100 times what the average worker can save up in a lifetime. Then let us assume someone suggests that is not enough incentive for people to work hard and invest and we should change the system so the wealthy can earn unlimited incomes and acquire unlimited wealth gaining them the economic and political power that that brings with it. Those people would be called extreme radicals with crazy ideas. Rationally that kind of uncontrolled excessive inequality is the crazy radical idea that would undermine society, not establishing reasonable limits to inequality.

Tackling inequality will provide the political opportunity and funds to change our society to deal with climate change. We need to change the economic and political power distribution to do this and there will be economic disruptions and major economic change, which will be for the better in the long term.

How Do We Tackle Inequality

Let us look first at how we tackle the problem of excessive wealth (as defined earlier) and inequality.

Preferably we deal with this outside the tax system and only use the tax system to correct egregious behaviours that continue.

We must start with protections for ordinary working people. We need to start with a minimum guaranteed income for everyone, and not a poverty/subsistence level income but a decent middle class income that allows people to have a satisfactory quality of life.

Side note: Finland’s basic income is making people happier and healthier

When it comes to excess income we should set a societal standard that the gap between the lowest income and the highest income should not exceed twenty times within the society and ten times within any one organization. That leaves lots of room to reward hard work, education or risk taking.

On excessive wealth we hope corporations and organization revise their profit structure so it does not lead to excessive wealth, by reducing exorbitant executive salaries and increasing wages for the people that make the goods and provide the services that create the profits, spending more on making products and services better quality and reducing prices. The days when maximizing profits was the only corporate goal need to end.

There will, of course, be situations of such excessive wealth where drastic measures will need to be taken. They should include, where appropriate, simply transferring corporate ownership to workers co-operatives where the profits can be shared more evenly. They may also include the society, through government, taking ownership of enterprises and devoting the profits earned to the common good. In some cases corporate operations and practices will need to be realigned to better serve the needs of the society as a whole.

Where excessive income and wealth remains we will need to use the tax system to tax away any income over $1 million annually and any wealth in the form of assets over $100 million.

At levels below those that are extremely excessive we need to reform the income tax system reversing decades of tax reductions for high income earners and making it more progressive. We start with eliminating income tax on the minimum guaranteed annual income. Tax rates above that should increase progressively with new higher tax brackets at the upper end.

Corporate tax rates need to be brought back to historical levels before the massive cuts began.

What Type of Economy Do We Need

As we respond to the climate change crisis we must realize that the answer is not simply avoiding a catastrophe at this time by reducing our fossil fuel use and carbon footprint but avoiding future environmental disasters with an economy based, not on consumerism with it's inherent excessive consumption and waste, but on sustainability.

The 4 R's:

One guideline to this is the traditional 4 Rs .

1. Refuse: To refuse waste is often seen as a "radical" choice. As a consumer, the impact of refusing waste is a clear statement to the producer. This choice is a powerful one in that you refuse to take on the responsibility of waste and only wish to receive the wanted or needed product.2. Reduce: As you gain a better understanding of what waste is and the impacts it has on our natural, economic and social environments, reducing becomes a choice of consciousness. Reducing waste allows you to participate at any level.3. Reuse: Using conventional waste to divert it from the waste stream offers a broad spectrum of savings. From plastic containers to shipping containers, the reuse of a product introduces a second life cycle.4. Recycle: Though recycling is the last "R" in this though process, it has become the most commonly used element. Recycling is absolutely important in eliminating waste and will always be part of the ongoing process. Separating out recyclables from other waste is a responsibility that often lies with the end consumer. The problems that arise with recycling are usually the lack of knowledge and accessibility.

I would like to emphasize here that these are listed in priority order with the most important principle being saying no to environmentally unsustainable products and practices.

And “Reduce” has to be meaningful as we move from an economy based on consuming to one based on living.

For example, at a time when families are smaller why are houses bigger. A family of two adults and two children does not need a three or four thousand square foot house. A family with two parents and two teenagers does not need four automobiles. What happened to the family car. Appliances should be built to last twenty or more years. Even computers, tablets, smartphones, etc,. are at a state of maturity now that they do not need to be replaced every two years. When it comes to smaller items it is often the excessive packaging that is the biggest environmental problem. Why do we allow that when it harms the planet and adds unnecessary costs to both the producer and consumer. We simply cannot continue such a wasteful and unsustainable lifestyle. Clothing can be worn until it is actually worn out. These are just simple examples of how we can change our habits with little real impact on our quality of life.

Localism

I would add an additional, and perhaps most important, principle here – localism. A search of the Internet will find many different definitions of localism and environmental localism and political localism. Most of them relate to a certain degree to what I see as localism in this context.

One of the biggest users of energy and resources and contributors to climate change is transportation, and in particular the transportation of goods over long distances.

People make a great deal of noise over personal air travel. However there is a lot of good that comes with people visiting other countries, experiencing other cultures and getting to know other people. There is a also a lot of good to come from international conferences where people get together to try to solve the world's problems that can only be done face to face.

Certainly a lot of business travel, where people are simply travelling to airports and then to meeting rooms and only meeting like-minded people and only discussing internal corporate matters could probably be replaced with electronic communications.

But the big transportation waste of energy and resources (and carbon footprint) has to be the needless global transportation of goods that could easily be produced locally by local workers. There was a time when every town had a sawmill, a textile mill and a factory or two producing consumer goods and providing good paying union jobs.

