It seems as though whenever Canada is mentioned on American TV, it is big news here. Whether its the Simpsons visit Toronto or a comedy roundtable that airs at 4am on FOX News, it always is a topic of conversation. Just being mentioned by our big brothers to the south seem to make our hearts go aflutter.
Usually, we end up raging and bemoaning American ignorance. But really, people, we all need to cool it and ask ourselves the following question:
Why exactly do we know so much about the US?
I'll tell you a couple of reasons that don't apply. Our education system doesn't require us to take American History; in fact, I know only a handful of people who ever take a course on the subject throughout their entire academic careers. Also, it's not because we read about it. Books about Omaha Beach or the Battle of Gettysburg that top the New York Times Bestseller List rarely crack the Toronto Star's Canadian Equivalent.
So, given up? The answer should not swell our national pride. The reason we know as much about America that we do is... that we watch primarily American television, and that even most Canadian content on air is kept as location unspecific as possible so it might be exported South.
I know when the Americans signed the Declaration of Independence because I've seen it on American TV. As for when the Americans concluded peace with Britain, which is something people who actually spent some time researching the subject would know, completely escapes me. I know American politics because of the Daily Show and the Colbert Report, not because I watch CSPAN for fun.
I doubt this is a phenomina that most Canadians, particularly of my generation, can claim they are not a part of. Given this, how can we, with any sense of intellectual or personal honesty, think lowly of an American's Ameri-centric view? Particularly when you factor in the fact that America does more to educate its citizens about us than ours does about them?
That's right, most American students in the last twenty or thirty years in the border states are required to learn about Canada. They are forced to learn about our provinces, our weather, or hobbies and our economy, while we learn most of our information through the filter of media - either ours or Hollywood's.
So, my fellow Canadians, let's all get off our high horses and stop critizing people who have as much interest in learning about other countries as we do and acknowledge that we only know a damn thing about America is because we watch TV.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
An End to the Bloc
Americans I meet who live here in Canada and take some time to learn about our political system are always surprised to find out about the Bloc Quebecois. They're amazed at the notion that a party whose stated goal is to end Confederation as it is today and establish Quebec as an independent nation is allowed to exist. Indeed, many Canadians, too, ponder if their goal is not literally treasonous.
I am quick to defend the Bloc, although I neither agree with their policies nor their principles. It is a strength of Canadian democracy that all ideas about the improvement of the Confederation, and the Bloc do not believe succession would be a bad thing for either party, are tolerated, so long as the advancement of said ideas are peaceful and respect our democratic system. For those who would claim that appeasement of separatists would lead to escalation until it became a violent rebellion, I'll note that the Quebec separatist movement has been completely peaceful since Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau crushed the nascent FLQ in 1970.
Still, the continued existence of the Bloc has proven to be a problem in the modern structure of our democracy. This large regional party holds a disproportional number of seats in the House of Commons and this makes it difficult for a national party to achieve the majority required to properly run the country. This deadlock show no signs of ending, and until it does any attempt at fundamental governmental reform is impossible. Thus, a more roundabout method must be used to break it. A key to ending the stalemate is crushing the Bloc.
With consistent support in Quebec, one may wonder how it would be possible to achieve such a feat without re-orientating the house. It is simple, we must exploit the Bloc's biggest weakness: their complete dependence on Federal Political Party subsidies. (And yes, the fact that a separatist party's existence is wholly dependent on Federal subsidies is even pushing my ideals on enlightened democracy.)
The Conservatives proposed last year to end Federal subsidies to political parties. This, of course, is completely antithetical to democratic principle, particularly since the Conservatives knew this would be a crippling blow to Liberal finances, but it did raise the question of what the subsidies are for. Are they to allow political parties to work nationally, to build a coalition of Canadians from across the country who are behind a set of policies they believe will help the Confederation? Or are they to fund the vehicle of anyone who can convince 5% of Canadian voters to vote for them?
