“Look in the Mirror”

Posted on March 8, 2015 by susanonthesoapbox

“In terms of who is responsible we all need only to look in the mirror.  Basically all of us have had the best of everything and haven’t had to pay the cost.”—Premier Jim Prentice musing about Alberta’s $7 billion budget deficit  

Those four little words—look in the mirror—swept Jim Prentice into a storm of criticism.

He says it’s a Twitter tempest. All he meant by “look in the mirror” was that Alberta’s fiscal crisis is “a shared responsibility”.

Is “shared responsibility” different from “look in the mirror”? No, because that’s precisely the message Mr Prentice intends to send.

Stay on message

Any politician who has taken media training knows that it’s the politician, not the interviewer, who controls the message.

Mr Harper “Thumbs Up!”

Prime Minister Harper, the master of the controlled message, hired a government-relations consultant from Navigator to create a magic form called a Message Event Proposal (MEP) template. The MEP template forced Harper’s team to think about key messages, strategic objectives, desired headlines and desired sound-bites prior to a media appearance. It ensured they stayed on message.*

Mr Prentice, a former Harper cabinet minister, should be very familiar with both Navigator and the MEP template.

If he used the MEP template for his “look in the mirror” radio interview* his key messages would look like this:

Key message #1: It’s your fault

A caller asked Mr Prentice to consider a range of revenue tools, including progressive income tax. Mr Prentice used the question to launch his first message: “We all want to blame somebody for the circumstances we’re in. But the bottom line is we’ve had the highest cost and the best services in the country and we haven’t built, basically, a revenue model that sustains them.”

Blame? Who said anything about blame? The caller was asking about revenue tools.

The interviewer tried again: were there specific revenue sources Mr Prentice favoured?

Mr Prentice ignored the question and repeated the message: “In terms of who is responsible we all need only to look in the mirror.  Basically all of us have had the best of everything and haven’t had to pay the cost.”

He hit the “collective responsibility” and “personal responsibility” button again and again.

Key message: Don’t blame the government, blame yourself for demanding the best public services in the country.  

Key message #2: Corporations are not in the mirror

A caller asked why Mr Prentice refused to raise corporate taxes if “we’re all in this together”.

Mr Prentice “Thumbs Up!”

Mr Prentice replied: “If we increase [corporate] taxes it will certainly result in Albertans losing their jobs.

He hammered “lost jobs” seven times in the space of three minutes, ignoring the fact that the caller was asking for higher taxes, not the highest taxes in Canada.

Key message: corporations are not in the mirror because higher taxes means—say it with me now—we’ll all lose our jobs.

Key message #3: Everyone else is in the mirror

When asked how he was going to implement a 5% (actually 9%) cut in public services and still protect front line workers, Mr Prentice deflected the question, stating “virtually” every public servant was 10% overpaid and Alberta’s public service was the most expensive in the country.

Key message: the public service is fat and as a result of their greed all Albertans will suffer.    

Blamegate backlash

The public was outraged. Opposition parties demanded an apology.

Mr Prentice offered three excuses.

He and his MLA spokesmen, Mr Mandel and Mr Campbell, said Mr Prentice’s comments were taken out of context.

Messrs Mandel and Campbell had not heard the interview or seen the online comments. Presumably they were equipped with well scripted MEPs of their own.

Mr Prentice said: “What I said was that as Albertans, we’re in the circumstance that we’re in together, we got into it together and the only solutions are going to be for us to get out of it together”.

I beg your pardon???

We did not get into this together. In fact a great many of us voted Wildrose, Liberal, NDP,  Green and Alberta Party to prevent exactly this kind of fiscal meltdown.

Learning from the Master

They said Mr Prentice’s comments were “blown out of proportion”.

Blown out of proportion by whom? The thousands of furious Albertans who wrote letters, called the media and posted 20,000 tweets in 24 hours to express their shock at being blamed for the government’s fiscal ineptitude?

Lastly, Mr Prentice said he may have expressed himself inarticulately but he’d take responsibility for his comments. Oh good, let’s take heart in the fact a ventriloquist isn’t putting words in Charlie McCarthy’s mouth.  

The joke is on us

Mr Prentice will not apologise. He thinks our outrage is a joke.

At the Manning Networking conference in Ottawa (aka the Conservative hive mind) he couldn’t resist cracking a joke about the makeup artist who’d readied him for an interview. She asked if he wanted to remove his make up in a mirror. He replied “No, no, I don’t. Stop talking about mirrors.”

The Conservative audience thought he was hilarious.

****

This is the third time in three months that Mr Prentice gravely misjudged Albertans.

He thought they’d accept his gay-straight alliance bill as supporting parental rights. They said it was discriminatory. He thought they’d see the defection of the Wildrose 11 as the unification of the right. They said it was undemocratic. And he thought his “look in the mirror” message would deflect Albertans’ attention from Tory fiscal mismanagement. It insulted their intelligence.

Democracy and accountability are not a joke.

But until Mr Prentice figures this out, would someone clean up his Message Event Proposal template before he says something even more arrogant and patronizing?

*The Longer I’m Prime Minister, by Paul Well, p 35

**http://www.cbc.ca/video/news/audioplayer.html?clipid=2657088106

Posted in Politics and Government | Tagged , , , , , , | 39 Comments

A Modest Proposal for Cooperation Among Progressives in Alberta

Posted on March 1, 2015 by susanonthesoapbox

“I shall now therefore humbly propose my own thoughts, which I hope will not be liable to the least objection” — Jonathan Swift,  A Modest Proposal (1729)

Relax. Ms Soapbox’s modest proposal does not involve devouring children in order to ease Alberta’s economic problems. It builds on an excellent cooperation strategy proposed by Elizabeth May, leader of the federal Green Party.

But first, a little context.

Alberta’s “scare ‘em to save ‘em” premier is expected to call a snap election this spring. Progressive voters of all political stripes fear they’ll be crushed by the Conservative juggernaut. They’re madly galloping off in all directions making lots of noise but very little progress.

The Liberals select an interim leader

The brouhaha started in January when Raj Sherman announced he was stepping down as Liberal party leader. The Board of Directors met to consider two candidates for interim leader—Dr David Swann and Ms Laurie Blakeman. Ms Blakeman said she was prepared to serve on the condition that she be given a mandate to engage in cooperation (and potentially merger) talks with the Alberta Party.