Now most of our consumer goods are made in the same massive factories in China and most of our clothing comes from the third world. Capitalism is supposed to promote efficiency but when you add the amount of resources and labour to the cost of transportation to market, importing most of our goods from offshore is not efficient. The only measure by which this is profitable is the extremely low value we attach to workers in developing countries and on flags of convenience shipping lines. When you look at what wages used to paid for goods consumed in North America compared to wages are now paid for most goods consumed in North America it is pennies, or less, on the dollar.

But the environmental costs, particularly in terms of carbon footprint, are excessively greater than producing goods close to where they will be used.

Much the same can be said about food. There is a lot of energy and resources expended because we think we should be able to get anything we want from anywhere anytime. That was not even the case 50 years ago when many products were just considered seasonal. We don't need to just eat what we grow in our own backyards but we can adopt a more balanced approach to importing food. And we can certainly encourage more local growing of Canadian produced foods to reduce transportation costs and the related environmental impacts.

We need more than individual tokenism here but an economy built on these principles.

Community Infrastructure Building and A Green New Deal

Capitalism and the so-called free market may do a good job of maximizing short term profits but it needs tempering to serve longer term corporate needs and is a complete failure at serving social needs, often diverting funds to frivolous but profitable expenditures.

Regulations (including labour, environmental, and health and safety standards) can restrain some of the worst aspects of capitalism but only taxation can provide the funds necessary to fulfill our society's needs. This is why, as pointed out earlier in this post, we need a strong progressive tax system especially at the highest levels of income and for corporations.

As well as funding a social safety net in the form of a guaranteed annual income and universal health care and public education, not to mention police and fires services, defence and foreign policy, and on and on, taxation funds necessary public infrastructure.

Side note: Canada Should Be Spending $595 Billion More On Public Services Per Year

This is where the proposed Green New Deal comes in. By building sustainable public infrastructure the public sector can set an example for the private sector on how to do development that is not harmful to the environment.

The most obvious example is transportation which has a huge carbon footprint. Locally improved public transit and cycling infrastructure can reduce the use of individual motor vehicles considerably, even eliminating it's need for short trips. Development of electric transport vehicles, particularly rail, can make a huge reduction in the economic and environmental cost of delivering goods, especially when coupled with production facilities (factories) closer to the final consumers.

The improvement of water, sewage and waste disposal facilities has an obvious environmental benefit.

As well, moving to a more people focused society, as discussed in the next section of this post, will see the need for more educational, arts and community facilities.

And we must not neglect to include publicly funded housing projects to address the chronic need for affordable housing. Public housing projects will provide an opportunity to develop and implement more sustainable building techniques and build housing that has much lower ongoing environmental impacts.

Side Notes: Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design - Wikipedia and Canada Green Building Council - LEED Homes

We now know the best way to provide affordable housing is through co-operative or mixed income housing that does not ghettoize low income earners, Hopefully a guaranteed income at a decent middle class income level will make this less of an issue.

All of this will, of course, provide an employment benefit, increasing the traditional Gross Domestic Product (GDP) standard of living measurement and more importantly increasing the quality of life of the population.

What Type of Society Do We Want

This is the big question. Do we want a society based on people not stuff, living not consuming. But first this.

The Robots Are Taking Over and Taking Our Jobs

Since the first stages of industrialization to the assembly line and beyond to modern robotics there have been two scenarios for this trend. One dystopian. One utopian.

The current capitalist economy tends to be leading us to the dystopian model. As automation leads workers to be more productive, producing more per hour of labour, wages per hour are going down. Workers are earning less for producing more. This is because, unlike early predictions, increased productivity has not led to reduced working hours but to increased unemployment. At some point very few people will be producing a large number goods for a very small number of people and the whole system will collapse.

A New Society For A New Economy

“Whoever has the most stuff when he dies wins” is a reflection of our current capitalist society based on competition where the goal is to prove yourself better than other people by acquiring more stuff, which may include fame and status.

There is a another, more utopian model. The expression "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” reflects a society where everyone contributes according to their ability and has their basic needs met, a social democratic society.

Such a society will produce our basic needs in the most efficient way possible, taking advantage of automation and robotics to free people from the drudgery of producing excessive stuff. We will produce less stuff because our lives will not be based on the status conferred by owning things.

People will still work, but hours of drudgery will be limited and everyone will be guaranteed a decent middle class income. Education will be at the forefront of society with most people serving as both teachers and students. Education, the arts and culture (including writing, music, theatre, movie, TV and video production, etc.) and recreation will provide meaningful employment. There is a huge opportunity for localism here with hopefully a better balance of funding and earnings for local productions compared to international corporate financed productions and so-called superstars earnings.

Connections with the natural world will be emphasized with resource extraction of the wilderness being replaced by sustainable recreation and forms of eco-education and eco-tourism. Sustainable energy sources will replace those based on resource extraction.

A society based on living a more meaningful life will reduce alienation (Side Note: Karl Marx’s Conception of Alienation) and build a sense of community and reduce crime and conflict. While the first stages of new society will allow for some inequality, people realizing they do not want to measure themselves by how much more they own than everyone else will lead to the gradual end of inequality. The lack of desire for the consumption of excessive stuff will put less stress on the planet's resources and environment and avoid future environmental disasters.

And finally Karl Marx and Jesus Christ will rest easily in their graves.

Postscript:

For those asking what about our democratic institutions. That is a completely different blog post. See: THE FIFTH COLUMN: On Democracy