It is the Federal government's responsibility to use taxpayer money in a manner that will benefit as many Canadians as possible. The general consensus outside of Quebec is that separation is not a good idea. And furthermore, the Bloc have made positively no attempt to sell their message outside of their province. I argue that if the Bloc want Federal money, they should have a national presence.
So, I would propose a change in the conditions required to receive a government subsidy. To be eligible for Federal money, a party must:
a) run a candidate in at least 205 (2/3s) of Canada's 308 ridings
b) receive 5% of the national vote
c) receive at least 5% of the vote in 154 (1/2) of Canada's 308 ridings
These conditions would force parties who wished to be eligible for funding to not only have a token candidate in 2/3s of Canadian ridings, but to also be mildly successful in most of them. This would prevent any regional movement from being eligible for Federal subsidy, and force those parties to run strictly on private donation.
And yes, this formulation does tip the table in favor of the main three national parties, but to that I ask so what? Any kind of regional party that can't get at least some support outside of its core area doesn't deserve it. Even the Reform Party, which had been criticized as a "Western Protest Party," managed to run candidates everywhere apart from Quebec and did garner 10-20% of the vote everywhere in Ontario save Toronto. If they could do it, then what excuse does Regional Party X have? Oh, you want to destroy the Confederation of which your ancestors were integral founding members of? Tough beans, start going door-to-door then.
The hope is that this change, properly timed, would force the Bloc on its heels and susceptible to bleed support to the national parties who could out-advertise the Bloc. This would need to be done so that the Bloc wouldn't have time to gear up its fundraising to ensure the desired effect. However, shady tactics aside, the difficulties of fundraising without experience in doing so alone should be sufficient to put the Bloc in a difficult position to fight an election.
Then perhaps we can end the stalemate in the Commons and it can get back to governing the country again.
I am quick to defend the Bloc, although I neither agree with their policies nor their principles. It is a strength of Canadian democracy that all ideas about the improvement of the Confederation, and the Bloc do not believe succession would be a bad thing for either party, are tolerated, so long as the advancement of said ideas are peaceful and respect our democratic system. For those who would claim that appeasement of separatists would lead to escalation until it became a violent rebellion, I'll note that the Quebec separatist movement has been completely peaceful since Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau crushed the nascent FLQ in 1970.
Still, the continued existence of the Bloc has proven to be a problem in the modern structure of our democracy. This large regional party holds a disproportional number of seats in the House of Commons and this makes it difficult for a national party to achieve the majority required to properly run the country. This deadlock show no signs of ending, and until it does any attempt at fundamental governmental reform is impossible. Thus, a more roundabout method must be used to break it. A key to ending the stalemate is crushing the Bloc.
With consistent support in Quebec, one may wonder how it would be possible to achieve such a feat without re-orientating the house. It is simple, we must exploit the Bloc's biggest weakness: their complete dependence on Federal Political Party subsidies. (And yes, the fact that a separatist party's existence is wholly dependent on Federal subsidies is even pushing my ideals on enlightened democracy.)
The Conservatives proposed last year to end Federal subsidies to political parties. This, of course, is completely antithetical to democratic principle, particularly since the Conservatives knew this would be a crippling blow to Liberal finances, but it did raise the question of what the subsidies are for. Are they to allow political parties to work nationally, to build a coalition of Canadians from across the country who are behind a set of policies they believe will help the Confederation? Or are they to fund the vehicle of anyone who can convince 5% of Canadian voters to vote for them?
It is the Federal government's responsibility to use taxpayer money in a manner that will benefit as many Canadians as possible. The general consensus outside of Quebec is that separation is not a good idea. And furthermore, the Bloc have made positively no attempt to sell their message outside of their province. I argue that if the Bloc want Federal money, they should have a national presence.
