Tag Archives: Shared Services Canada

Roundup: Incentives and outcomes of electoral systems

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After four days of electoral reform committee hearings, the general sense that we’ve come away with is that academics in favour of reform are in favour of their own particular models, and that’s really been about it. (Kady O’Malley’s latest liveblog here). The most discussion that seems to have come out about outcomes from different electoral systems has been largely that one professor said the research hasn’t shown that everything will be sunshine and rainbows if we adopt a new system as each system has their own problems, and a lot of back-and-forth about how other systems will magically result in more compromise and nicer politics will somehow come out of it in the end (against all logic or evidence).

It was with some surprise that I noted that Fraser Institute of all places probably had the most to contribute to the discussion this week with the release of an academic essay (which appears to be the chapter in a forthcoming volume) that actually tested some of the outcomes and incentives for different electoral systems against fiscal policies of countries. While I didn’t find the results all that surprising, others might – that systems that result in more parties and more coalitions tend to have public spending as a far higher percentage of GDP, and much bigger deficits than countries with plurality/majoritarian systems like ours currently.

The logic is fairly simple and the research in the essay proves it – that coalition governments tend to be higher-spending because they require buying off the various parties in said coalitions; higher spending means growth of the public sector, and or deficits. There was also some more serious discussion than I’ve seen all week about the incentives to create smaller parties in PR systems than in plurality/majoritarian systems, where the coalition is more internal to the party, because the need for a coalition gives small and single-issue parties greater power and leverage to make demands as a coalition partner, thus incentivising the creation of more parties. This is not an insignificant consideration when it comes to outcomes from different voting systems, and I hope that this particular essay gets some traction rather than just being shrugged off as yet another Fraser Institute report.

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Roundup: Trading one set of problems for another

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Day three of the electoral reform committee, and it seems to be the first time that we actually got a bit of pushback from a witness list that is stuffed full of proponents for reform that refuse to either properly examine our system as it currently exists, or who dwell on fantasy versions of electoral systems. (Kady O’Malley’s liveblog here). In particular, one of the experts, Andre Blais, showcased his research to show that different voting systems had little impact overall on things like voter turnout or satisfaction with the system, which is not surprising at all. So many of the arguments that reform proponents will put forward about how changing the system will fix these woes without realising that every system has their own set of problems and you just wind up trading one set of problems for another (but given that they tend to focus only on delusional, unicorn-filled happiest possible outcomes, this is not a surprise). Likewise, Blais’ research didn’t indicate that there was any greater spirit of compromise in other systems that relied on coalitions, because it’s not like other systems are all around a circle singing Kumbaya.

There were a few other gems, like this one:

The NEP has become this cultural myth in Canada where everyone assumes that something or another would have prevented it. For the longest time, it was the assumption that a Triple E Senate would have been powerful enough to stop it, and now the argument is PR. These theories ignore the basic math of the sheer weight of the proportion of the country that was in favour of the Programme versus the weight of Alberta, no matter whether they had more votes in the Commons or the Senate. But by all means, mythologise away.

This one is more self-explanatory – in some PR countries like Germany, you can’t vote out governments. Central parties stay in power for decades and simply shuffle around coalition partners, and that makes accountability a very difficult thing under those systems, which is another reason that I don’t think they’ll actually solve anything because the ability to remove a government or a party is as important as how you vote them in – if not more so. Accountability matters.

Meanwhile, the Elections Commissioner is recommending a number of changes to election laws to bring them up to date with our social media age, and part of the piece is devoted to that jackass in Nova Scotia who got charged for posting a photo of his marked ballot as though the secret ballot doesn’t exist for a reason. It’s the same reason why online voting will never be able to guarantee that one’s ballot is actually secret, and we might as well surrender ourselves to the return of rumbottle politics if we start making it acceptable to post photos of marked ballots.

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Roundup: Patterns on the witness list

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The electoral reform committee returns next week, and so far I see a lot of proponents of proportional representation on the witness list, not that this surprises me in any way, as well as an academic proponent of a referendum on electoral reform – also not a surprise. So look forward to plenty of glowing recommendations about how electoral reform will solve all of our political ills.