Dr David Swann

And with that, the decision to select an interim leader was conflated with a request to make a fundamental policy decision about the future of the party.

The Board has the mandate to elect an interim leader. It does not have the authority to materially change the direction of the party without first consulting its members.     

The Board elected Dr Swann who said he was not opposed to exploring cooperation, but there wasn’t enough time to engage the grassroots in this discussion before the next election.

Well-meaning progressives from inside and outside the Liberal party were frustrated and pressured the Board to reconsider–unaware that the Board, unlike the Wildrose defectors, would not abandon its troops on the battlefield.

So where does that leave us?

A modest proposal

At the risk of alienating all of my progressive friends I’d like to make a modest proposal. It doesn’t ask progressives to devour their children a la Johnathan Swift, but it will stick in the craw of some.

Ms Elizabeth May

It builds on the cooperation principle outlined by Elizabeth May in the 2013 Labrador by-election. The Greens did not run a candidate in the by-election. They supported the Liberals who’d lost to the Conservatives by only 79 votes in the previous election. Ms May said that if the NDP had come in second the Greens would have supported them instead.*

The Green’s cooperation principle boils down to this: vote for the progressive party that got the most votes in the last election. Political affiliation be damned.

How would the Lizzie May Principle work in Alberta?

The only cooperation proposal on the table today is the one put forth by the Alberta Party.

The Alberta Party said it would not run candidates in the 5 ridings presently held by the Liberals if the Liberals stood down in Edmonton-Gold Bar, Edmonton-McClung, Calgary-Currie, Calgary-Elbow and Highwood.

This proposal runs counter to the Lizzie May Principle which would direct progressive voters in those ridings to support the parties that got the most votes in the 2012 provincial election and the 2014 by-election, namely:

  • NDP in Edmonton-Gold Bar
  • Liberal in Edmonton McClung
  • Liberal in Calgary Currie
  • Alberta Party in Calgary-Elbow
  • Liberal in Highwood

Furthermore, the Alberta Party’s offer to stay out of the five ridings presently held by Liberals looks more like a threat (“cooperate or else”) than an olive branch. Incumbents Swann and Blakeman have held their ridings since 2004 and 1997 respectively. Liberals held Edmonton-Meadowlark since 1986 (except for one term in 2001). Calgary-Buffalo and Calgary-McCall have been Liberal since 2008.

What about the NDP?

Both the Liberals and the NDP are polling around 15%. Had they cooperated in the 2012 election and the 2014 by-election, a progressive candidate would have taken Calgary-Acadia, Littlebow, Edmonton-Whitemud and Edmonton-Millwoods.

Ms Rachel Notley

While this is interesting it’s utterly irrelevant because the NDP have considered and rejected a cooperation strategy three times. It’s just not happening.

So what to do?

Progressive voters have two choices. Convince their NDP friends to follow the Lizzie May Principle or vote NDP in order to increase the chance a progressive (ie NDP) candidate wins because they sure as heck aren’t going to vote for your guy.

Time for voters to decide

Instead of insisting that progressive parties make our lives easier by removing themselves or other parties from the ballot let’s decide this for ourselves.

Ms Soapbox’s modest proposal may be hard to swallow, but it’s a far cry better than Mr Prentice’s “share the pain” budget which will, to paraphrase Jonathan Swift, ensure that the children, along with the sick, the elderly and the frail are “stewed, roasted, baked or boiled” and are equally tasty “in a fricasie or a ragoust”.**

Sacrificing party loyalty? A small price to pay for humanity, surely.

*http://www.greenparty.ca/en/statement/2013-03-25/open-letter-green-supporters

**http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1080/1080-h/1080-h.htm

Posted in Politics and Government | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 35 Comments

Ralph Nader’s Open Letter to Stephen Harper

Posted on February 24, 2015 by susanonthesoapbox

February 18, 2015

The Right Honourable Stephen Harper, P.C., M.P.
80 Wellington Street
Ottawa, ON K1A 0A2

Dear Prime Minister:

Many Americans love Canada and the specific benefits that have come to our country from our northern neighbor’s many achievements (see Canada Firsts by Nader, Conacher and Milleron). Unfortunately, your latest proposed legislation—the new anti-terrorism act—is being described by leading Canadian civil liberties scholars as hazardous to Canadian democracy.

A central criticism was ably summarized in a February 2015 Globe and Mail editorial titled “Parliament Must Reject Harper’s Secret Policeman Bill,” to wit:

“Prime Minister Stephen Harper never tires of telling Canadians that we are at war with the Islamic State. Under the cloud of fear produced by his repeated hyperbole about the scope and nature of the threat, he now wants to turn our domestic spy agency into something that looks disturbingly like a secret police force.

Canadians should not be willing to accept such an obvious threat to their basic liberties. Our existing laws and our society are strong enough to stand up to the threat of terrorism without compromising our values.” 

Particularly noticeable in your announcement were your exaggerated expressions that exceed the paranoia of Washington’s chief attack dog, former vice-president Dick Cheney. Mr. Cheney periodically surfaces to update his pathological war mongering oblivious to facts—past and present—including his criminal war of aggression which devastated Iraq—a country that never threatened the U.S.

You are quoted as saying that “jihadi terrorism is one of the most dangerous enemies our world has ever faced” as a predicate for your gross over-reaction that “violent jihadism seeks to destroy” Canadian “rights.” Really? Pray tell, which rights rooted in Canadian law are “jihadis” fighting in the Middle East to obliterate? You talk like George W. Bush.

How does “jihadism” match up with the lives of tens of millions of innocent civilians, destroyed since 1900 by state terrorism—west and east, north and south—or the continuing efforts seeking to seize or occupy territory?

Reading your apoplectic oratory reminds one of the prior history of your country as one of the world’s peacekeepers from the inspiration of Lester Pearson to the United Nations. That noble pursuit has been replaced by deploying Canadian soldiers in the belligerent service of the American Empire and its boomeranging wars, invasions and attacks that violate our Constitution, statutes and international treaties to which both our countries are signatories.

