With a Liberal lead in the polls
and after a few weeks of leaks to the press
Prime Minister Trudeau asked the newly installed
Governor General to call an election. Since
Canada lives under a federal law that prescribes
dates for elections, some of us hoped the
Governor General would say no in the absence of
a national emergency, but she said yes on August
15th. The date was set for September 20th. Then
things changed.
The Taliban took control of
Afghanistan without a fight as the US prepared
to remove its last troops by August 31st. Canada
did too little to help Canadians there and to
help those Afghans get to safety who had
supported Canadians there in ways like
translation. A Provincial election in Nova
Scotia unexpectedly went to the Nova Scotia
Conservative Party that offered a progressive
agenda for healthcare. The Nova Scotia Liberals
had done a good job of mitigating the effects of
Covid in the province, but that was not enough.
With a boost from the Nova Scotia
election results, the new Federal Conservative
leader O’Toole turned out to be a better
performer than the last Conservative leader. The
Conservatives’ proposed program is somewhat
progressive but contains a less than adequate
attack on CO2 production and climate change. The
Conservatives no longer deny climate change, but
have a far weaker position on pricing carbon and
less ambitious emission reduction targets. All
big three parties, including the Conservatives,
have also produced some proposals for health
care and mental health care. The NDP and
Liberals are more proactive on health including
requiring vaccine passports. The Liberals have
proposed one for international travel, travel on
planes, trains and buses. As might be expected,
the more limited Conservative programs end up
with a somewhat lower cost.
Singh, the NDP leader, is the
leader with the best rating. He is performing
well and the NDP has a respectable set of
proposals on health care issues including adding
national pharmacare and dental care. The NDP has
been good on meeting aboriginal peoples’ needs
and it offers deeper and faster responses to
global warming than the Liberals. Yet the
package has not been presented as the powerful
program for change that it is, and the NDP is
deemed unlikely to have the reach to form a
government.
For response to climate change, the
Liberals have a supportable position and a
reasonable carbon tax in place. They promise
infrastructure to help electric cars. Trudeau
has made a series of promises around health care
including mental health, plans for a vaccination
passport, plans for indigenous peoples’ needs,
and a plan for Canada-wide affordable child
care. Some plans are carry-forwards of earlier
promises which have had little delivery so far.
However, the child care program, based on the
tested and successful program in Quebec is
significant. My family experienced difficulties
raising children in Ontario where no similar
program exists. The NDP proposal on child care
is similar to the Liberal but does not use the
Quebec model. The tax credit the Conservatives
propose doesn’t cut it.
Unfortunately, lurking in the
background is a trail of Trudeau’s bad judgment
and lack of integrity that has cost him the loss
of three of his best Ministers since 2015 and
has cost him a loss of my respect. The trait has
not improved with time on the job! Since 2019
Trudeau has been distancing himself from his
Liberal government’s misdemeanors. There was an
attempted large Federal grant of funds to
respond to Covid to the WE set of companies that
Trudeau and his family is involved with. Then it
turned out that he had not done a thorough
character study of the first Governor-General
that he appointed and had to accept her
resignation when she was accused of creating a
toxic workplace for her employees. He is
responsible for the inaction on a report on
sexual misconduct in the military and then for
failing to act decisively on actual instances of
sexual misconduct. Did he or didn’t he know? He
should have been aware. He had to accept
resignations from two military commanders at the
very top level. His last dubious action was to
block parliament’s access to information on
national security issues surrounding Chinese
national academics participating in top level
medical research in universities in Alberta.
Just before the last week of electioneering,
Jody Wilsom Raybould's book Indian in
Cabinet: Speaking Truth to Power appeared
and her story as the Liberal Minister of Justice
and Attorney General who resigned hit the media
again.
Important issues are missing from
the election platforms and campaign promises and
irritation with Trudeau’s behaviour threatens to
undermine the relatively good Liberal proposals.
Policing and ensuring the safety of aboriginal
people and people of colour in encounters with
the police are not on the party platforms so
responses to the big “Defund the Police”
protests are just missing. And election plans
don’t go far enough on other concerns of people
of colour. Little is being said on reducing
discrimination in access to jobs or on
discrimination in salary levels for women or
people of colour. Little is being said on the
need for measures that work to reduce ongoing
systemic inequalities of wealth and opportunity
for people of colour – but also in the whole
society. Half way through the last week of the
election some of the systemic racism came to
light in the form of an intended class action by
around 1000 federal employees, persons of
colour, who alleged others passed over them for
promotions and the like.
