We can argue all we
want over whether the election was necessary but what is definitely
necessary is the government tackling the pressing issues of the day,
issues that have been pressing for decades and in some cases since
before Confederation.
Indigenous
Reconciliation
The longest standing
issue in Canadian political history is the plight (struggled over
what language to use here) of the original inhabitants of North
America and the effects of European “discovery” and colonization.
[Side note: I often
think the dictionary should define “discover” as “stumble
upon”.]
The recent discovery
of 150 (latest count Canada wide 6,000 and growing) unmarked graves
at an Indian Residential School in British Columbia has focused
Canadians thoughts on the treatment of North America’s indigenous
peoples from unfairly negotiated treaties to the lack of clean
drinking water on reserves.
People are finally
realizing that it was not simply a problem of a few bad people
abusing a few children in a few schools but a systemic policy of
cultural genocide (“take the Indian out of the Indian”) seen as,
in the words of the Indian Affairs Department, the “final solution
to the Indian problem”. The facilities included such high levels of
neglect and abuse that the likelihood of dying in an Indian
Residential School was slightly higher than the likelihood of dying
as a soldier in World War II.
Of course the term
school for these facilities is inappropriate. Schools have graduates,
not survivors.
It is no wonder
there are problems in indigenous communities when the destruction of
indigenous families and culture was government policy for so long.
Governments have
committed themselves to reconciliation but what will that be. From my
euro-centric viewpoint I would see it as a new social contract
between Indigenous Peoples and the rest of Canada, something that
will have to be achieved by consensus. But it will be up to
Indigenous communities to decide when reconciliation has been
achieved as they are the only ones capable of judging that.
[Another side note:
Until then the flags should stay down.]
Health Care
Public
health care, or Medicare as we Canadians call it, was first
implemented in
Saskatchewan in the form of hospital coverage in 1947, followed by
full health care coverage following the 1960 provincial
election. Federally the
Medical Care Act was passed in 1968, followed by the Canada Health
Act in 1984 which affirmed
and clarified five founding principles: public
administration, comprehensiveness, universality, portability and
accessibility.
However
in the over 50 years since then the system has stagnated, indeed it
has gone backwards with the federal level of funding decreasing over
time. We need to finish building the system and we cannot wait
another 50 years to do it incrementally. The government must act now
to extend the system to include:
-
at least 50% federal funding
-
a family doctor for every Canadian
-
full mental health care, including psychology services where
medically necessary
-
full long term care for those requiring residential care
-
full prescription drug coverage
-
full eye care coverage
-
full dental care coverage
-
full physiotherapy coverage where medically required
Climate Change
The first warnings of climate change and it’s effects were noted
over 50 years ago and the warnings have become more dire year after
year with governments responding with lots of promises but little
real action. The irony of all this delay is that the longer we wait
to act, the more drastic actions we have to take to respond to this
crisis. Those against taking drastic measures should have been
calling for us to take action sooner rather than arguing against
taking action at all.
The idea of starting new fossil fuel projects at a time when we need
to start phasing out fossil fuels is simply ridiculous yet it is
treated as a serious option in industry and government circles. How
drastic to we want the measures to have to be when we finally realize
we have to take action before it is too late.
From an economic point of view there are a tremendous number of
opportunities available in the renewable energy sector. Call it
whatever you want but the concept of a Green New Deal may be the
economic and environmental salvation of our future.
Inequality &
Under-taxation
Ever since the creation of capitalism there has been inequality
because the system is designed to create and reward inequality.
However I have to say that during my lifetime (since the 1950s) it
has become noticeably worse. One factor is that the wealthy
capitalists have moved the means of production to low wage countries
so that their portion of the rewards of labour has increased, while
the jobs left behind in North America are lower wage jobs.
They have invented a whole new sector of the economy based on
piece-work to avoid paying the existing minimum wages or providing
employee benefits and they give it a snazzy sounding name, the gig
economy, to try to convince people they are freeing them from wage
drudgery and letting them be their own boss when in reality the
corporation has more control over them than if they were unionized
wage workers.
At the same time the taxation of corporations and the wealthy has
declined, partly in response to corporate blackmail threatening to
take more jobs elsewhere if they are forced to pay fair levels of
taxation.