What has all this post-9/11 loss of American life plus injuries and sickness, in addition to trillions of American tax dollars, accomplished? Has it led to the stability of those nations invaded or attacked by the U.S. and its reluctant western “allies?” Just the opposite, the colossal blowback evidenced by the metastasis of al-Qaeda’s offshoots and similar new groups like the self-styled Islamic state are now proliferating in and threatening over a dozen countries.

Have you digested what is happening in Iraq and why Prime Minister Jean Chrétien said no to Washington? Or now chaotic Libya, which like Iraq never had any presence of Al-Qaeda before the U.S.’s destabilizing military attacks? (See the New York Times’editorial on February 15, 2015 titled “What Libya’s Unraveling Means”.)

Perhaps you will find a former veteran CIA station chief in Islamabad, Pakistan, Robert L. Grenier more credible. Writing in his just released book: 88 Days to Kandahar: A CIA Diary (Simon & Schuster), he sums up U.S. government policy this way: “Our current abandonment of Afghanistan is the product of a…colossal overreach, from 2005 onwards.” He writes, “in the process we overwhelmed a primitive country, with a largely illiterate population, a tiny agrarian economy, a tribal social structure and nascent national institutions. We triggered massive corruption through our profligacy; convinced a substantial number of Afghans that we were, in fact, occupiers and facilitated the resurgence of the Taliban” (Alissa J. Rubin, Robert L. Grenier’s ‘88 Days to Kandahar,’New York Times, February 15, 2015).

You may recall George W. Bush’s White House counterterrorism czar, Richard Clarke, who wrote in his 2004 book, Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror—What Really Happened,“It was as if Osama bin Laden, hidden in some high mountain redoubt, were engaging in long-range mind control of George Bush, chanting, ‘Invade Iraq, you must invade Iraq.’”

Mr. Bush committed sociocide against that country’s twenty-seven million people. Over 1 million innocent Iraqi civilians lost their lives, in addition to millions sick and injured. Refugees have reached five million and growing. He destroyed critical public services and sparked sectarian massacres—massive war crimes, which in turn produce ever-expanding blowbacks.

Canadians might be most concerned about your increased dictatorial policies and practices, as well as this bill’s provision for secret law and courts in the name of fighting terrorism—too vaguely defined. Study what comparable practices have done to the United States – a course that you seem to be mimicking, including the militarization of police forces (see The Walrus, December 2014).

If passed, this act, piled on already stringent legal authority, will expand your national security bureaucracies and their jurisdictional disputes, further encourage dragnet snooping and roundups, fuel fear and suspicion among law-abiding Canadians, stifle free speech and civic action and drain billions of dollars from being used for the necessities of Canadian society. This is not hypothetical. Along with an already frayed social safety net, once the envy of the world, you almost got away with a $30 billion dollar purchase of unneeded costly F-35s (including maintenance) to bail out the failing budget-busting F-35 project in Washington.

You may think that Canadians will fall prey to a politics of fear before an election. But you may be misreading the extent to which Canadians will allow the attachment of their Maple Leaf to the aggressive talons of a hijacked American Eagle.

Canada could be a model for independence against the backdrop of bankrupt American military adventures steeped in big business profits…a model that might help both nations restore their better angels.

Sincerely,

Ralph Nader

Posted in Crime and Justice, Politics and Government, Privacy and Surveillance | Tagged , , , , | 23 Comments

What Happens to the Eloi When the Morlocks Leave Town: A Lesson for Jim Prentice from H.G. Wells

Posted on February 22, 2015 by susanonthesoapbox

    “History is a race between education and catastrophe.” — H G Wells

HG Wells may not have had a time machine, but he was certainly prescient.

In The Time Machine the narrator, known simply as the Traveller, invents a contraption that takes him to 802,701 AD. There he finds a world inhabited by waif-like Eloi who loll around doing nothing and ape-like Morlocks who eat them. The Traveller temporarily upsets the balance of this efficient economic system when he accidentally starts a forest fire.

Wells’ premise is simple. Humans without intelligence evolve into Eloi; those with intelligence evolve into Morlocks who provide food, clothing and shelter to the Eloi—right up to the time they’re slaughtered, rather like a rancher harvesting his herd.

I was reminded of the simple-minded Eloi when I read this newspaper headline: Oil Slump brings diversification back into view.

Let’s diversify!

In recapping the impact of the precipitous drop in oil prices The Globe noted, “When oil booms end, revenue disappears, leaving large and unexpected deficits”.*

Well, okay, $7.5 billion is a large deficit, but even Premier Prentice wouldn’t dare characterize the deficit as “unexpected”.  

In fact he has a solution. It’s time to diversify around energy, agriculture and tourism.

Details of this diversification plan (one of dozens that have been commissioned by the Alberta government over the last 40 years) are non-existent, but Premier Prentice says it will include the “commercialization” of university research.

“I’m quite passionate,” he says, “about this whole notion about our inability to commercialize our university research. I’m focused on that. We need to be successful at going from primary research to the building of companies and the commercialization and capitalization of companies that can take advantage of that research”.*

And how do the universities feel about Mr Prentice’s unilateral directive (which was last trotted out by Mr Lukaszuk when he was Minister of Advanced Education)?

The U of A responds

The University of Alberta is undoubtedly Alberta’s premier university. Indira Samarasekera (known as IS to her colleagues) became its president in 2005. She was determined to make the U of A one of the world’s top research universities.

She failed.

Ms Samarasekera

She says the U of A is not “…attracting the kinds of brainpower that would help us with the best ideas and the drive to commercialize them.”**

She blames the government’s lack of long-term vision and its failure to provide stable funding for basic university operations.

She says that Mr Prentice’s 9% cut on top of Ms Redford’s 7.2% cut will create an impossible situation, pointing out that there’s a need for more investment not less, particularly in the areas of environment and energy research.

While all this is true—incidentally it would have been nice if Ms Samarasekera voiced these concerns to Ed Stelmach, Alison Redford and Jim Prentice before she left the U of A, instead of raising them now as she’s breezing out the door—it does not address the fundamental issue underlying the commercialization of academic research, namely how much should funding be tied to commercialization?

