Monday, June 28, 2004
With mere hours to go before polls open, Steve Smith endorses NDP
Or: a scientific evaluation of the various parties' merits
Or: why scientific evaluationas of the verious parties' merits are impossible.
You should all be voting on the basis of local candidate, of course, but most of you won’t.
So, on Friday the Edmonton Journal published a two page chart summarizing the positions of the five major parties on fourteen key issues, and I’ve decided to use this summary to make a scientific comparison of the five parties’ relative fitness to govern.
Methodology
Basically, I ranked each of the five parties on their platforms in each of the fourteen areas. The party receiving the highest ranking got five points, the one receiving the second highest ranking received four points, and so on down to the party receiving the worst ranking receiving one point. Ties were possible – if two parties tied with the best ranking, then both would receive five points, and whichever party came next would receive three. Then, I assigned each area a relative weight, and used these weights to give each of the parties an overall ranking.
The comparison is not ideologically neutral – I don’t think any such study could be. For example, I believe that marijuana should be legalized. If a party presents a well-thought out, intelligently argued, and ideologically coherent argument in favour of the continued inclusion of marijuana possession in the Criminal Code, I am going to give that party a low score, just because I disagree with it.
Some flaws with this comparison
1. It’s limited by the source material. The Journal feature was pretty superficial, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to do the research required to make my own comparison any less so. Additionally, the source material neglected some rather important questions, such as how the parties would deal with the fact that the state called “Canada” sits on land whose original inhabitants never actually agreed to be part of it.
2. It doesn’t take into account hot button issues. For example, I would have a tremendously difficult time supporting any party that outright supported a continued prohibition on gay marriage – I consider support for gay marriage to be a bare prerequisite for my support. In other words, while supporting gay marriage won’t go far towards getting my vote, opposing it could go a long ways towards losing my support.
3. The issues are considered in isolation, rather than holistically. This means, for example, that I don’t consider the fiscal ramifications of the parties’ education plans when ranking them in the education section.
4. It doesn’t take into account any aspect of the party’s leadership beyond where that leadership stands on the relevant issues. For example, I agree with Jack Layton on a lot of issues, but I don’t like or trust him. The reverse is true of Stephen Harper. This comparison rewards Layton and punishes Harper.
5. Our panel (me), while probably smarter than you, is hardly expert.
6. The comparison fails to consider that on some issues (e.g. Marijuana) all parties might be quite good, while on others (e.g. Health Care) they might all be terrible. Instead, one party always receives five marks, no matter how undeserved, while another always receives one.
7. The weightings are pretty much arbitrary.
8. This comparison assumes that the parties would actually follow through on their promises if elected, which none of them would.
In brief, this comparison is a crock of shit. Read on. . .
Health Care (5% Weight)
Health care is an excellent place to start this comparison, because it establishes a theme that wil recur throughout this comparison: namely, that all of the parties are lying to you. The Liberals are lying when they say that there can be some sort of intergovernmental agreement that could “fix health care for a generation”. The Conservatives are lying when they pretend that “innovation” can take the place of “money” in maintaining the universality of the existing system. The New Democrats are lying when they pretend that our existing system is “publicly delivered” (my own doctor, who is incorporated as a private, for-profit, corporation that happens to have only one client, Alberta Health, would probably be quite surprised to hear this). The Green Party is lying when it pretends that “preventative health” can reduce costs (it’s a good idea, because it’s a pretty cheap way of helping people live longer – but people who live long healthy lives only to die of cancer at age ninety actually cost the system *more* than fat tubs who die of sudden heart attacks at age forty).
Unsurprisingly, the Bloc Québecois gets top marks in this one for promising to leave the issue to the provinces (note to parties other than the Bloc: see how easy this is?). The rest all commit to meddling in the issue to varying degrees, so the question of provincial interference is a wash. The question of public vs. private delivery is one over which there are few values at play, so I’m not going to rank based on that (the New Democrats and Greens support public delivery over private, while the Conservatives see a greater role for the private sector. The Liberals, characteristically, are slippery on the question). Assuming we want health care to remain free to all Canadians, and that we want new treatments to be made available to Canadians as they are approved, the only real solution to our health care woes it to throw money at the problem. The New Democrats favour throwing the most (and have a tax strategy to back that plan up – more on that later), so they’re ranked next, followed by, in descending order, the Conservatives, Greens, and Liberals. The ranking on health care:
1. Bloc Québecois
2. New Democratic Party
3. Conservative Party
4. Green Party
5. Liberal Party
Taxes (9% Weight)
Call me a little wet, but I like the Greens’ tax strategy. At its core is a pledge to tax gasoline at an extra ten cents per litre. Though this move might initially appear to affect the poor more than the rich, since fuel consumption is more weakly correlated to income than consumption of many luxury goods, the tax plan compensates for that by reducing the marginal tax rate on the lowest bracket. It also applies a good portion of the increased revenue from the fuel tax to corporate tax cuts, such that most corporations would be, at worst, neutrally affected by the move. High-income individuals are those most adversely affected by the move. Overall, the Greens strike the right balance between creative use of tax policy to achieve social goals and use of tax cuts for economic stimulation.
I like the New Democrats’ tax strategy as well, especially because it’s ballsy enough to admit that profitable corporations and wealthy individuals will be paying more, which fits with my ideology on the matter. Sadly, cold hard reality is likely to intervene – the ND plan is probably more appropriate to economic times more expansionist than those we’re presently facing.
