Is an election really a waste of taxpayer resources?

This is a piece I originally wrote on April 6, 2011.

Is an election really a waste of taxpayer resources?

As you are likely aware, the previous government of Canada was recently dissolved after being found in contempt of Parliament.  In the first week of the resulting election campaign, several prominent members of parliament have been quoted as saying that this election is a waste of taxpayer resources, calling it “unnecessary and reckless”.  While they are entitled to their views, I feel they do not reflect my own in that this election is important for several reasons, a few of which are outlined below.  

The Harper government, to use the parlance of our times, stifled and distorted the flow of information to the public.  This allowed for the manipulation of Canadian perceptions pertaining to several issues currently facing Ottawa.  The minority government had been less than forthcoming or honest in their portrayal of issues to Canadians.  As a result, they lost the confidence of parliamentarians, triggering a dissolution of the government.  In our parliamentary system, for this reason, backstops have been built-in where poor management is likely to trigger an election which can precipitate a change in government.  We currently find ourselves at this crossroads.  

The Conservative Party of Canada under Stephen Harper, now with a trail of documentation behind them, would rather not invite the kind of scrutiny that a curious and well-informed electorate would no doubt generate.   Scrutiny would reveal repeated avoidance of inconvenient facts through the suppression of information.  Overt manipulation of the flow of potentially damaging information from government to the public has allowed for the advent of irrational and ideological governance.  

Case in point: in 2007, federal scientists employed in previously open and accessible departments, such as Environment Canada, are now barred from speaking to the media without prior approval from the Prime Minister’s Office.  All Environment Canada scientists must now refer all media queries to communications officers who will help them respond with "approved lines”.  Researchers are barred from discussing or confirming science facts without this prior approval.  

The muzzling of government scientists preceded Canada losing face at a global climate conference in Copenhagen.  At this United Nations conference we became the proud recipients of (our 3rd strait) “fossil of the year award” for our government’s views on climate change.  Our government is perceived to be more interested in protecting its oil interests than addressing what is becoming the defining issue of our time.  Our attendance at this event was largely perceived as obstructionist.  We are now touting the banner of environmental laggards internationally...and generating huge press globally in doing so.  Ignoring the conclusions of our own scientists made Canada to appear irrational, and therefore unhelpful in formulating a global strategy on climate change.

At its core, was the attempt to distort and suppress information designed to distract the public from an ongoing policy of issue avoidance by this government?  When a government is underperforming, it is in their best interest to avoid scrutiny.  The Harper government has employed at least two strategies to avoid it: suppression of information, and encouraging apathy among the electorate.  Potentially damaging information is kept out of sight and out of mind.  When truths come to light, distractions are thrown up: wedge politics, a refusal to answer questions directly, and continuous changing of the subject discourage critical thinking about the governments approach to the myriad of domestic and international issues facing Ottawa.

This begs the question, how does the Harper government incorporate information into its decision making?  If cancellation of mandatory completion of the long-form census is any indication...it doesn’t.  Our government, by canceling mandatory completion of the long form census, has drastically increased the amount of uncertainty that will appear in our national datasets.  Over and above the upfront costs, an additional $30 million will be required to issue the census every time.  The goal? To convince enough people to fill out the census forms so that a reliable dataset is produced.  If unsuccessful, the cumulative costs resulting from mismanagement due to a lack of quality data will likely increase occurrences of spending on ineffective programs.  For these reasons, changes to the long form census led to the resignation of the head of Statistics Canada, Munir Sheikh, in protest.  Further, the Harper government, via Industry Minister (Tony Clement), were exposed as being less than truthful when pitching the idea to Canadians.  The emails and internal documents that revealed this were, of course, heavily redacted in the interest of…(national security?). 

Apparently, in the Harper government’s mindset, ideology provided sufficient guidance.  In what may yet turn out to be another example of the folly of ideological governance, plans to invest in new prisons, and fill them with pot smokers through the introduction of mandatory minimum sentencing, had been advanced by the former Minister of Public Safety (Vic Toews).  Ironically, data compiled by Statistics Canada showed that national crime rates had already stabilized and begun to decrease.  Despite falling crime rates, the previous government decided that now would be a good time to make crime a priority.  Despite the failure of similar and costly initiatives in the US, or lack of evidence to suggest that stiffer penalties actually deter crime without making criminals more paranoid and violent, Bill S-10 was brought before the house.  Bill S-10 lacked the support of health professionals, the Canadian Bar Association, religious groups, and the Assembly of First Nations.

  Further, when asked to table the cost estimates of the proposed legislation the government chose to keep them in cabinet confidence.  Repeated requests for information were denied.  Stonewalling left the majority of our house representatives unable to make an informed decision.  Meanwhile the government was quick to attack the opposition for being “soft on crime”.  Canadians should demand carefully considered and appropriate, rather than expedient legislation from those who would represent them in Ottawa.