(Sure, funding research to eliminate tailings ponds and commercializing the result is a good thing, but funding basic research that eliminates our reliance on fossil fuels or cures cancer is even better.)

Out of the crisis

Thomas Friedman (writer and three time Pulitzer Prize winner) and Ms Soapbox (blogger and one time Clawbie winner) disagree on virtually everything, but they do agree on this: education is the key to solving the current economic crisis.

Friedman says we must develop new approaches and new technologies that will become the foundation of future economies.*** This makes sense given that repeating the existing approaches and fine tuning existing technologies aren’t getting us very far.

If we applied this principle in Alberta, our government would provide stable funding to universities not just for research geared to commercialization and the generation of profits, but also for pure scientific research intended to increase our understanding of phenomena which may or may not be commercialized at some point in the future.

A place to learn

What would such a university look like?

Professor Jeremy Richards puts it best in the excellent University of Alberta blog Whither the U of A.

He says universities should provide a high quality traditional education to students “who are here to learn, not just to get a piece of paper”. Instead of pushing so-called innovative learning techniques, he suggests going “retro” and showing students how to learn for themselves. He’d like universities to halve the minimum number of instructional hours and double the amount of homework or lab work because that’s where “real learning occurs”.  Not once did he mention “commercialization”.

HG Wells

It’s worth a try, isn’t it?

Which brings me back to H G Wells. He said “In England we have come to rely upon a comfortable time-lag of fifty years or a century intervening between the perception that something ought to be done and a serious attempt to do it.”

In Alberta we have the same problem. The Tories have been talking about diversifying our economy for 44 years. It’s time to stop talking about it and make a serious attempt to do it so that the next time the Morlocks pack up and leave town the Eloi won’t perish.

*Globe & Mail, Feb 21, 2015 S1

**Globe & Mail, Feb 13, 2015, A10

***Doomed to Repeat: The Lessons of History We’ve Failed to Learn, by Bill Fawcett, 268

Posted in Education, Energy & Natural Resources, Politics and Government | Tagged , , , , , , | 18 Comments

Mr Prentice: Premier or CEO?

Posted on February 15, 2015 by susanonthesoapbox

“We have to do more with less. That will apply across the board. It will have to apply to the very good work [of the child advocate], it will have to apply to my office, it will have to apply to the auditor general’s office. That’s the way it’s going to be.” Jim Prentice defending cuts to the Child Advocate’s Office and the Auditor General’s Office, Feb 11, 2015

Would someone please tell Mr Prentice that he’s not the President of the United States?

Unlike President Obama, Mr Prentice does not have a unilateral right of veto and cannot revoke the decision made by an independent all-party Standing Committee to restore $546,000 to the Auditor General. If he did, he wouldn’t have to frog march the independent all-party Standing Committee into a meeting next week to “reverse” their decision. It would stand without further action on anyone’s part.

Ms Forsyth, WR Interim Leader

And while we’re on the topic, would someone please tell Mr Prentice that an all-party standing committee should include representation from the Wildrose Official Opposition. Remember them? There have been no Wildrose MLAs on the committee since the Wildrose defected to the Tories last December but the committee has been making budgetary decisions willy-nilly ever since.

A CEO’s perspective

Mr Prentice is acting like the CEO of a $40 billion enterprise, and making a mockery of Alberta’s democratic system in the process. Unfortunately even in CEO-mode, he’s botched it.

Consider how a CEO would conduct what in corporate-speak is referred to as “right sizing”.

When CEOs take an axe to their organizations they draw a “line in the sand”—I want 9% cuts across the company, or else!

And that’s what Mr Prentice did, right? Wrong.

When Mr Prentice said that the 9% cuts were going to apply “across the board” he wasn’t being entirely truthful. Yes, he hammered the Child Advocate investigating children’s deaths while in government care and the Auditor General investigating the government’s misuse of taxpayers’ dollars; but Alberta Health Services will get more resources, not less—Mr Prentice hired an executive search firm to find 10 or so part-time board members to oversee its activities.

Mr Prentice

If he pulled this stunt in the private sector, he’d lose his job. Here’s why.

The byzantine world of healthcare

First, a quick primer on the byzantine mess that passes for healthcare delivery in Alberta. (NOTE: this is not a knock on healthcare workers who go above and beyond the call of duty to keep the system from imploding altogether).

Healthcare is provided by two entities: the Department of Health led by the Health Minister Stephen Mandel (let’s call them “The Government”) and Alberta Health Services, a governmental agency run by CEO Vickie Kaminski and her team of highly paid vice-presidents (let’s call them “The Agency”).

The Agency was “advised”* by a board of directors until June 2013 when the former Health Minister, Fred Horne, summarily fired the lot of them (long story involving fat bonuses and severance contracts) and replaced them with three official administrators in rapid succession (bit players, ignore them).

The Agency has been ticking along without a board ever since. Interestingly nobody noticed.

Parallel universe

The Tory government justifies the parallel universe in healthcare delivery by saying The Government is the strategic arm of healthcare delivery, responsible for policy, strategic direction, global budgets and doctors’ compensation while The Agency is the delivery arm that puts it all into effect.**

Got it. Government = policy. Agency = delivery.

Before a smart CEO resurrected The Agency board of directors he’d ask himself why The Agency with its high priced CEO and executive team needs two entities to give it policy direction—The Government and the board. Wouldn’t this increase the risk of crossed wires and create greater confusion?

Mr Prentice’s response is it’s “unacceptable” for Alberta’s multibillion-dollar health budget to be overseen by “just one person”. Hence the need to appoint “a board of respected Albertans…to keep an eye on what is happening in the system.”***

Mr Mandel

Oh please! What Mr Prentice really said was that Health Minister Mandel can’t be trusted with the job, but it’s perfectly acceptable for “just one person”, Mr Dirks, to oversee the $8 billion education budget, or Ms Klimchuk to oversee the $4 billion human services budget, or indeed, Mr Prentice himself to oversee the $40 billion dollar provincial budget without the assistance of an outside board “to keep an eye” on things.

If Mr Prentice doesn’t trust his hand-picked Health Minister to manage his $18 billion budget with all of the assistance available to him from his colleagues in Cabinet, his deputy ministers, associate deputy ministers, staff, and countless high-priced consultants then he doesn’t deserve the job and should be sacked.