In the meantime, if you’re looking for some background reading the Library of Parliament has some updated publications in store – one on the history and evolution of our electoral laws, and another that provides an overview of our current electoral system and those employed elsewhere. That one I found particularly lacking, especially in the language it used to describe the current First-Past-the-Post system, adopting wholesale the arguments about “disproportionate” seat counts (logical fallacy), the supposed advantages of “regional parties” or “regional strongholds” with no discussion of brokerage parties, and buying into the arguments about voter turnout without being critical about them (this is a broad problem across all western democracies no matter the electoral system). The rest was an overview of other electoral systems, examples of their use in other countries, the history of electoral reform initiatives in Canada, and some adjacent issues like mandatory voting, online voting (with zero mention about the concerns of the secrecy of the ballot), and lowering the voting age.

What was missing from this tepid report was any discussion on the impact of these electoral systems, such as government formation or accountability, which boggles my mind. It’s literally taking a piece of a complex ecosystem and treating it in isolation with no regard for how it will affect all other aspects of it, which is a huge part of the electoral reform discussion. What kind of government you get after you vote in that system is kind of a big deal. And even bigger deal is how you get rid of that government in a subsequent election, which is not easy to do in most systems other than FPTP because the tendency is for a big central party to just shuffle around their coalition partners, and that can be an even bigger headache, delivering policies that only a tiny fraction of the population voted for. You’d think this would be relevant to an examination of electoral reform proposals, but apparently not according to the analysts at the Library. You’ll excuse me if my faith in this government’s process has just sunk even lower.

(Hat tip to blog reader PierreB for pointing these reports out)

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Roundup: Scott Reid’s Senate conspiracy

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There is a certain level of obtuseness that eventually has one seeing conspiracies where none exist. I am forced to conclude that Conservative MP Scott Reid has reached said level in his QP performance yesterday, with regards to the Senate appointment process, and in particular how it applied to future senator André Pratte, and his holding property in the designated Quebec senatorial district that he is due to represent. Pratte has not yet purchased property in that district, and thus, his swearing-in will be delayed until it happens. Reid, however, sees collusion and conspiracy in this. In QP, he phrased it as such:

If Mr. Pratte was on the list, the Quebec board has broken its requirements to only nominate qualified persons. If any of the seven was not on the lists, then the prime minister has broken his promise to rely upon independent advice. And if there was any communications between the prime minister and the advisory board to smooth out these wrinkles, then talk of the advisory board being independent is a farce. One of these three scenarios is what actually happened. Which one is it?

It’s not surprising that Maryam Monsef evaded in her answer, because the question is wholly unreasonable. The qualifications for appointment mirrored the constitutional requirement, but because Pratte has not been sworn in yet, the district question is not yet triggered – he has time to hold the property in that district until he is sworn in. The independent board very likely identified him as otherwise qualified, and asked him about his ability to purchase property in the identified district when he was contacted as part of the process. Pratte himself told the media that he was contacted by the committee and submitted a kind of form to say why he felt he was qualified to them. There is no indication that the Prime Minister had any part in that, and if Pratte says that he was contacted by the Board, it’s quite obvious that he would have been on their short list submitted to the PM. And if the Board recommended him and said “He’s working on the property requirement in the district we’re slotting him into,” that is not collusion or making a farce of their independence – it’s being reasonable with regards to the Quebec requirements. If the Board had to limit their search to qualified candidates who already owned property in said district, it would have needlessly limited them for something that has been common practice for Quebec senators for over a century. That Reid is trying to make a conspiracy out of this is galling, particularly when you consider the issues of other Senators that Harper appointed who had residency issues upon appointment – Mike Duffy, Carolyn Stewart Olsen, Dennis Patterson, and possibly even Pamela Wallin. They were sworn in before they had their own residency issues sorted, Pratte has not been. One shouldn’t be surprised, considering that Reid has been similarly obtuse in his reading of the Supreme Court reference decision on Senate reform, and his demands that short lists be made public (despite the fact that they are not for any other Governor-in-Council appointment). It would be one thing if Reid were simply doing is duty in holding government to account, except that this isn’t it. This is inventing accusations out of whole cloth, and he should know better.