The Liberals have no tax strategy, which is enough to get them third rank in this category, since both the Bloc and the Conservatives are advocating net decreases in taxation, which is a little disingenuous when both are also claiming to be able to increase transfers to the provinces for the purpose of fixing health care. I rank the Bloc above the Conservatives partly because their proposed cuts aren’t as deep, and partly because they’re also proposing to achieve some neat social objectives through tax policy (such as a plan, also supported by the NDP, to remove the GST from family essentials, and the proposal to allow tax deductions for public transportation).
The ranking on tax:
1. Green Party
2. New Democratic Party
3. Liberal Party
4. Bloc Québecois
5. Conservative Party
Fiscal Projections and Debt (9% Weight)
I’d like to offer an apology in advance to most of my business professors, but the reality is that the New Democrats are the only one of the three main pan-Canadian parties to have their spending plans fully and publicly costed out. They also offer the most sensible debt-repayment plan, given the economic context, in suggesting that the debt to G.D.P. ratio be made to fall not through aggressive debt payment but through gradual growth of the G.D.P.
The Liberals are similarily intelligent towards the debt, but are perhaps over-cautious in their fiscal projections (as Paul Martin was every year he spent as finance minister). Padding the budget to prevent excessive spending is an admirable quality in a finance minister, but isn’t much of a way to lead a government. The Bloc takes the Liberal plan and decides to err on the opposite side, which is much more dangerous (or would be if there was any chance of the Bloc ever being in a position to implement its plans). The Green plan is wacky, proposing a mid-term referendum to determine priorities (I could probably think of some issues more ill-suited to determination by the masses than public finances, but I really don’t feel like trying at this point – suffice it to say that there aren’t many).
My harshest scorn, however, is reserved for the Conservatives, who rely on the myth of “trimming the fat” to explain the present revenue gap in their projections. While there is government waste, it is
(a) extraordinarily difficult for elected officials to fully ferret out; and
(b) not an appreciable portion of the budget.
I mean, eliminate all of the subsidies paid to artists who work in scatological media, eliminate all of the three hundred dollar toilet seat, eliminate all of the canoe museums, and you might be able to give every Canadian an extra ten bucks come the following April.
The rankings:
1. New Democratic Party
2. Liberal Party
3. Bloc Québecois
4. Green Party
5. Conservative Party
Education (5% Weight)
Once again, the Bloc was the only party to correctly answer the trick question, promising to “transfer all federal spending on education to the provinces”. The Conservatives were nearly as good, making only a few vague promises on “working with the provinces” and “enhancing the Canada student loans program” (one concern is that the little the Conservatives do plan on doing seems geared towards allowing students to incur more debt, rather than towards reducing the front-end cost – still, though, I can scarcely fault them for not addressing tuition after I gave the Bloc top marks for exactly the same thing).
The Liberals, New Democrats, and Greens all intend on meddling in education in significant ways, so I give third ranking to the New Democrats just because I think their meddling will do students the most good (though the wisdom of seeking an outright ten percent cut in tuition fees state-wide when they already vary considerably from province to province is certainly questionable). The Liberals plan on continuing the status quo, which hasn’t served students particularily well, but is at least not completely insane, like the Greens’ plan is. They want to increase co-op programs, which isn’t even intruding on provincial jurisdiction so much as it is intruding on institutional jurisdiction. They also want to give retired people tuition-free access to University, which makes no sense since these are the people for whom a University education is a luxury, rather than the necessirty it is fast becoming for young people.
Therefore:
1. Bloc Québecois
2. Conservative Party
3. New Democratic Party
4. Liberal Party
5. Green Party
National Unity (5% Weight)
Is it a bad sign when the pledge by the Liberals and the Conservatives to do absolutely nothing on the national unity front still places them ahead of any of their competition? Is it worse when the New Democrats’ and Greens’ failure to even produce coherent national unity positions puts them next? Yes, the only party to propose any change to the status quo on the national unity front is the Bloc Québecois, whose proposal to break up the country along national lines gives them the lowest ranking of the five parties, due solely to my ideological opposition to the nation-state.
I shouldn’t be complaining, I suppose, since the more political parties discuss national unity, the more fractured the country becomes.
1. Conservative Party
1. Liberal Party
3. Green Party
3. New Democratic Party
5. Bloc Québecois
Marijuana (3% Weight)
As mentioned earlier, I support the full legalization of the growth, sale, and possession of Mexican Laughing Tobacco. So do the New Democrats and the Greens, so they take top marks. The rest all want to decriminalize possession of small amounts, though they vary on how large those amounts should be. The Liberals are the only party to name a number, at 15 grams, so they get points for specificity. The Conservatives specifically say that 15 grams is too much, without proposing an alternative, while the Bloc leaves the door open for voters to believe that 15 grams (or more, even) is fine with them. Somewhat arbitrarily, I’ve decided that, while specificity shall favour the Liberals, relative specificity in supporting a lower amount will cause the Conservatives to be ranked below the Bloc.
1. Green Party
1. New Democratic Party
3. Liberal Party
3. Bloc Québecois
5. Conservative Party
Same-Sex Marriage (5% Weight)
The New Democrats, Bloc Québecois, and Greens all, like me, support same-sex marriage, and want Parliament to legalize it as soon as possible. This results in a three-way tie for first on the issue.
The Liberals, meanwhile, are busy rather misinterpreting the role of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which is supposed to be to reign in Parliament if it makes oppressive laws, not to dictate what laws it makes in the first place. References to the Supreme Court are meant to test the legality of legislation in advance, not, in this case, to test the legality of not changing legislation at all (indeed, if the Liberals are planning on changing legislation to allow same sex marriage anyway, what’s the point of the current reference at all?). To sum up, I really really really question the wisdom of people planning to vote Liberal on this issue alone.