A smart CEO would make an additional observation.

Healthcare makes up 40% of the budget. When the Tories centralized healthcare in 2000 healthcare was 22% of the budget. Perhaps healthcare costs are rising not because Albertans pile into Emergency Departments at the first sign of a sniffle or old folks don’t have the good grace to kick off quickly and free up an acute care bed for someone else, but a policy/structural problem that merits more thought.

A smart CEO would call off the executive search team because even the Dream Team isn’t going to fix this problem any time soon.

Either way it’s a disaster

Mr Prentice decided that in order to prepare an austerity budget he cannot be bound by the rules of parliamentary process. Instead he will act like a private sector CEO, and in his words, “that’s the way it’s going to be”.

Unfortunately he’s made a hash of it.

*Regional Health Authorities Act Section 17(1)

**Hansard, Apr 13, 2011, p 645

***Edmonton Journal, Feb 11, 2015

Posted in Alberta Health Care, Politics and Government | Tagged , , , , , , | 40 Comments

Six Political Personalities: Which One is Jim Prentice?

Posted on February 8, 2015 by susanonthesoapbox

The only thing worse than a political strategist spouting theories on how to beat the competition is a blogger discussing a political strategist’s theories on how to beat the competition. But Ms Soapbox is going to do it anyway because the events of the last few weeks made her cranky and she needs a good laugh.

Mr Manning

Last week I attended a webinar hosted by the Manning School of Practical Politics, an offshoot of the Manning Foundation for Democratic Education, founded by Preston Manning, the father of the Reform Party and the man responsible for saddling us with Stephen Harper.   

David Rosen, a Washington based strategist, believes that political psychology is as powerful as Big Data when it comes to winning elections. In his opinion, data engineers do nothing more than confirm what political psychologists discovered decades ago.

What they discovered was this: there are six political personalities and the politician who understands his opponent’s political personality can use this insight to attack his opponent and capture swing voters who apparently are more influenced by politicians’ personalities than decided voters.

Rosen says no politician fits neatly into one personality type, most display a primary and secondary personality type.

With that caveat in mind let’s run Mr Prentice through Rosen’s analytical model and see what we come up with.

Political personalities

Narcissist: Charming, likable, entitled, an accomplished liar, good at projecting empathy even though he lacks its. Sees others as objects to be used, discarded, scapegoated. Thrives in political and executive roles.

Obsessive/compulsive: He‘s detail oriented, serious and formal. He likes complexity and abstraction. He can be counted on to do the right thing.

Paranoid: He’s fearful, suspicious, secretive, defensive and edgy. He rejects evidence that disproves his views and harbours doubts about the loyalty of others. He holds grudges and thrives in a climate of fear. Paging Mr Harper…?

Mr Harper

Machiavellian: Strategic, sets agendas, accomplishes goals, but is emotionally detached because he cares about power, not people. Exploits the interests and personality flaws of others.

Authoritarian: He’s concerned about rank and status. A rule oriented “kiss up and kick down” kind of guy.

Totalitarian: Fanatical, charismatic, governs through fear, awe and gullibility.

And the survey says…

When Mr Prentice ran for the leadership of the Tory party he downplayed his experience as a federal cabinet minister and a highly paid bank executive in favour of the small town boy from South Porcupine, Ontario.

Thrives in political and executive roles.

He promised Albertans the world—ethical, transparent, fiscally responsible government, billions of dollars for schools, hospitals and roads and no new taxes.

Is charming, likeable, projects empathy.

The minute Mr Prentice was sworn into power everything changed. He benched The Old Guard (Hancock, Horner, Horne and Callas) who steadfastly supported his leadership bid. Others, like Ken Hughes also vanished. (You remember Mr Hughes, a dear friend of Mr Prentice, who dropped out of the leadership race and offered his seat to Mr Prentice in the by-election).

Uses people and discards them when they’re no longer necessary.

In no time Mr Prentice lit the fuse on his secret plan to “reunify” the conservatives and enticed 11 Wildrose MLAs back into the fold.

Exploits the interests and personality flaws of others (Danielle Smith’s ambition and lack of loyalty made her an easy target). Emotionally detached, welcomed the Wildrose MLAs with open arms—the abuse they’d hurled at the Tories over the years was forgiven.    

Instead of unveiling innovative solutions to the $7 billion hole in the budget, Mr Prentice prefers to frighten Albertans with Armageddon-like warnings about the drop in oil prices (“we’ve never seen anything like it”) to soften them up for an austerity budget that would make the Greeks weep.

Will exploit the fears of the people to justify a spring election notwithstanding his own law that sets the next election in the spring of 2016. The fact that the opposition parties are unprepared is a bonus.

Mr Prentice

Hmm, would Mr Rosen characterize Mr Prentice as a Machiavellian narcissist?

What to do

Political personalities look very much like non-political personalities. The only problem is that political personalities have tremendous control over our lives whereas non-political personalities can be divorced, grounded or ignored.

So what are we to do?

Rosen has a plan of attack for this personality type.

Interestingly he starts by saying a politician should never attack his opponents’ personality, but rather focus on his record, his behavior or the behavior of the nutbars he associates with to create the feeling that there’s something wrong with this guy.

At this point it’s difficult to focus on Mr Prentice’s record because he doesn’t have one, having achieved absolutely nothing in his first term in office. Scaring people half to death doesn’t count.

Also it’s unlikely that the people Mr Prentice threw under the bus would be willing to speak up—at least not while Mr Prentice is on a roll.

However, Mr Prentice’s actions provide numerous examples of less than laudatory behavior. He undermined his support of transparency by engineering the defection of the Official Opposition leader and her cohorts, a covert version of his “United Alternative” proposal to unite the federal Tories and the Canadian Alliance.

He demonstrates a lack of empathy by approving the rebuild of the Kananaskis Golf Course ($18 million) while stopping work on the long overdue Calgary Cancer Centre.

His social policy is in tatters as a result of his bill to make it practically impossible for children to create gay-straight alliances in some schools.

There is much in Mr Prentice’s behavior to create the feeling that he is a politician focused on the pursuit of power at the expense of everything else.