So, I would propose a change in the conditions required to receive a government subsidy. To be eligible for Federal money, a party must:
a) run a candidate in at least 205 (2/3s) of Canada's 308 ridings
b) receive 5% of the national vote
c) receive at least 5% of the vote in 154 (1/2) of Canada's 308 ridings
These conditions would force parties who wished to be eligible for funding to not only have a token candidate in 2/3s of Canadian ridings, but to also be mildly successful in most of them. This would prevent any regional movement from being eligible for Federal subsidy, and force those parties to run strictly on private donation.
And yes, this formulation does tip the table in favor of the main three national parties, but to that I ask so what? Any kind of regional party that can't get at least some support outside of its core area doesn't deserve it. Even the Reform Party, which had been criticized as a "Western Protest Party," managed to run candidates everywhere apart from Quebec and did garner 10-20% of the vote everywhere in Ontario save Toronto. If they could do it, then what excuse does Regional Party X have? Oh, you want to destroy the Confederation of which your ancestors were integral founding members of? Tough beans, start going door-to-door then.
The hope is that this change, properly timed, would force the Bloc on its heels and susceptible to bleed support to the national parties who could out-advertise the Bloc. This would need to be done so that the Bloc wouldn't have time to gear up its fundraising to ensure the desired effect. However, shady tactics aside, the difficulties of fundraising without experience in doing so alone should be sufficient to put the Bloc in a difficult position to fight an election.
Then perhaps we can end the stalemate in the Commons and it can get back to governing the country again.
Liberals Confuse Social Justice with Social Ignorance
And just when you thought there was no good reason to vote Conservative anymore, Count Micheal Ignatieff gives us one. Declaring it "the number one social priority" of any possible Liberal government, Ignatieff has vowed to create a national child-care program no matter the fiscal situation, simultaneously throwing out the Liberal's recent record of fiscal responsibility and their de facto commitment to a responsible mix of laissez-faire and interventionist social policy.
Calling a single-system national day care program "an excellent investment" and a matter of "social justice," Ignatieff claims he will not let a deficit - one that his party has called structural - get in the way of finding the money to pay for it. I suppose we can find the money - from a bank in China.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Assuming Ignatieff's pledge is legitimate - and the Liberals have failed to deliver on a National Day Care Program (NDC, for short) during their last 12 year stint in power - I feel I should call "bullshit" on the entire premise of the so-called benefits of a National Day Care Program.
While there has been an increasing push for formalized early learning development, and while that certainly has some merit, many pro-interventionists forget the colossal problem with any national system: inflexibility. For anyone who's had experience with dealing with school boards or provincial boards of education, the sheer size of bureaucracy is daunting, and trying to talking to anyone who knows something - never mind anyone with any power to change something - is a remarkably frustrating and, ultimately, futile process.
These large government bureaucracies are primarily driven by a small brain-trust centered around the appropriate government minister. While there is sometimes a need for centralization, education - beyond the need of a minimum standard - is an area that has been shown to require experimentation to truly progress. What has driven progress in education the last two decades has been the introduction of charter schools - which have had both successes and failures, but have at least been far more dynamic and accountable than the traditional school system - which have been growing in number only by grudging support from governments.
The creation of a nationalized system of day care and early learning development will drive experimentation and adaptation to the wealthiest periphery of society. While the children of the rich see the benefits of a dynamic, competitive system, everyone that's upper-middle class or lower will be forced to accept a system that will quickly age and be simply one small group of "experts'" views on the subject.
And when it comes to "social justice," where in the plan for NDC is the justice for couples who choose to forgo the cottage in Orilla and keep a parent at home? In terms of investment, it is hard to believe a parent supervising two or three children can be, nine times out of ten, less successful than a community college graduate who has to supervise twenty or thirty children. (And I say this not to belittle college graduates but to note that the potential day care workers will not hold some kind of advanced degree that could make them arguably more qualified than the average parent.) One on one attention is very helpful for a child's development, and any national program would not be able to provide it as a stay-at-home parent almost certainly could.