The Conservatives, however, hide behind the mantra of “free votes on moral issues”. While free votes are wonderful ideas (though I’m still not clear on why MPs need permission from their parties’ leadership before voting their consciences), and while the New Democrats’ support for forcing MPs to toe the party line on “moral issues” is reprehensible, the Conservatives, once again, being a little disingenuous – if saying that their MPs would be free to vote as they chose on a given issue constituted an adequate position on that issue, why isn’t that the extent of their permission on Marijuana, or on other reforms to the Criminal Code? The reality is that the Conservatives say no more than “free vote” on this issue only because they’re afraid of exposing themselves as a bunch of troglodytes who want to keep marriage an exclusively heterosexual affair for no apparently good reason.
1. Bloc Québecois
1. Green Party
1. New Democratic Party
4. Liberal Party
5. Conservative Party
Environment (9% Weight)
On this issue the Greens, while strong, give the impression of a party so desparate to moderate itself that it’s forgotten its core beliefs. As a result, they’re outmanoeuvred by the New Democrats, who are proposing the most environmentally activist agenda ever proposed by a mainstream North American political party. They will invest heavily in wind turbines ($10 billion over six years), conduct extensive research into renewable resources, and fund extensive public transportation initiatives in cities (at this point, my throat is hoarse from heckling “provincial jurisdiction!”, so I’ll just stop). I’m a little dubious of their pledge to ban the bulk export of fresh water, but, within the context of the entire plan, I’ll let it slide.
The Greens propose a relatively corporate-friendly regimen focussed mostly on the aforementioned creative use of tax policy and on subisides to sustainable transportation initiatives. The Bloc environmental platform proposes wind turbines (fewer than the New Democrats), regulations to improve cars’ fuel efficiency, and a Québec-favourable tax regimen that would give breaks to hydro-electric generators while punishing consumers of Albertan fossil fuels.
The Liberals edge slightly ahead of the Conservatives mostly on the strength of their commitment to wind power (while the Liberals supported signing Kyoto and the Conservatives didn’t, neither party actually plans on reaching the emmission targets, so they’re pretty well interchangeable on that front). The most bizarre element of the Conservative plan is to fund their environmental platform through money saved by pulling out of Kyoto. Huh? How does signing an accord and not implementing it save us any money?
Anyhow:
1. New Democratic Party
2. Green Party
3. Bloc Québecois
4. Liberal Party
5. Conservative Party
Cities (5% Weight)
Another provincial issue, and this time not even the Bloc gets it right. At any rate, I am of the mind that the greatest issue facing cities is transportation, and the New Democrats and the Greens are the ones who best address transportation. The NDs are also being the most aggressive on affordable housing, which earns them the nod over the Greens.
Aside from its relative lack of transportation initiatives, the Liberal platform on cities is not unappealing, and could best be called New Democrat Lite. Pledging to transfer the same amount of the gas tax as the New Democrats, and seeking to address affordable housing (just with less money than the New Democrats), the Liberals place a strong third. The Conservatives, whose city platform is Liberal Lite, aren’t bad either, though they do focus on crime fighting in a fashion that none of the other parties do. The Bloc doesn’t do much beyond promise a Chrétienesque infrastructure program, so it pulls up the rear.
Cities, as ballyhooed as they’ve been, just don’t work well as an election issue because there are no stark differences between the parties.
1. New Democratic Party
2. Green Party
3. Liberal Party
4. Conservative Party.
5. Bloc Québecois
Defence (9% Weight)
The Bloc doesn’t seem to have a defence platform, so they’re an easy lastplace pick. The Liberals, Conservatives, and Greens all pledge increased defence spending (with five year projections of $3 billion, $7 billion, and $5 billion, respectively), while the New Democrats don’t. For this reason alone, I really can’t rate the New Democrats better than fourth unless they’re prepared to also advocate less Canadian participation in U.N.-sanctioned peace keeping efforts, and they’re not. This is a shame, because the New Democrats are the ones calling for outright withdrawl from missile defence talks, with which I fully agree, and about a shift away from offensive weapons systems, with which I also agree.
Despite its warts – simultaneously participating in missile defence talks opposing outright the so-called “weaponization of space”, for example – the Liberal policy comes closest to striking the correct balance. While the Conservatives are too focussed on such relative unecessities as tanks and fighter planes (to say nothing of their reasonable facsimille of support for the missile system), and while the Greens focus too much on merging things (among others, they want the reserve and the coast guard merged and the departments of Foreign Affairs and Defence merged), the Liberals focus on increasing the size of our beleaguered forces and replacing obsolete equipment.
1. Liberal Party
2. Green Party
3. Conservative Party
4. New Democratic Party
5. Bloc Québecois
Foreign Affairs (9% Weight)
A major difference in foreign policy planks – and one that received no visible discussion during the campaign – is the parties’ plans for the North American Free Trade Agreement, and the agreement’s eleventh chapter in particular. Chapter Eleven allows corporations to sue government for unfair subsidy of local industries, which was innovative in that it replaced a system in which only governments could challenge one another on such matters. The New Democrats and Bloc believe that Chapter Eleven stands in the way of legitimate government subsidy of services, while the Liberals and Conservatives consider it appropriate to protect private interests from government machinations. To me, the real question is not whether or not it is proper to allow corporations to sue governments (it is), but rather on what basis they can do so. Scrapping Chapter Eleven, as proposed by the New Democrats and Bloc, would effectively neuter many other provisions of the deal – which is probably the point.