However, the previous government’s view of the information produced in its departments as proprietary posed a barrier to the generation of appropriate legislation.  Any time the Harper government was asked to release information they exhibited symptoms of paranoia.  Initial attempts to access information were often met with refusal, non-responsiveness, then stonewalling prior to access being granted to anyone, much less the media.  In the last five years, the release of only heavily redacted documents in response to freedom of information requests has become commonplace.  The speaker of the house twice ruled that the government was not providing the necessary information for parliamentarians to do their jobs.  This stifled inquiries by watchdog groups such as the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression; which gave the Harper Government an “F” on a report card pertaining to their access to information.

Remember the Maxime Bernier scandal?  The guy who left “not-so-secret” documents at his girlfriends house.  The Tories assured the public that the information those documents contained was not sensitive.  However, when media acquired copies via freedom of information requests they were heavily redacted regardless.   This penchant for secrecy has interfered not only with the Maxime Bernier scandal but with issues such as Afghan torture and Tony Clement’s spin of census reform to Canadians; now the pattern has began anew with the projected costs of crime legislation.  It came as no surprise that the Harper government was found in contempt of parliament for restricting parliamentarians from accessing the information it requires to make informed decisions.

Another case in point: in 2006 and 2007 a high-ranking Canadian diplomat in Kabul, Richard Colvin, wrote no less than 17 reports that were widely circulated within relevant departments in Ottawa that Afghan detainees were likely to be subjected to torture.  The reports repeated concerns emanating from international officials and media outlets.  According to the International Criminal Court (ICC), a government needs only to be aware of an apparent risk of torture (see article 3) before it is obligated to act under the Geneva Convention.  

To avoid the involvement of the International Criminal Court, only a public inquiry was necessary.  However no information was shared, not even with our elected representatives in the house.  This again effectively stifled inquiries by watchdog groups.  When this issue came to a head, Parliament was prorogued.  Again the Tories enacted a strategy of political avoidance that protected their public image.  Again their methods included the suppression of information.  Further, documents surfaced that, despite being heavily redacted, revealed that the Harper government’s attempts to avoid questions about Afghan detainees were premeditated.  

In the meantime the Afghan detainee torture issue has largely fallen by the wayside in the public conscience.  However, the governments’ refusal to hold public inquiries into this matter has triggered a preliminary investigation by the International Criminal Court.   I hope, for all our sakes, that this issue will not resurface to tarnish Canada’s reputation internationally... again!  

Despite their previous electoral platform of transparency and accountability, these traits were lacking in the Harper government.  Seemingly, for good reason, our house representatives in opposition were skeptical of the Harper governments’ approach to many issues.  The Harper government was twice forced to prorogued Parliament within the same year to quell parliamentary revolts.  Prior to this election, on two previous occasions the opposition stood united against the Conservatives.  The common threads between virtually all recent disputes in parliament directly resulted from either the non-inclusive, secretive nature of the Harper government or the application of wedge politics.    

Events finally culminated in the dissolution of the Harper government after being found in contempt of Parliament.  This story also made international headlines.  As such, we as voters should at least pay attention long enough to hear what the elected representatives in the opposition are trying to tell us.  Much of it has merit.  However, a barrage of Conservative memes have muddied the water.  

Perhaps the most troubling development is the branding of any cooperation between parties in the house as “coalitions”, and therefore immoral.  Any time opposition parties unanimously opposed a motion by the Tories, Harper quickly ran to the media to dismiss their concerns as shallow political scheming.  Instead of standing by their record, the conservatives instead bombarded the populace with slick attack ads intended to put the opposition on the defensive, and bury their message in the resulting turmoil.  To maintain support, the Conservatives suppressed and distorted information that didn’t fit with their ideology, and minimized any resulting complaints.  This speaks volumes as to why parliament has been dysfunctional at best.  A functional parliament weighs the merits and implications of opposing views and produces balanced legislation through cooperation.  Instead, the Harper government has chosen to practice wedge politics and promote division along partisan lines for political gain.  

The Harper government quickly dismisses dissenting views by claiming to be speaking on behalf of the majority of Canadians.  However, to say that the Conservative Party represents the majority of Canadians is factually incorrect.  The political left is distributed among four parties: the NDP, Liberals, Bloc Quebecois, and the Green Party and collectively, according to the latest poll numbers, represent about 60% of Canadians.  The political right has consolidated into a single party: the Progressive Conservatives.  While it makes for good political strategy it has limited the diversity of ideas coming from the political right.  

As such, by stating that an election is somehow disrespectful to the majority of Canadians the Conservatives betray the contempt for which they hold views unaligned with their own.  A recent poll indicated that the majority of Canadians would support a Liberal-NDP coalition government, but are wary of the separatist tendencies of the Bloc Quebecois.  At rallies Harper the separatist elements within the Bloc Quebecois are frequently attacked, thereby questioning the patriotism of parliamentarians willing to form a coalition government.  However, this is hypocritical in that Harper also attempted to form a coalition government with the Bloc Quebecois when leader of the Reform Party.  