And as much as Ms Soapbox would enjoy a little chuckle at the end of a bizarre week in Alberta politics, this is no laughing matter.

Posted in Politics, Politics and Government | Tagged , , , | 27 Comments

Prentice Takes a Pay Cut and You Should Too. Um, What???

Posted on February 1, 2015 by susanonthesoapbox

“The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.” – Anatole France “Burden-sharing”

When Mr Prentice announced the 5% cut in MLA pay he sanctimoniously declared: “The term I’ve used is ‘burden-sharing’…no one can ask the taxpayers of this province to shoulder responsibility that those of us in government aren’t prepared to do first and foremost.”* Ahhh…the principle of “majestic equality”.

Journalist & Novelist Anatole France

When Anatole France used the term he was being ironic; when Mr Prentice used its less eloquent equivalent he was not. Mr Prentice is setting the stage for yet another us-against-the-unions battle over pay packets…packets that we the people, as represented by our government, already agreed were reasonable.

Myths and facts Let’s check the myths of “burden-sharing” against the facts before we decide the unions have it coming to them:  

Myth #1: Mr Prentice says public services are financed by $10 billion in oil royalties and the drop in oil royalties means that funding the public sector is “unsustainable”**

Not true: Public services are financed by general revenue (corporate taxes, personal taxes and royalties on oil, oil sands, natural gas and coal). Oil royalties are not “earmarked” for public services and a drop in oil royalties does not automatically result in a drop in public sector funding unless the Premier makes it so.

Myth #2: Public sector wages are 12% higher in Alberta than the rest of the country and must return to the Canadian average. Why? Mr Prentice touts Alberta as the “best province” in Canada with the highest GDP. Not surprisingly, private sector wages are 24% higher in Alberta than the rest of Canada. Shouldn’t the public sector be allowed to share in the “bounty” as well as the “burden”?

Myth #3: Ninety-seven percent of the public sector have defined benefit (“gold standard”) pensions but only 39% in the private sector does.

Mr Prentice

This may be true (who knows, it’s a Fraser Institute “fact”) but the Fraser Institute fails to consider other benefits offered by the private sector—including a 17% to 25% pay bump in some companies—to offset the loss of a defined benefit plan;  nor did it mention that companies like TransCanada Pipeline, the builders of Keystone, have moved back to defined benefit pensions for their employees.

Myth #4: The 5% MLA wage cut demonstrates “leadership” on the part of the premier and the MLAs. Mr Prentice’s $218,000 salary will drop to $207,000.  Other MLAs’ pay will drop from $200,000 to $190,000.

A moment please while we applaud Mr Prentice for forgoing $11,000 after making millions as a CIBC bank executive.

The sad truth is that even with the 5% pay cut MLAs will earn $100,000 to $150,000 more than the average registered nurse ($64,000), teacher ($58,000 to $99,000), paramedic ($65,000 to $95,000) or lab assistant ($28,000).

It is not “leadership” to fall on a paper sword.

Furthermore, two-thirds of the government’s revenue is in the hands of government appointed agencies, boards and tribunals (ABCs). Mr Prentice has not suggested that the ABC executives, some of whom earned between $635,000 and $3.4 million last year, cut their pay by 5%.

The public sector’s response (*raspberry*)

Mr Prentice is the latest in a long line of Tory premiers trying to deflect attention from Tory mismanagement and fiscal irresponsibility by demonizing the public sector. Guy Smith, president of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees, isn’t having any of it.

He says AUPE already agreed to a 0% increase in three out of the last five years—this equates to a 6% pay cut when you factor in inflation. AUPE shouldered the “burden” years ago while MLAs voted to increase their own salaries by 8% and paid themselves extra for not attending “no meet” committee meetings. All the while teachers taught in crumbling, overcrowded schools and healthcare workers worked in leaking, rodent infested hospitals under collective agreements they signed in good faith. They should not be pressured into “sharing the burden” (again!) with the idiots who got us here in the first place.

Under Mr Prentice’s leadership the rich as well as the poor will give up 5% of their pay. The rich won’t sleep under bridges, beg in the streets or steal bread; but the poor might have to.

Ahhh…majestic equality Tory style…  

*Calgary Herald, Jan 30, 2015, A4

**http://news.nationalpost.com/2015/01/15/albertas-public-unions-unwilling-to-consider-wage-freezes-as-jim-prentice-eyes-unsustainable-salaries/

Posted in Economics, Politics and Government | Tagged , , , , , , | 45 Comments

Alberta: Government By Trial Balloon

Posted on January 25, 2015 by susanonthesoapbox

“The chickens are coming home to roost, and you live in the chicken house.”– General MacArthur to President Kennedy during the Bay of Pigs crisis.

Mr Prentice, like President Kennedy, managed to get elected just in time to confront the nasty consequences of decisions made by his predecessors.

Albertans are staring down the barrel (gun, not oil) of an $18 billion deficit over the next three years. For a government that bills itself as “fiscally conservative,” this is an unmitigated disaster.

Polls and trial balloons

In difficult times, most politicians commission polls and launch trial balloons.

John F Kennedy was not one of those politicians. He didn’t commission any polls during his presidency, preferring to incorporate the results of others’ polls with his own observations, research and political intuition and make his own decisions, for which he remained solely accountable.*

Sadly, that’s not the case in Alberta.

Under Mr Prentice we’re faced a barrage of trial balloons, flying like flak in the London Blitz, as he tries to determine which way the political wind is blowing. He’s tested everything from ignoring the set election date to introducing a sales tax.

Mainstreet Poll

This brings us to the Mainstreet Technologies poll that was recently “provided to” the Calgary Herald. Provided to…? Did it just slide in under the door?

Mainstreet conducted an automated telephone poll of 3,184 Albertans to determine what sorts of revenue generating mechanisms they’d accept in order to balance the budget (currently $7 billion short).

The overwhelming consensus (43%) was that government should cut spending. Raising taxes (15%), running a bigger deficit (11%) and increasing borrowing (9%) trailed far behind.

A provincial sales tax, floated by the Premier with the caveat that Albertans don’t like it but he’s “prepared to be educated and hear from the people” (which “people” is not entirely clear)***was supported by only 9% of those surveyed.**

The Calgary Herald says, “This threatens to forcefully prick Prentice’s trial balloon.”