I do not mean to argue the benefits of a "traditional" family for its own sake, but merely to point out that a nationalized system will punish certain people's lifestyle choice and potentially damage a child's development while claiming it to be an investment. Do not be fooled into thinking that it is, as it is simply pigeon-holing people into choosing a lifestyle approved by the government.
Any day care or early learning strategy must therefore be multifaceted and designed to help people with a variety to lifestyles, instead of supporting only the nation's "mode" lifestyle: two working parents and 1.5 children.
Therefore, a more rationally-coherent proposal would include subsidies for child care for the working poor or single parents to choose their own child care strategy, income splitting for married/common-law couples with children to lessen the financial blow of a stay-at-home parent and government grants for further research into early childhood development. This approach would help the needy, promote experimentation in day care techniques, and take the pressure off existing day care spots by encouraging single-worker families, all the while not relying on tired 1970s doctrine that suggests that "Father knows best."
Father doesn't know best. We, as individuals, do.
Calling a single-system national day care program "an excellent investment" and a matter of "social justice," Ignatieff claims he will not let a deficit - one that his party has called structural - get in the way of finding the money to pay for it. I suppose we can find the money - from a bank in China.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Assuming Ignatieff's pledge is legitimate - and the Liberals have failed to deliver on a National Day Care Program (NDC, for short) during their last 12 year stint in power - I feel I should call "bullshit" on the entire premise of the so-called benefits of a National Day Care Program.
While there has been an increasing push for formalized early learning development, and while that certainly has some merit, many pro-interventionists forget the colossal problem with any national system: inflexibility. For anyone who's had experience with dealing with school boards or provincial boards of education, the sheer size of bureaucracy is daunting, and trying to talking to anyone who knows something - never mind anyone with any power to change something - is a remarkably frustrating and, ultimately, futile process.
These large government bureaucracies are primarily driven by a small brain-trust centered around the appropriate government minister. While there is sometimes a need for centralization, education - beyond the need of a minimum standard - is an area that has been shown to require experimentation to truly progress. What has driven progress in education the last two decades has been the introduction of charter schools - which have had both successes and failures, but have at least been far more dynamic and accountable than the traditional school system - which have been growing in number only by grudging support from governments.
The creation of a nationalized system of day care and early learning development will drive experimentation and adaptation to the wealthiest periphery of society. While the children of the rich see the benefits of a dynamic, competitive system, everyone that's upper-middle class or lower will be forced to accept a system that will quickly age and be simply one small group of "experts'" views on the subject.
And when it comes to "social justice," where in the plan for NDC is the justice for couples who choose to forgo the cottage in Orilla and keep a parent at home? In terms of investment, it is hard to believe a parent supervising two or three children can be, nine times out of ten, less successful than a community college graduate who has to supervise twenty or thirty children. (And I say this not to belittle college graduates but to note that the potential day care workers will not hold some kind of advanced degree that could make them arguably more qualified than the average parent.) One on one attention is very helpful for a child's development, and any national program would not be able to provide it as a stay-at-home parent almost certainly could.
I do not mean to argue the benefits of a "traditional" family for its own sake, but merely to point out that a nationalized system will punish certain people's lifestyle choice and potentially damage a child's development while claiming it to be an investment. Do not be fooled into thinking that it is, as it is simply pigeon-holing people into choosing a lifestyle approved by the government.
Any day care or early learning strategy must therefore be multifaceted and designed to help people with a variety to lifestyles, instead of supporting only the nation's "mode" lifestyle: two working parents and 1.5 children.
Therefore, a more rationally-coherent proposal would include subsidies for child care for the working poor or single parents to choose their own child care strategy, income splitting for married/common-law couples with children to lessen the financial blow of a stay-at-home parent and government grants for further research into early childhood development. This approach would help the needy, promote experimentation in day care techniques, and take the pressure off existing day care spots by encouraging single-worker families, all the while not relying on tired 1970s doctrine that suggests that "Father knows best."
Father doesn't know best. We, as individuals, do.
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