On the other hand, the New Democrats and the Bloc are the two parties who most accept the principle of multilateralism on non-economic matters, which appeals to me – we’ll need to see multilateral action on the part of first world states if we are to reverse the trend of third world exploitation. On that note, the Bloc and the New Democrats are also the most vocal about increasing foreign aid. They’re pretty clearly going to be ranked one-two in my books, Chapter Eleven notwithstanding. I give the edge to the Bloc mostly because the New Democrats are proposing to play the punitive tarriffs game with the United States on the softwood lumber issue, a tactic which is obsolete by, oh, let’s say about half a century. On the other hand, the Bloc proposes to give Québec greater involvement in international affairs, which just goes to show that it’s as hypocritical on division of powers questions as any of the other parties.
Of the remaining three parties, the Greens are easy last place picks for their sparse and selectively specific foreign policy (“Suport self-governance for Tibetan and Kurdish peoples”). Their plan to, essentially, subordinate the Canadian military to the United Nations also does not meet with my approval.
I’ll take the Liberals and their poorly developed platform (basically, they say “elect us and we’ll continue working on deciding our foreign policy) over the Conservatives, to whom I am just plain ideologically opposed (revisionist history aside, the Conservatives were proposing participation in the invasion of Iraq on the sole basis that it would be good for relations with the Americans. That’s a pretty shitty basis on which to set a foreign policy.).
1. Bloc Québecois
2. New Democratic Party
3. Liberal Party
4. Conservative Party
5. Green Party
Parliamentary Reform (9% Weight)
The major issue here appears to be the question of free votes, which I will outright ignore on the basis that nobody has yet satisfactorily explained to me how existing votes are somehow not “free”. Thus, the New Democrats escape my wrath for planning on forcing their MPs to toe the line on issues like gay marriage just because there is no way that they *can* force their MPs to toe the line. In fact, as the only party (as far as know) to support outright Senate abolition, they rank first (though, for what it’s worth, the NDP would be no more able to abolish the Senate if it had a majority government than it would be able to force its MPs to vote as it saw fit – this is a blatant double standard. Deal with it).
The Conservatives plan on appointing people elected in provincial elections to the Senate, which is a terrible idea, since it will give the body pretend legitimacy, and activate it. This will hinder efforts at abolition, which are clearly good. On the other hand, the Conservatives also propose beefing up the Auditor General’s office, which would be a very good thing.
The pickings as far as the rest of the parties go are pretty slim. The Liberals, predictably, bring nothing to the table, which is still preferable to the Bloc’s promise to let the positions of its MPs be dictated by unanimous votes in the Québec Assemblé National. The Greens take third by default, then, since they have some decent proposals – among them increasing the transparency of ministerial and deputy ministerial expense reports. Their proposed citizens registry, which would allow citizens to receive electronic updates of Parliament’s decisions on issues about which they care, is intriguing, but probably ultimately pointless (I mean, that’s why we have blogs, right?). Their proposal to subject newly elected MPs to mandatory ethics training is also dumb.
In short, real proposals for parliamentary reform are scarce in this election, which is a shame given all of the ink the cause has been given over the past months.
1. New Democratic Party
2. Conservative Party
3. Green Party
4. Liberal Party
5. Bloc Québecois
Electoral Reform (9% Weight)
As previously noted, proportional representation is a terrible idea, and both the New Democrats and the Greens support it, which costs them in my estimation. The Green Party redeems itself somewhat through its support for fixed election dates (fixed election dates are pretty incompatible with the parliamentary system, but the parliamentary system is fundamentally undemocratic, and fixed election dates mitigate this, so I support them).
The Conservatives also support fixed election dates, and do not support proportional representation, which is enough to put them ahead of both the New Democrats and the Greens. Throw in the fact that they want to end all corporate and union donations to political parties and eliminate the forced $1.75 subsidy that goes along with a vote, and they’re miles ahead of any of the competition, though I do object to their proposal to put Elections Canada in control of party nomination processes on the basis that it further legitimizes a process that we ought not to be legitimizing.
Neither the Bloc nor the Liberals bring anything to the table, making them only slightly better than the New Democrats in my estimation. The rankings, then:
1. Conservative Party
2. Green Party
3. Bloc Québecois
3. Liberal Party
5. New Democratic Party
Law and Order (9% Weight)
Nowhere, except maybe in the area of gay marriage, are my philosophical differences with the Conservative Party more on display than they are in this section. The Conservatives want to repeal the Faint Hope clause, abolish conditional sentences for serious crimes, forbid prisoners in federal institutions from voting in federal elections, and develop child pornography legislation that is fundamentally at odds with freedom of expression (and not in a fashion mitigated by the Harm Principle). The Conservatives have a detailed and comprehensive approach to law and order issues, and I hate it, so I’m ranking them last (despite the fact that they’re the only party promising to scrap the gun registry).
The Liberals, once again, have very little to say, mostly defending their past moves, such as the creation of the sex offender registry and the establishment of roadside testing to determine if drivers are under the influence of drugs. Both are good moves, but they’re also both moves that have already been made. Sadly, this complete lack of effort is still enough to put the Liberals ahead of the Bloc, which doesn’t have much beyond a suggestion that Québec be exempted from the new young offenders law.
Hippy that I am, my two favourite parties in this section are the New Democrats and the Greens, with both having essentially identical platgforms supporting restorative justice and safe injection sites. There are differences between the platforms, but this is my last decision, and I’m tired, so I’m tying them for first.
1. Green Party
1. New Democratic Party
3. Liberal Party
4. Bloc Québecois
5. Conservative Party
The Final Grades
1. New Democratic Party – 78.8% (B)
2. Green Party – 68.4% (C)
3. Bloc Québecois – 54.2% (D)
4. Conservative Party – 48.0% (F)
5. Liberal Party – 28.2% (F)
Make of that what you will. Me, I’m voting on the basis of the local candidate.