Let’s pause for a moment to consider the implications of that statement.

Trial balloons

The term “trial balloon” was coined in 1782 when the Montgolfière brothers invented the Montgolfière globe aérostatique (hot air balloon). Not being complete idiots they weren’t about to risk life and limb without first determining whether man could survive 400 meters in the air. So they sent aloft a sheep, a duck and a rooster. (The king suggested they launch two criminals but was talked out of it). The farm animals returned safely to earth and Étienne Montgolfière became the first human to sail into the wild blue yonder.****

Politicians use trial balloons for the same reason. They’re not about to risk their political capital on a policy position that might turn around and bite them. If public reaction is negative, they can walk away unscathed.

Politicians lacking vision (like Mr Prentice) launch trial balloons left, right and centre in the hope that somewhere along the line they’ll get it right. This demonstrates a lack of conviction in the party’s platform or a lack of confidence in the government’s ability to explain difficult issues to the electorate.

So we can expect Mr Prentice to respond to Alberta’s financial crisis by cobbling together a “mandate” based on whatever is least offensive to the public, and “testing” this mandate by calling a snap election.

The “mandate” will bear no resemblance to PC party policy unless Mr Prentice holds a policy convention to ratify it. Don’t hold your breath.

Politicians blessed with vision make significant policy decisions without test driving them first.

Peter Lougheed was such a politician. Shortly after he was elected, he shocked Big Oil by boosting royalty revenues from 17% to 40%. His decision was consistent with his belief that Albertans own their natural resources and should be properly compensated for them. He added $10 billion a year to the provincial treasury.

Prentice’s priorities

Now wait. Isn’t this a little harsh? Wasn’t Mr Prentice working hard on other things when he was blindsided by the drop in oil prices?

Here are the five priorities he set out in the Throne Speech; you tell me:

  1. A focused commitment to sound conservative principles: So far it’s been trial balloons and veiled threats against the public sector.
  2. Ending entitlement and restoring public trust: He appointed a governance committee to review four of the 200 agencies, boards and commissions (ABCs) but flip flopped on whether he’ll publish salaries paid to ABCs’ staff who manage two-thirds of the budget.
  3. Maximizing the value of our natural resources and respecting property rights: He visited oil companies in Houston, picked up a T-bird on his way home and plans to visit Washington later this month. He passed Bill 1 which repealed one offensive property law but leaves six equally offensive laws on the books.
  4. Establishing Alberta as an environmental leader: The carbon levy is delayed…again.
  5. Enhancing Alberta’s quality of life: Hundreds of schools and hospitals were announced, then postponed because oil prices took a nose dive.

Not much progress; so what has he been doing?

Power

Mr Prentice spent the fall of 2014 consolidating power by eviscerating the Wildrose opposition. He’ll spend the spring of 2015 (the Legislature doesn’t reconvene until March 10, 2015) ensuring everything is in place for a snap election.

And he’s busy distracting the public by launching trial balloons to get a fix on the political slogans that will best capture the attention of the 40% of the population who are not too fed up to vote.

Frankly, I’d rather see him send up a sheep, a duck and a rooster. That would be equally unproductive but a whole lot more entertaining.

*Kennedy, The Classic Biography by Ted Sorensen, p 333

** http://calgaryherald.com/news/politics/alberta-sales-tax-the-most-detested-budget-solution-poll-says

***Calgary Herald, Jan 20, 2015, A12

**** http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-trial-balloon.htm

Posted in Politics and Government | Tagged , , , | 18 Comments

Anatomy of a Homicide Investigation

Posted on January 18, 2015 by susanonthesoapbox

Just as Ms Soapbox was fretting over Prime Minister Harper’s decision to appoint former CSIS director Richard Fadden to the newly created post of National Security Advisor she received an invitation from Assentio Mentium.

Assentio Mentium is a program offered by the U of C law school to engage lawyers, alumni, academics, business people and students on current legal issues.

This month’s offering? Anatomy of a Homicide Investigation. At last! A chance to pull back the curtain and find out what homicide investigations are really like.

Alain Hepner QC

Detective Matt Demarino, a seasoned and highly entertaining investigator, kicked things off with an overview of the investigative process. Assistant Chief Crown Prosecutor Susan Pepper, provided thoughtful comments and Alain Hepner, QC (that rumpled legend of the defence bar) spoke on behalf of the suspect—known in the defence world as the “client”.

It quickly became apparent that in an ideal world a properly conducted homicide investigation serves in justice and protects the suspect’s civil liberties.

The investigation…in an ideal world

A homicide investigation is triggered when uniformed police “push the big red button” after attending at a crime scene and determining a homicide has taken place.

Calgary police believe in “front end loading”. Forty to 200 investigators are sent to the scene. They identify witnesses and take them back to headquarters to be interviewed.

The investigation team members are assigned based on their position “in the chute”. The team includes a team commander who briefs the media and runs interference with senior management, a primary investigator with overall responsibility for the investigation, a file coordinator to manage the documentation including the “disclosure” to defence counsel and a scribe who maintains a chronological record of the investigation.

Investigators lock down the site, visit the nosy neighbours, gather footage from commercial and residential security cameras and obtain warrants to access the crime scene, telephone records, computer files, etc.

The team works out of the Board Room which looks like an ordinary board room but for the graphic pictures plastered on the walls and the TV monitors hooked up to the closed circuit cameras in the interview room.

The interview…in an ideal world

A suspect must be charged or released within 24 hours of his detention. He’s advised of his rights and, if he has an ounce of common sense, calls his lawyer.

He’s interviewed by an interviewer who is “matched” to the suspect in an effort to build rapport (an athletic suspect gets the fit cop not the fat cop). The interview is observed by the 20 or so investigators holed up in the Board Room.

The interviewer presents all the evidence—fingerprints, security camera footage, witness statements—and asks the suspect for an explanation. The objective is to get admissions, large or small, that will unlock the bigger picture.

While it’s legal for interviewers to continue to question suspects even if they refuse to respond, interviewers cannot lie (saying your DNA was found on the body when it wasn’t) or use oppressive tactics to force a false confession.