Further, to avoid questions pertaining to the validity of his claims, Stephen Harper seems to be campaigning inside a bubble, allowing only a limited number of questions from the media, outright refusing to answer inconvenient questions, and engaging only in scripted events attended by pre-screened supporters.  This pre-screening has led to the exclusion of several Canadians from public rallies, based solely on their assumed political sentiments.  If, as advocated by the late American President Thomas Jefferson, “dissent is the highest form of patriotism”, it becomes increasingly apparent that the Conservative Party of Canada has been contradicting itself in its messaging by appealing to our sense of patriotism while actively suppressing dissent.  It appears that Samuel Johnson was correct in asserting that “patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.”         

  I challenge anyone to travel to an emerging democracy and try to convince those around them that the suppression of dissenting views is a responsible way to shape political discourse, or that exercising their right to vote is a waste of their government’s time and resources.  I’m willing to bet you’d be laughed out of the room, or worse.  In this day and age, people in Africa and the Middle East are becoming informed.  Information is power and the people in North Africa and the Middle East are seizing it.  By sharing information they are able to organize en masse and exercise their collective will.  In contrast, we in Canada are forfeiting our access to information via our inattention.  

Our inattention is also costing us our ability to influence world events.  As a barometer of our current situation, we have lost our seat on the United Nations Security Council for the first time in its history.  This stands as evidence that in the span of the last five years our collective international voice has been devalued.  The only explanation offered by our government to the Canadian people was lifted directly from libertarian rhetoric, “we lost (our seat on the Security Council) because of our principled approach.” 

  So, what exactly has Canada’s “principled approach” consisted of?  Nobody has ventured to define them thus far, so it is likely that nobody really knows for sure.  Assuming this was not just another vacuous soundbite designed to distract the public, these principles, whatever they may be, appear incongruent with those of the rest of the people on this planet.  There’s no way to really sugar-coat this one, our replacement by Portugal on the Security Council was a significant international embarrassment highlighting our recent departure from Canada being considered a constructive influence on global issues.  Even bribing each delegate in attendance with maple syrup was insufficient to sway votes in an international delegation.  Unfortunately it also conveyed the Harper governments’ sense of entitlement to a Security Council seat despite their recent tendency to “swim upstream” on several international issues of considerable import.  

One thing is for certain, my views receive no representation in the Conservative caucus under Stephen Harper and I do not agree with the way he is managing either international or domestic affairs.  To quote the Prime Minister himself (2005-2006), “we need to turn the page and make a change. We need change to make government more honest, more accountable, more democratic."  If nothing else I hope this election forces us to start an in-depth, open and honest dialogue about the issues facing our country.  The messages from the Conservative party seems to be “our economy is too fragile to let someone else manage it”; and ”we need to navigate our way out of this really tight spot were in”;  but also, “nobody, except party insiders gets any say in how we go about doing it”.  If I were to extrapolate from their previous record, my guess is they intend to shoot from the hip for short term gains while ignoring the long term consequences. 

Since its a no-brainer that free and fair elections are essential to maintaining a democracy.  It is the height of arrogance to suggest that exercising this relatively recent and hard-won right is somehow a waste of our governments time and resources.  Any government that did so would heighten my suspicion of them.  I hope Canadians aren’t naive enough to allow these rhetorical memes to gain traction as they are redolent of the contempt with which those who spout them hold the majority of us.  

Outlined above are a short selection, and by no means an exhaustive account, of the repeated examples of gross mismanagement on both domestic and international fronts, all occurring in the last five years.   We have diminished our international voice by backpedaling on issues that previously earned us respect as world leaders.  If we hope to rebuild our reputation as world leaders, we need to return to information-based decision making.  As a country, we are engaging in dishonest political discourse at home, while losing touch with the rest of the world.  Restoring our good name abroad will require us to elect leaders who respect the world around them, and the value of objective information.  As the previous government has done much to sully Canada’s international reputation and mismanage several domestic issues, all the while misrepresenting their record on transparency and accountability, I feel the current election is not unwarranted.  

By suggesting that this election is  “a waste of time and money”, and presenting it as “reckless” and “something Canadians do not want”, the Harper government seems to be minimizing the concerns of Canadians while encouraging apathy among voters.  The appeal to our emotional responses are, as anyone with a background in public relations will tell you, surely premeditated.  However, this begs the question: why is our democratically elected government now trying to manufacture apathy among the public?

As the old saying goes, sunlight is the best disinfectant; and an election is a chance to focus a lens on issues important to the people.  Strategic political maneuvering in the last five years has seemed to create an environment where messages from government bear likeness to a corporate branding campaign, selling conservative viewpoints.  It is my belief that several of these talking points are memes designed to confuse dialogue and manufacture apathy about key issues.  They are examples of applied wedge politics manipulating our emotional responses, thereby dividing the electorate.  One can recognize its application when the original premises of argument become obscured.  The goals and nuance of people’s concerns are lost, leading to confusion.  The underlying strategy? The politics of fear.  Scare tactics are designed to keep people confused and scared, and thus, likely to resist changing the status quo.  However, i deem the status quo to be incompetence.  That is why I feel this election is not a waste of our resources.