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Or: a scientific evaluation of the various parties' merits
Or: why scientific evaluationas of the verious parties' merits are impossible.
You should all be voting on the basis of local candidate, of course, but most of you won’t.
So, on Friday the Edmonton Journal published a two page chart summarizing the positions of the five major parties on fourteen key issues, and I’ve decided to use this summary to make a scientific comparison of the five parties’ relative fitness to govern.
Methodology
Basically, I ranked each of the five parties on their platforms in each of the fourteen areas. The party receiving the highest ranking got five points, the one receiving the second highest ranking received four points, and so on down to the party receiving the worst ranking receiving one point. Ties were possible – if two parties tied with the best ranking, then both would receive five points, and whichever party came next would receive three. Then, I assigned each area a relative weight, and used these weights to give each of the parties an overall ranking.
The comparison is not ideologically neutral – I don’t think any such study could be. For example, I believe that marijuana should be legalized. If a party presents a well-thought out, intelligently argued, and ideologically coherent argument in favour of the continued inclusion of marijuana possession in the Criminal Code, I am going to give that party a low score, just because I disagree with it.
Some flaws with this comparison
1. It’s limited by the source material. The Journal feature was pretty superficial, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to do the research required to make my own comparison any less so. Additionally, the source material neglected some rather important questions, such as how the parties would deal with the fact that the state called “Canada” sits on land whose original inhabitants never actually agreed to be part of it.
2. It doesn’t take into account hot button issues. For example, I would have a tremendously difficult time supporting any party that outright supported a continued prohibition on gay marriage – I consider support for gay marriage to be a bare prerequisite for my support. In other words, while supporting gay marriage won’t go far towards getting my vote, opposing it could go a long ways towards losing my support.
3. The issues are considered in isolation, rather than holistically. This means, for example, that I don’t consider the fiscal ramifications of the parties’ education plans when ranking them in the education section.
4. It doesn’t take into account any aspect of the party’s leadership beyond where that leadership stands on the relevant issues. For example, I agree with Jack Layton on a lot of issues, but I don’t like or trust him. The reverse is true of Stephen Harper. This comparison rewards Layton and punishes Harper.
5. Our panel (me), while probably smarter than you, is hardly expert.
6. The comparison fails to consider that on some issues (e.g. Marijuana) all parties might be quite good, while on others (e.g. Health Care) they might all be terrible. Instead, one party always receives five marks, no matter how undeserved, while another always receives one.
7. The weightings are pretty much arbitrary.
8. This comparison assumes that the parties would actually follow through on their promises if elected, which none of them would.
In brief, this comparison is a crock of shit. Read on. . .
Health Care (5% Weight)
Health care is an excellent place to start this comparison, because it establishes a theme that wil recur throughout this comparison: namely, that all of the parties are lying to you. The Liberals are lying when they say that there can be some sort of intergovernmental agreement that could “fix health care for a generation”. The Conservatives are lying when they pretend that “innovation” can take the place of “money” in maintaining the universality of the existing system. The New Democrats are lying when they pretend that our existing system is “publicly delivered” (my own doctor, who is incorporated as a private, for-profit, corporation that happens to have only one client, Alberta Health, would probably be quite surprised to hear this). The Green Party is lying when it pretends that “preventative health” can reduce costs (it’s a good idea, because it’s a pretty cheap way of helping people live longer – but people who live long healthy lives only to die of cancer at age ninety actually cost the system *more* than fat tubs who die of sudden heart attacks at age forty).
Unsurprisingly, the Bloc Québecois gets top marks in this one for promising to leave the issue to the provinces (note to parties other than the Bloc: see how easy this is?). The rest all commit to meddling in the issue to varying degrees, so the question of provincial interference is a wash. The question of public vs. private delivery is one over which there are few values at play, so I’m not going to rank based on that (the New Democrats and Greens support public delivery over private, while the Conservatives see a greater role for the private sector. The Liberals, characteristically, are slippery on the question). Assuming we want health care to remain free to all Canadians, and that we want new treatments to be made available to Canadians as they are approved, the only real solution to our health care woes it to throw money at the problem. The New Democrats favour throwing the most (and have a tax strategy to back that plan up – more on that later), so they’re ranked next, followed by, in descending order, the Conservatives, Greens, and Liberals. The ranking on health care:
1. Bloc Québecois
2. New Democratic Party
3. Conservative Party
4. Green Party
5. Liberal Party
Taxes (9% Weight)
Call me a little wet, but I like the Greens’ tax strategy. At its core is a pledge to tax gasoline at an extra ten cents per litre. Though this move might initially appear to affect the poor more than the rich, since fuel consumption is more weakly correlated to income than consumption of many luxury goods, the tax plan compensates for that by reducing the marginal tax rate on the lowest bracket. It also applies a good portion of the increased revenue from the fuel tax to corporate tax cuts, such that most corporations would be, at worst, neutrally affected by the move. High-income individuals are those most adversely affected by the move. Overall, the Greens strike the right balance between creative use of tax policy to achieve social goals and use of tax cuts for economic stimulation.
I like the New Democrats’ tax strategy as well, especially because it’s ballsy enough to admit that profitable corporations and wealthy individuals will be paying more, which fits with my ideology on the matter. Sadly, cold hard reality is likely to intervene – the ND plan is probably more appropriate to economic times more expansionist than those we’re presently facing.