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QP: Easter Theatre

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It was Friday-on-a-Thursday QP in the Commons, in advance of the two-week Easter break. Justin Trudeau was away, as were many ministers, starting to fan out across the country to sell the budget to Canadians, but Bill Morneau was present, and expects to be the star of the show. Rona Ambrose led off, mini-lectern on neighbouring desk, and she railed about the “betrayal” of the middle class. Morneau insisted that there were plenty of measures to help families. Ambrose bemoaned the size of the deficit, and Morneau returned with a dig about the previous decade of low growth. Ambrose asked which taxes the government planned to raise, but Morneau didn’t bite, praising the measures therein instead. Denis Lebel took over, lamenting the lack of a plan to balance the budget. Morneau praised the plan to grow the middle class. Lebel closed by repeating the question on the size of the deficit, but got the same response. Thomas Mulcair was up next, recalling Air Canada breaking the law regarding their maintenance contracts, and now the government was retroactively changing that law. Marc Garneau responded that the situation had evolved, and Air Canada had made new commitments to create new jobs in Quebec and Manitoba. Mulcair read some condemnation that the deal was “Orwellian,” and that the Liberals were letting the rich get off the hook, but Garneau repeated his answer about changing situations and competitiveness. Mulcair thundered about the government not respecting a Human Rights Tribunal on equal investment for First Nations children. Carolyn Bennett said that they were making investments, but the systems had to change as well. Mulcair then failed about a plan to outsource Shared Services jobs, but Judy Foote responded that the publicized report was from 2014, which they did not intend to follow.

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Roundup: A surprisingly packed budget

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And that was the budget. It was full of interesting things, but you wouldn’t know it based on the fact that absolutely everybody was fixated on the deficit figure, and barely even that it was built on a super cautious, pessimistic framework that basically presented a worst-case scenario in terms of assumptions, meaning that the only place it really could go was up, and yes, if the economy grows enough, then the budget will start to balance itself. The child benefit changes are the big news, and as for reaction, the Conservatives call the budget a “nightmare” while the NDP rail about all of the promises that it didn’t keep (because everything should have happened immediately).

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Roundup: Expenses arbitration comes back

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At long last, former Supreme Court Justice Ian Binnie’s report on his arbitration of Senate expenses was released yesterday, and it should come as no surprise to anyone paying attention that the amounts that many of those senators owed was slashed by a considerable amount. (For others, not so much, but we’ll get to that in a moment). Why? Because in the course of his audit, the Auditor General and his staff made a series of value judgments as part of their report, particularly in instances where senators added personal businesses to Senate-related travel, or when spouses travelled with them. Binnie re-evaluated those claims with more information and a broader mindset and found that indeed, many of those claims were actually reasonable, and he let them go through, cutting the demanded repayments significantly in many cases. In other cases, notably Senator Colin Kenny, he remained unconvinced and ordered them to make their repayments with little or no reductions in the amounts owing. After saying that he wasn’t hired to look into motives of these Senators, he did admit that he felt that for the most part, nobody was actively trying to game the system, but that there were some disagreements in how rules were applied. An interesting turn of events is the fact that Senator Dagenais plans to launch a complaint against the AG for the way in which the audit was conducted, which has most pundits and journalists aghast, because they like to think that the AG can do no wrong (when that is obviously not the case, particularly if one starts digging into some of the value judgments made in the Senate audit). The AG’s response to Binnie’s report was that he thinks that the Senate still needs to follow up on all of his recommendations, including the external oversight body, but I will again raise the point that an external body is a violation of parliamentary privilege, and that the institution needs to be self-governing. This is not a technocracy, and the suggestions by some of an audit committee that is still majority Senate-controlled is a far more acceptable solution. The other bit of interest was the way in which he, intentionally or otherwise, blew holes in the defence offered by Mike Duffy’s lawyers, that the Senate was this lawless and inscrutable place that would have anyone confused. Nonsense, said Binnie – there were rules that mostly required a bit of common sense in their application. One wonders if this is something that Justice Vaillancourt will take note of as he deliberates on Duffy’s fate.

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Roundup: McQuaig’s “lessons learned”