Bold initiatives on needed changes
are there but have remained hidden. A full
national healthcare system that includes
dentistry, eye care, hearing care and pharmacare
is needed. It has not become a major issue in
the election. Yet the NDP proposes to add a
national pharmacare plus a dental care plan to
the present program that covers hospital visits
and doctor visits. That would be a huge step
toward a full national healthcare system.
Presently, only seniors have a federal drug
program. Escalating costs for glasses, hearing
aids, dental work all depend on the individual
paying out-of-pocket or having an employer with
a health benefit insurance program. Yet the NDP
have not managed to sell this as the valuable
big ticket program that it is. And it's all
costed out with a creative proposed tax shift
for funding by having the rich and
corporations pay "their share". A wealth tax is
finally proposed - if small. The capital gains
tax would be increased, and a surtax on excess
profits introduced. This has just not been
recognized for the progressive new funding
vision that it represents.
Missing is any mention on the party
election platforms about moving forward on a
guaranteed basic income. That had some tests in
Manitoba and was being tested on a trial basis
in Ontario until the Conservatives were elected
in the province. To their credit, the Federal
Conservatives propose tax credits for low paid
workers, but this doesn’t get at the deep
poverty of those who are not working, and it may
encourage corporations to pay low. The basic
income program is the bold best way forward to
put an end to poverty in Canada. It deals with
hidden related issues – enabling people to pay
for drugs that will keep them out of hospital
emergency. It
could replace the muddle of degrading welfare
programs that rely on much paperwork. But the
NDP expanded healthcare proposals would benefit
those in poverty considerably.
On climate change, powerful policy
proposals available had not reached the election
debates when I first wrote this paragraph. The
Ontario Clean Air Alliance that my church
supports wanted parties to commit to a
fossil-free Canada-wide electricity grid by
2030, noting that electric vehicles and that
electric heat pumps for heating and cooling
buildings can help rapidly cut greenhouse gas
emissions. There were bits of this and that in
this direction in NDP and Liberal platforms. It
would be an important initiative for Ontario.
Happily in the week before the election both
Liberals and NDP promised to implement this
- albeit a few years later than our
lobbying had suggested. Mid way through this
last week of the election an academic analysis
of the party platforms on addressing climate
change came out. It looked at whether the
measures could deliver what was promised and
whether the cost was manageable. On this test
the Liberals did best and the Conservatives were
runner up - aiming to do less than the NDP but
being more likely to get there at a tolerable
cost. (I like the NDP targets and would accept
the greater stress of the costs.)
At the same time unhelpful material
on climate change has been given profile that
undermines some good thoughts in the NDP and
Liberal proposals. The Globe and Mail on 28
August printed an opinion piece by a UK academic
that told us “If you drive a Tesla [electric car
= zero CO2 emissions] you’re probably doing more
harm than good”. He told readers that the rich
spend more and that spending supports activities
that produce CO2 and the electric car is just a
small something in the overall rich person’s CO2
production. The thought seems plausible but on
inspection it isn’t. It reminds me of the
Small is Beautiful book of my student
days. We were all to cut our incomes to save the
world. But for climate change, if the economy
were green, as my friends at the Ontario Clean
Air Alliance suggest it could be, would making
rich people poorer affect the CO2 level? No! And
even if encouraging everyone to go small, to
have less and spend less or asking governments
to downsize the economy made sense, as the
author implies it does, it would need massive
coercion to make it happen! The article joins
others offering unhelpful ideas. Moreover, on the facts available to
me, drivers of Tesla electric cars are not just
the rich – not in my neighborhood and not in my
Condo building. And my quick search of costs
priced a Tesla 3 at around $44,000 and a classic
RAM truck around $42,000 - with sales incentives
at around $38,000.
In Ontario, the sector producing
the most CO2 is transportation. In Ontario
driving an electric car, truck, van or bus is
almost certainly reducing Ontario’s CO2
production. Trucks and SUVs consume more gas
than cars. The Ford Escape SUV claims an
average of 8.4 litres per 100km. The Toyota
Corolla car claims an average around 7
liters per 100km. My second-hand Prius wagon
averages around 5 liters per 100 km. Getting
people to cut transportation CO2 production is
helpful because at least in populous Ontario and
Quebec, the electricity is pretty green now.
As polls run up and down first in
favour of Liberals then of Conservatives,
responsible voting is challenging for me. I
still fear that the Conservatives would bring a
return of some policies of the Harper 2011-2015
Conservative government. And the Conservative
proposals are not so good as even the Liberals’.
Yet I have been frustrated by the performance of
Trudeau and his Liberal team. The best policies
to me are those of the NDP, despite some hurt in
the cost to achieve their proposed greater
cut backs. But there is no way votes for the NDP
in the riding where I live can elect an NDP
candidate. I had hoped to vote NDP this time,
but I’ll wait until election day and see how I
feel!