The Liberals have no tax strategy, which is enough to get them third rank in this category, since both the Bloc and the Conservatives are advocating net decreases in taxation, which is a little disingenuous when both are also claiming to be able to increase transfers to the provinces for the purpose of fixing health care. I rank the Bloc above the Conservatives partly because their proposed cuts aren’t as deep, and partly because they’re also proposing to achieve some neat social objectives through tax policy (such as a plan, also supported by the NDP, to remove the GST from family essentials, and the proposal to allow tax deductions for public transportation).
The ranking on tax:
1. Green Party
2. New Democratic Party
3. Liberal Party
4. Bloc Québecois
5. Conservative Party
Fiscal Projections and Debt (9% Weight)
I’d like to offer an apology in advance to most of my business professors, but the reality is that the New Democrats are the only one of the three main pan-Canadian parties to have their spending plans fully and publicly costed out. They also offer the most sensible debt-repayment plan, given the economic context, in suggesting that the debt to G.D.P. ratio be made to fall not through aggressive debt payment but through gradual growth of the G.D.P.
The Liberals are similarily intelligent towards the debt, but are perhaps over-cautious in their fiscal projections (as Paul Martin was every year he spent as finance minister). Padding the budget to prevent excessive spending is an admirable quality in a finance minister, but isn’t much of a way to lead a government. The Bloc takes the Liberal plan and decides to err on the opposite side, which is much more dangerous (or would be if there was any chance of the Bloc ever being in a position to implement its plans). The Green plan is wacky, proposing a mid-term referendum to determine priorities (I could probably think of some issues more ill-suited to determination by the masses than public finances, but I really don’t feel like trying at this point – suffice it to say that there aren’t many).
My harshest scorn, however, is reserved for the Conservatives, who rely on the myth of “trimming the fat” to explain the present revenue gap in their projections. While there is government waste, it is
(a) extraordinarily difficult for elected officials to fully ferret out; and
(b) not an appreciable portion of the budget.
I mean, eliminate all of the subsidies paid to artists who work in scatological media, eliminate all of the three hundred dollar toilet seat, eliminate all of the canoe museums, and you might be able to give every Canadian an extra ten bucks come the following April.
The rankings:
1. New Democratic Party
2. Liberal Party
3. Bloc Québecois
4. Green Party
5. Conservative Party
Education (5% Weight)
Once again, the Bloc was the only party to correctly answer the trick question, promising to “transfer all federal spending on education to the provinces”. The Conservatives were nearly as good, making only a few vague promises on “working with the provinces” and “enhancing the Canada student loans program” (one concern is that the little the Conservatives do plan on doing seems geared towards allowing students to incur more debt, rather than towards reducing the front-end cost – still, though, I can scarcely fault them for not addressing tuition after I gave the Bloc top marks for exactly the same thing).
The Liberals, New Democrats, and Greens all intend on meddling in education in significant ways, so I give third ranking to the New Democrats just because I think their meddling will do students the most good (though the wisdom of seeking an outright ten percent cut in tuition fees state-wide when they already vary considerably from province to province is certainly questionable). The Liberals plan on continuing the status quo, which hasn’t served students particularily well, but is at least not completely insane, like the Greens’ plan is. They want to increase co-op programs, which isn’t even intruding on provincial jurisdiction so much as it is intruding on institutional jurisdiction. They also want to give retired people tuition-free access to University, which makes no sense since these are the people for whom a University education is a luxury, rather than the necessirty it is fast becoming for young people.
Therefore:
1. Bloc Québecois
2. Conservative Party
3. New Democratic Party
4. Liberal Party
5. Green Party
National Unity (5% Weight)
Is it a bad sign when the pledge by the Liberals and the Conservatives to do absolutely nothing on the national unity front still places them ahead of any of their competition? Is it worse when the New Democrats’ and Greens’ failure to even produce coherent national unity positions puts them next? Yes, the only party to propose any change to the status quo on the national unity front is the Bloc Québecois, whose proposal to break up the country along national lines gives them the lowest ranking of the five parties, due solely to my ideological opposition to the nation-state.
I shouldn’t be complaining, I suppose, since the more political parties discuss national unity, the more fractured the country becomes.
1. Conservative Party
1. Liberal Party
3. Green Party
3. New Democratic Party
5. Bloc Québecois
Marijuana (3% Weight)
As mentioned earlier, I support the full legalization of the growth, sale, and possession of Mexican Laughing Tobacco. So do the New Democrats and the Greens, so they take top marks. The rest all want to decriminalize possession of small amounts, though they vary on how large those amounts should be. The Liberals are the only party to name a number, at 15 grams, so they get points for specificity. The Conservatives specifically say that 15 grams is too much, without proposing an alternative, while the Bloc leaves the door open for voters to believe that 15 grams (or more, even) is fine with them. Somewhat arbitrarily, I’ve decided that, while specificity shall favour the Liberals, relative specificity in supporting a lower amount will cause the Conservatives to be ranked below the Bloc.
1. Green Party
1. New Democratic Party
3. Liberal Party
3. Bloc Québecois
5. Conservative Party
Same-Sex Marriage (5% Weight)
The New Democrats, Bloc Québecois, and Greens all, like me, support same-sex marriage, and want Parliament to legalize it as soon as possible. This results in a three-way tie for first on the issue.
The Liberals, meanwhile, are busy rather misinterpreting the role of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which is supposed to be to reign in Parliament if it makes oppressive laws, not to dictate what laws it makes in the first place. References to the Supreme Court are meant to test the legality of legislation in advance, not, in this case, to test the legality of not changing legislation at all (indeed, if the Liberals are planning on changing legislation to allow same sex marriage anyway, what’s the point of the current reference at all?). To sum up, I really really really question the wisdom of people planning to vote Liberal on this issue alone.