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Former NDP star candidate Linda McQuaig penned a column in the Toronto Star about her “lessons learned” after two unsuccessful attempts at running for office (and no plans to run again), and as one could expect, it’s a little self-serving. In it, she bemoans her loss of freedom to discuss topics thanks to party discipline and central messaging, and the fact that she knowingly walked into a trap about oil sands staying in the ground despite the fact that it went against the party line. Her takeaway: that the rush to avoid complexity and controversy infantilises voters, and somehow the NDP’s apparently popularity over their position on C-51 (despite the fact that it too was facile and unworkable, according to the very same security experts they cited over the bill’s problems) must somehow be an indication of they’re actually hungry to be treated like citizens. It’s a bit of a leap in logic because part of what the issue was when she went against the party line was that after it happened, she went into lockdown and didn’t really talk her way out of what she said, and the spin machine of “you want to destroy the energy industry” filled that silence. It was a self-inflicted wound that could have been managed, but wasn’t. As for her contention that voters are looking for adult conversations on issues, that may very well be true, but the NDP weren’t offering it while the Liberals certainly were better suited for it with their comprehensive platform. What we got from the NDP were some platitudes about “competent public administration” and promises to balance the budget based on fuzzy numbers (and recall that their first “costed” platform document was little more than buzz-words with dollar figures attached that meant nothing). So really, if you think that voters want an adult conversation then provide them with one, not what the disingenuous platitudes being offered (that C-51 could be repealed wholesale, that the NDP “only needed 35 more seats,” word games over the “federal minimum wage,” the aforementioned fuzzy costing documents). Voters aren’t as stupid as the campaign was treating them. Michelle Rempel responds to McQuaig here, while Rob Silver had a few other comments over the Twitter Machine.

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Roundup: Revolving door alarmism

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Oh noes! Civil servants take positions in ministers’ offices! How terribly partisan of them! Yes, it’s time for another head-shaking column from some of our more alarmist media friends, bemoaning sweetheart deals and revolving doors, but as usual, it lacks all pretence of nuance or much in the way of a reality check on the way things work. I find it mystifying that someone would rather have a twenty-something fresh out of university, whose only real qualification is loyalty to the PMO, filling those ministerial office positions rather than professionals with years of experience in the department. Because while yes, some civil servants went to work in ministers’ offices in the Conservative years, there were a lot of these twenty-somethings on power trips, trying to play power games with departmental officials, which one presumes that people who have civil service careers would be less likely to do. And yes, they get good salaries in those positions, but they’re also a) quite ephemeral given the nature of party politics, and b) enormously stressful jobs that have some people working eighteen-hour days, and they should be compensated for it. And the “revolving door” back to the civil service afterward? Again one asks why they shouldn’t be able to translate government experience into the civil service, particularly if they’ve gained some policy expertise? So long as they perform their duties in a neutral fashion once back in the civil service, I’m not seeing why this is a problem. We need good people doing public service in this country, and we have already set up so many barriers that make recruitment a real challenge for anyone not being bridged in from school, and the growing list of restrictions makes work in ministerial offices increasingly unattractive because their post-political opportunities have become increasingly limited. If we’re not careful, all of our political staffers will be twenty-somethings trying to get experience rather than established people of substance, and I’m not sure that’s a situation that anyone relishes.

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Roundup: A “third party” option

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Six senators have taken the first steps to forming their own quasi-caucus with the Upper Chamber, as a means of trying to better sort out how to deal with life as independent senators. The list includes former Conservatives, Liberals and Independent Progressive Conservative Elaine McCoy, and they are calling themselves a “working group” as opposed to a caucus or party. Their aim is to get “third party” status that will allow them to better control their own destiny. Currently, party whips in the Senate control not only committee assignment duties, but also office allocations, parking spaces, trips for inter-parliamentary delegations, and all of those other administrative details that independents currently don’t have access to. Rather than turn over those kinds of details to Senate administration, they are looking to come up with a means to start controlling it themselves, which is important because it protects their privilege as Senators, which is important in how they govern themselves and are responsible for their own affairs. This is a very important consideration, and as the Chamber continues its process of forced evolution and change with the advent of decreasing partisanship and a greater number of independents on the way, because it has the potential to find a way through some of those process hurdles that are currently tripping them up. We’ll see how many other independent senators join this working group – after all, official party status in the Senate requires five members, which they have for the moment but at least one of their number is soon to hit the mandatory retirement age, and it would be incumbent upon them to keep their membership numbers up in order to carry on carrying on with their own affairs. This will hopefully help have systems in place for when the new senators start arriving, some of whom may opt to stay independent (others of course free to join a caucus if they wish), and allow these senators to assign one of their own as a kind of “whip” to deal with the administrative duties, and hopefully get more resources for their offices when it comes to things like research dollars. Overall, though, it will hopefully give them some organisational clout so that they are better able to answer stand up to the current oligarchy of the party structure in the Senate. Elsewhere, Senator Patterson has tabled a bill to amend the constitution and remove the property requirements for Senate eligibility (which I previous wrote about their relative harmlessness).

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