“No comment”

Ms Pepper, the Crown prosecutor, says suspects naturally want to defend themselves against accusations and provide their side of the story. Defense counsel Mr Hepner strongly advises his clients to say nothing to the police.

Some listen, others don’t. A skillful interviewer can get the accused to describe the homicide, re-enact it on closed circuit TV and offer a video-taped apology to the victim’s family which will be given to the family after it’s presented in court.

A matter of degree

The panelists agreed that an innocent person is rarely charged with murder. The real issue is a matter of degree—first degree, second degree or manslaughter. What a suspect says, how he says it, his little lies and the half-truths will shape the charges he’ll be facing. The “wrong” degree can result in 15 additional years in prison.

A less than perfect world

Unfortunately we don’t live in an ideal world.  Homicide investigations go off the rails. Investigators get tunnel vision, mistakes are made, evidence is misplaced, exculpatory evidence is discounted and disclosure to the defence is incomplete.

Recent terrorist attacks have made the real world (or at least our perception of it) more treacherous. The elements of human fallibility and ambition that can drive a homicide investigation into the gutter will be bolstered by Mr Harper’s decision to enact new laws giving the police and security forces greater powers of detention, surveillance and “preventative arrest”.

Not surprisingly the police are on board. RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson says the law needs to change because the police currently cannot charge anyone who has yet to commit a crime.

Mr Harper is bringing national security under his direct control. He’s appointed Richard Fadden, former head of CSIS, as his new National Security Advisor. Fadden is responsible for domestic and international security. He’s long been focused on old fashioned, low tech lone-wolf attacks.

Fadden is convinced that “the elites” and media see terrorists as “quasi-folk heroes” and view acts of terrorism as instances of “revolutionary charm”. Really???

Harper and Fadden are taking steps to protect dewy-eyed Canadians from themselves; but before they beef up the police state they should ask us whether we’re prepared to pay the price—reduced civil liberties in exchange for the perception of enhanced security.

Not everyone believes the trade-off is worth it. Consider this. Next up on the Assentio Mentium program is The Contemporary Relevance of the Magna Carta. Excellent choice. Has there ever been a better time to reflect on rulers who govern by vis et voluntas (“force and will”) under the doctrine of the divine right of kings?

Posted in Crime and Justice, Politics and Government | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 28 Comments

Alberta Needs Charlie Hebdo

Posted on January 11, 2015 by susanonthesoapbox

Wednesday’s massacre of eight journalists, five of whom were political cartoonists, at the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo unleashed a torrent of “We are Charlie Hebdo” editorials across the world.

Newspapers fell all over themselves in an effort to demonstrate solidarity with the slain cartoonists—but they had a concern. Was it enough to simply describe Charlie Hebdo’s controversial cartoons or did they have to reprint examples of the magazine’s work?

Some reprinted the cartoons, others did not, arguing that reprinting an offensive cartoon would be disrespectful to Muslims.

In both cases publishers reassured themselves (and us) that when it came to being fearless purveyors of the truth, they are doing a fine job.

But are they?

Political satire

Effective political satire highlights hypocrisy and the abuse of power. It is sharp, insightful and humourous. Anthropologist Margaret Mead says it matters because making fun of people in authority is the difference between democracy and tyranny.

Political cartoons are the most powerful forms of political satire because they’re instantly accessible—and this makes them dangerous.

Philipon’s cartoon of King Louis Philippe as la poire (slang for fathead) landed him in prison

In 1829 the French interior minister Francois-Regis de la Bourdonnaye said political cartoons “act immediately upon the imagination of the people, like a book which is read with the speed of light; if it wounds modesty or public decency, the damage is rapid and irremediable”.

The only way to rein in their magical power was to make them illegal.

Over time the laws became less repressive and mainstream political cartoonists were free to express their views on pressing political problems however they chose.

So why don’t they exercise this freedom more effectively in Alberta?

Political cartoons in Alberta

Our trust in government has been under siege for decades. The arrival of Jim Prentice on the scene made things worse, not better. And yet if you scanned the political cartoons in Alberta’s major newspapers you’d never know that democracy is seriously off kilter in this province.

Malcolm Mayes political cartoon

During Premier Prentice’s first few months in power he violated the public trust at least three times:

  • Prentice allowed Mr Dirks, his unelected education minister, to engage in electioneering by giving voters in his riding first dibs on school portables despite the fact they were seventh on the priority list. The Ethics Commissioner said Albertans would be hard-pressed to view Mr Dirks’ actions “as honourable, respectful and ethical”.
  • Prentice proposed legislation (Bill 10) that forced students to go to court if a school board refused to let them form gay-straight alliances. In response to public pressure he removed the requirement of going to court;  instead students would be required to appear before Mr Dirks, the education minister—the one we’re hard-pressed to view as honourable, respectful and ethical.
  • Prentice made a mockery of the democratic process that relies on the Official Opposition to hold the government to account by attempting to take over the entire Wildrose Opposition while the Legislature was in session. Given his rationale—the reunification of the two Conservative parties—it appears he used government resources, notably his Chief of Staff, to conduct PC party business.

What would Charlie Hebdo do?

Given Charlie Hebdo’s penchant for incendiary graphics one suspects that Albertans would have seen cartoons of the education minister turning his back on a sardine tin packed to the gills (pun, sorry) with children and overwrought teachers while he slipped shiny new portables into his voters’ pockets, and drawings of students begging a glowering education minister for permission to hang out with their gay and straight friends on school property; and caricatures of Jim Prentice and Danielle Smith leading a lamb called Democracy to the abattoir.

Malcolm Mayes political cartoon

The best that Alberta cartoonists could offer was a Wildrose car rear-ending an Alberta Tories semi, a broken Wildrose Christmas ornament and Prentice clipping the stem off a wild rose.

Alberta’s political cartoonists are not as inflammatory as Charlie Hebdo (and perhaps they shouldn’t be) but unless they’re prepared to reflect Alberta’s one-party petro state in a wicked satirical mirror they’re certainly not Charlie Hebdo–they’re Charlie Brown and their cartoons should be moved back to the comics page where they belong.

Posted in Education, Politics and Government | Tagged , , , , , , , | 18 Comments