The Conservatives, however, hide behind the mantra of “free votes on moral issues”. While free votes are wonderful ideas (though I’m still not clear on why MPs need permission from their parties’ leadership before voting their consciences), and while the New Democrats’ support for forcing MPs to toe the party line on “moral issues” is reprehensible, the Conservatives, once again, being a little disingenuous – if saying that their MPs would be free to vote as they chose on a given issue constituted an adequate position on that issue, why isn’t that the extent of their permission on Marijuana, or on other reforms to the Criminal Code? The reality is that the Conservatives say no more than “free vote” on this issue only because they’re afraid of exposing themselves as a bunch of troglodytes who want to keep marriage an exclusively heterosexual affair for no apparently good reason.
1. Bloc Québecois
1. Green Party
1. New Democratic Party
4. Liberal Party
5. Conservative Party
Environment (9% Weight)
On this issue the Greens, while strong, give the impression of a party so desparate to moderate itself that it’s forgotten its core beliefs. As a result, they’re outmanoeuvred by the New Democrats, who are proposing the most environmentally activist agenda ever proposed by a mainstream North American political party. They will invest heavily in wind turbines ($10 billion over six years), conduct extensive research into renewable resources, and fund extensive public transportation initiatives in cities (at this point, my throat is hoarse from heckling “provincial jurisdiction!”, so I’ll just stop). I’m a little dubious of their pledge to ban the bulk export of fresh water, but, within the context of the entire plan, I’ll let it slide.
The Greens propose a relatively corporate-friendly regimen focussed mostly on the aforementioned creative use of tax policy and on subisides to sustainable transportation initiatives. The Bloc environmental platform proposes wind turbines (fewer than the New Democrats), regulations to improve cars’ fuel efficiency, and a Québec-favourable tax regimen that would give breaks to hydro-electric generators while punishing consumers of Albertan fossil fuels.
The Liberals edge slightly ahead of the Conservatives mostly on the strength of their commitment to wind power (while the Liberals supported signing Kyoto and the Conservatives didn’t, neither party actually plans on reaching the emmission targets, so they’re pretty well interchangeable on that front). The most bizarre element of the Conservative plan is to fund their environmental platform through money saved by pulling out of Kyoto. Huh? How does signing an accord and not implementing it save us any money?
Anyhow:
1. New Democratic Party
2. Green Party
3. Bloc Québecois
4. Liberal Party
5. Conservative Party
Cities (5% Weight)
Another provincial issue, and this time not even the Bloc gets it right. At any rate, I am of the mind that the greatest issue facing cities is transportation, and the New Democrats and the Greens are the ones who best address transportation. The NDs are also being the most aggressive on affordable housing, which earns them the nod over the Greens.
Aside from its relative lack of transportation initiatives, the Liberal platform on cities is not unappealing, and could best be called New Democrat Lite. Pledging to transfer the same amount of the gas tax as the New Democrats, and seeking to address affordable housing (just with less money than the New Democrats), the Liberals place a strong third. The Conservatives, whose city platform is Liberal Lite, aren’t bad either, though they do focus on crime fighting in a fashion that none of the other parties do. The Bloc doesn’t do much beyond promise a Chrétienesque infrastructure program, so it pulls up the rear.
Cities, as ballyhooed as they’ve been, just don’t work well as an election issue because there are no stark differences between the parties.
1. New Democratic Party
2. Green Party
3. Liberal Party
4. Conservative Party.
5. Bloc Québecois
Defence (9% Weight)
The Bloc doesn’t seem to have a defence platform, so they’re an easy lastplace pick. The Liberals, Conservatives, and Greens all pledge increased defence spending (with five year projections of $3 billion, $7 billion, and $5 billion, respectively), while the New Democrats don’t. For this reason alone, I really can’t rate the New Democrats better than fourth unless they’re prepared to also advocate less Canadian participation in U.N.-sanctioned peace keeping efforts, and they’re not. This is a shame, because the New Democrats are the ones calling for outright withdrawl from missile defence talks, with which I fully agree, and about a shift away from offensive weapons systems, with which I also agree.
Despite its warts – simultaneously participating in missile defence talks opposing outright the so-called “weaponization of space”, for example – the Liberal policy comes closest to striking the correct balance. While the Conservatives are too focussed on such relative unecessities as tanks and fighter planes (to say nothing of their reasonable facsimille of support for the missile system), and while the Greens focus too much on merging things (among others, they want the reserve and the coast guard merged and the departments of Foreign Affairs and Defence merged), the Liberals focus on increasing the size of our beleaguered forces and replacing obsolete equipment.
1. Liberal Party
2. Green Party
3. Conservative Party
4. New Democratic Party
5. Bloc Québecois
Foreign Affairs (9% Weight)
A major difference in foreign policy planks – and one that received no visible discussion during the campaign – is the parties’ plans for the North American Free Trade Agreement, and the agreement’s eleventh chapter in particular. Chapter Eleven allows corporations to sue government for unfair subsidy of local industries, which was innovative in that it replaced a system in which only governments could challenge one another on such matters. The New Democrats and Bloc believe that Chapter Eleven stands in the way of legitimate government subsidy of services, while the Liberals and Conservatives consider it appropriate to protect private interests from government machinations. To me, the real question is not whether or not it is proper to allow corporations to sue governments (it is), but rather on what basis they can do so. Scrapping Chapter Eleven, as proposed by the New Democrats and Bloc, would effectively neuter many other provisions of the deal – which is probably the point.