It is also because wealth equals political power and excessive wealth
equals excessive political power and that power is used to enact
polices that favour the wealthy.
Governments need to enact policies that are actually designed to
serve working people and dedicated to their well being, policies that
will counter inequality and under-taxation.
Let us start with decent minimum wages and labour laws designed to
encourage and assist workers in organizing unions. Minimum wages
should not be designed to keep workers just above the poverty line
but designed to provide workers with a middle class income. Our
economy has the money to do that it just requires a little
redistribution from those with excessive wealth to the people that
actually produce that wealth.
We also need a guaranteed basic income for those that for whatever
reason are unable to be employed at any particular time.
We can increase employment by redistributing money from the private
sector to the public sector via a tax on excessive income and wealth
to provide jobs building public infrastructure and affordable housing
for everyone.
As for taxation, we can start by raising the level at which people
start paying income taxes and increase the amount of tax paid in the
higher marginal tax brackets. We also need dedicated taxes on
excessive levels of income and wealth. I would tax away all excessive
income (above $1,000,000 annually and all excessive wealth (above
$100,000,000) but I do not expect any government to go near that.
However that leaves a huge amount of room for a wealth tax that will
have little practical impact on the standard of living of the
excessively wealth while providing great benefit to the common good.
This is not in any way proposed as a punishment but just a means for
them to create a better country/world with no impact on their
personal well being.
Electoral Reform
Winston Churchill is
often quoted as saying “democracy is the worst form of Government
except for all those other forms”.
Ever since democracy
(“rule of the people” in Greek) was invented by they Greeks we
have been looking for ways to make it less worst.
[Yet another side
note: My Eurocentric education tells me democracy was invented by the
Greeks but I would not be surprised if forms of democracy were being
used in non-European cultures before then.]
The key to any
democracy is the electoral system, how the people actually select the
people to represent them in government.
The system we use
now is Single Member Plurality (SMP), more often referred to as First
Past The Post (FPTP), an objectively silly name. In Single Member
Plurality systems the country (or other jurisdiction) is broken into
constituencies and each constituency chooses a representative to send
to the legislature. Whichever candidate receives the most votes
becomes that representative. We use the term plurality because the
candidate does not have to receive a majority of votes cast, just
more than any other candidate.
The main benefit of
SMP is that voters elect local representatives.
The main drawback is
the elected candidates could possibly be the last choice of more
voters than they are the first choice. Also theoretically a party
could elect 100% of MPs with less than 50% of the total votes, though
in practice a typical result may be more like 60% of MPs with 40% of
the votes.
There are two main
proposals to replace this system: Ranked Ballots (preferred by the
Liberals but not in their platform) and Mixed Member Proportional
(proposed by the NDP in their platform).
Ranked Ballots
solves one of the problems of SMP in that it avoids the last choice
of a majority of voters being elected as MPs or forming a government.
It however will likely create an even less representative House of
Commons based on voters first choice party preferences.
Under Mixed Member
Proportional (MMP) a majority of Members of Parliament are elected in
the same manner as SMP to represent defined constituencies. Then an
additional number are selected from party lists in order to balance
the percentage of MPs from each party with the percentage of total
votes received by each party (often referred to as the “popular
vote”) to form a House of Commons representative of the views of
the total population. Under MMP there is usually a threshold of
percentage of total vote required to be allotted seats, often 5%, to
avoid radical fringe groups having representation. However if that
threshold is met a party receives representation. But is not
representation of all voters what democracy is about.
One of the main
criticisms of MMP is that it is unlikely to provide one party
majority governments (unless a majority of voters support one party).
But is that not what democracy is supposed to provide, a legislature
that reflects the will of the people. Would we not be better off if
parties learned to work together for the common good rather than
simply engaging in political posturing. By reducing the power of a
single party in government you reduce the power of a single person
(the majority party leader), and perhaps get back to actual
representative government rather than the trend of effectively
electing (even if indirectly) a dictator to rule over Parliament.
Changing our
electoral system to a more democratic one, MMP, is the most important
thing the government can do.
Conclusion
These are not the only issues of importance but ones that have not
been properly addressed over decades and more. We need the political
will to address them all now without the excuse that the solutions
need to be implemented incrementally.