On the other hand, the New Democrats and the Bloc are the two parties who most accept the principle of multilateralism on non-economic matters, which appeals to me – we’ll need to see multilateral action on the part of first world states if we are to reverse the trend of third world exploitation. On that note, the Bloc and the New Democrats are also the most vocal about increasing foreign aid. They’re pretty clearly going to be ranked one-two in my books, Chapter Eleven notwithstanding. I give the edge to the Bloc mostly because the New Democrats are proposing to play the punitive tarriffs game with the United States on the softwood lumber issue, a tactic which is obsolete by, oh, let’s say about half a century. On the other hand, the Bloc proposes to give Québec greater involvement in international affairs, which just goes to show that it’s as hypocritical on division of powers questions as any of the other parties.
Of the remaining three parties, the Greens are easy last place picks for their sparse and selectively specific foreign policy (“Suport self-governance for Tibetan and Kurdish peoples”). Their plan to, essentially, subordinate the Canadian military to the United Nations also does not meet with my approval.
I’ll take the Liberals and their poorly developed platform (basically, they say “elect us and we’ll continue working on deciding our foreign policy) over the Conservatives, to whom I am just plain ideologically opposed (revisionist history aside, the Conservatives were proposing participation in the invasion of Iraq on the sole basis that it would be good for relations with the Americans. That’s a pretty shitty basis on which to set a foreign policy.).
1. Bloc Québecois
2. New Democratic Party
3. Liberal Party
4. Conservative Party
5. Green Party
Parliamentary Reform (9% Weight)
The major issue here appears to be the question of free votes, which I will outright ignore on the basis that nobody has yet satisfactorily explained to me how existing votes are somehow not “free”. Thus, the New Democrats escape my wrath for planning on forcing their MPs to toe the line on issues like gay marriage just because there is no way that they *can* force their MPs to toe the line. In fact, as the only party (as far as know) to support outright Senate abolition, they rank first (though, for what it’s worth, the NDP would be no more able to abolish the Senate if it had a majority government than it would be able to force its MPs to vote as it saw fit – this is a blatant double standard. Deal with it).
The Conservatives plan on appointing people elected in provincial elections to the Senate, which is a terrible idea, since it will give the body pretend legitimacy, and activate it. This will hinder efforts at abolition, which are clearly good. On the other hand, the Conservatives also propose beefing up the Auditor General’s office, which would be a very good thing.
The pickings as far as the rest of the parties go are pretty slim. The Liberals, predictably, bring nothing to the table, which is still preferable to the Bloc’s promise to let the positions of its MPs be dictated by unanimous votes in the Québec Assemblé National. The Greens take third by default, then, since they have some decent proposals – among them increasing the transparency of ministerial and deputy ministerial expense reports. Their proposed citizens registry, which would allow citizens to receive electronic updates of Parliament’s decisions on issues about which they care, is intriguing, but probably ultimately pointless (I mean, that’s why we have blogs, right?). Their proposal to subject newly elected MPs to mandatory ethics training is also dumb.
In short, real proposals for parliamentary reform are scarce in this election, which is a shame given all of the ink the cause has been given over the past months.
1. New Democratic Party
2. Conservative Party
3. Green Party
4. Liberal Party
5. Bloc Québecois
Electoral Reform (9% Weight)
As previously noted, proportional representation is a terrible idea, and both the New Democrats and the Greens support it, which costs them in my estimation. The Green Party redeems itself somewhat through its support for fixed election dates (fixed election dates are pretty incompatible with the parliamentary system, but the parliamentary system is fundamentally undemocratic, and fixed election dates mitigate this, so I support them).
The Conservatives also support fixed election dates, and do not support proportional representation, which is enough to put them ahead of both the New Democrats and the Greens. Throw in the fact that they want to end all corporate and union donations to political parties and eliminate the forced $1.75 subsidy that goes along with a vote, and they’re miles ahead of any of the competition, though I do object to their proposal to put Elections Canada in control of party nomination processes on the basis that it further legitimizes a process that we ought not to be legitimizing.
Neither the Bloc nor the Liberals bring anything to the table, making them only slightly better than the New Democrats in my estimation. The rankings, then:
1. Conservative Party
2. Green Party
3. Bloc Québecois
3. Liberal Party
5. New Democratic Party
Law and Order (9% Weight)
Nowhere, except maybe in the area of gay marriage, are my philosophical differences with the Conservative Party more on display than they are in this section. The Conservatives want to repeal the Faint Hope clause, abolish conditional sentences for serious crimes, forbid prisoners in federal institutions from voting in federal elections, and develop child pornography legislation that is fundamentally at odds with freedom of expression (and not in a fashion mitigated by the Harm Principle). The Conservatives have a detailed and comprehensive approach to law and order issues, and I hate it, so I’m ranking them last (despite the fact that they’re the only party promising to scrap the gun registry).
The Liberals, once again, have very little to say, mostly defending their past moves, such as the creation of the sex offender registry and the establishment of roadside testing to determine if drivers are under the influence of drugs. Both are good moves, but they’re also both moves that have already been made. Sadly, this complete lack of effort is still enough to put the Liberals ahead of the Bloc, which doesn’t have much beyond a suggestion that Québec be exempted from the new young offenders law.
Hippy that I am, my two favourite parties in this section are the New Democrats and the Greens, with both having essentially identical platgforms supporting restorative justice and safe injection sites. There are differences between the platforms, but this is my last decision, and I’m tired, so I’m tying them for first.
1. Green Party
1. New Democratic Party
3. Liberal Party
4. Bloc Québecois
5. Conservative Party
The Final Grades
1. New Democratic Party – 78.8% (B)
2. Green Party – 68.4% (C)
3. Bloc Québecois – 54.2% (D)
4. Conservative Party – 48.0% (F)
5. Liberal Party – 28.2% (F)
Make of that what you will. Me, I’m voting on the basis of the local candidate.
