Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - July 10, 2004, Winnipeg, Manitoba A14 Winnipeg free press saturday july 10, 2004 Freedom of Trade comment editor Terence Moore 697-7044 Liberty of religion Equality of civil rights editorials make policy the priority s Tephen harpers Public ruminations on his future As the Leader of the conservative party of Canada Are Over he has decided to stick with the party and prepare it for the next election. That is a Good thing because the conservative party half baked As it is does not need More uncertainty and disruption. Canada needs the govern ment alternative to the Liberal party to stay on its feet to be a viable option when the next writ is dropped. Key to that is a policy convention that should happen earlier rather than later. In the hours and Days following the june 28 elec Tion or. Harper said his party and his family had to reflect upon the elections outcome ? Many conservatives including the Leader himself were speculating on a Poten tial majority ? and their respective options. This week however reports from his first meeting with the new caucus indicate or. Harper has definite plans for the party. He is said to be widening his inner Circle of advisers and maps to include More of the for Mer progressive conservatives who voted last december to merge with or. Harpers own Canadian Alliance. The existence of two right of Centre parties on the National stage in past elections was fatal to the aspirations of either to form government. The Job of melding the two into a single entity with a Clear platform of fiscal and social poli cies was interrupted when prime minister Paul Martin called an election Only months after the conservatives chose or. Harper As Leader. Or. Harper must now get on with that transformation taking the Best of both former parties ? drawing on the bold fiscal ideas of the Alliance and the moderate social Agenda of the progressive conservatives. In this or. Harpers first Job is to ensure outspoken maps on the party a far right the likes of Randy White and Cheryl Gallant know that their personal positions on controversial issues cannot be allowed to hamstring the party a chances of forming government. This is a difficult Job for a Leader commit Ted to giving maps More Power to represent their constituents but who must nonetheless guide the party to a place on the political spectrum canadians feel comfortable supporting. The first step to enforcing party discipline of course is to set out what the party stands for. This requires a National policy convention which the conservatives have said is set for Early next year. That a too far in the future particularly amid the instability of a minority government. The Martin liberals will not Grant the conservatives time to regroup grow stronger for the next turn at the polls if they Don to have to. Or. Harper should Call a National policy convention Early this fall to set in Ink the party a policies dispelling any confusion in the minds of its own members or the minds of other canadians about what the conservative party stands for. House of cards education minister Peter Bjornson attempted to put a Happy face on the disaster that was the release of the report of the working group on Educa Tion finance. He said the report represented a Good first step toward untangling the Complex Issue of education financing. Well actually it was not a Good first step. Rather it was pretty much a waste of Effort on the part of the members drawn from a dozen organizations. The Central idea of the report that the province should raise the retail sales tax by one Point and use the Money to finance education and provide Relief from property taxes was nixed by the province before the recommendation was published. With its Central pillar gone the whole Structure of the report and its recommendations collapsed like a House of cards. Which was not a bad thing. The fact is the report was doomed by the province from the beginning. It launched the review with too Many stakeholders attempting to fulfil too Many Broad principles and not surprisingly its recommendations in the end amounted to Little More than a glorified version of the status quo. Certainly an increased sales tax could have been used to lower property taxes for education. But the working group could to let go of the idea at the Core of its existence ? that local school boards should continue to Levy property taxes. Having two taxing authorities meant that the existing system of Buck passing would continue unabated. But worse it requires the creation of yet another formula for blending local and provincial revenues that would quickly have turned into Ever increasing spending to meet All the equity issues created by other recommendations to the effect that every student everywhere All the time deserves the same educational opportunities. Better would have been a realization that the Sta Tus quo simply does to work anymore and that the kind of endless tinkering recommended by the working group wont change that. The Only Way to take the Burden of education financing off property while striving for Universal Quality is to require the province pay 100 per cent of education out of general Revenue. It is called responsible government. The Quality of education and the costs should be linked to the government responsible ? the provincial government not school boards. Should the provincial government fail to provide the desired Quality of education or it fails to control or justify costs it can be Defeated and a new government can do better Slough of despond descends it is As if you can already hear the Waters beginning to trickle into the Slough of despond. It has not been a Good week for Winnipeg and a worse one for its downtown. Mayor Sam Katz says the barricades at Portage and main Are not coming Down. Manitoba a senior Liberal my Reg Alcock failed to be encouraging about Federal Money coming quickly for the human rights museum planned for the Forks. The signature development which could do More to put Winnipeg on the International map than anything other than Winnie the Pooh is now in jeopardy. Mayor Katz also cast doubt Over the rapid transit system. Council appeared to scotch plans for a water Park at the old Arena on maroons Road and the Manitoba Marathon decided it would continue to run its annual race in and out of the suburban University of Manitoba rather than from the Brand spanking new its Centre. Meanwhile the City appears to have lost control of the Mosquito problem and the weather remains awful. I feel As though i have Woken up from a Beautiful dream. Winnipeg was doing so Well. Last year mosquitoes seemed a pest of the past the weather was Beautiful and cranes were swing ing around the new Arena. We came into this year. People at last were moving to Manitoba House prices were on the Rise in fact they were going up almost As fast As in the hottest markets across the country. The provincial Economy was forecast to be the Best in Canada. Wow. What a place to live. Now its Back to shaky time. The positive is not quite so positive. Our champions chargers seem less than White their lances a Little dulled. The talk among my friends and colleagues is not so upbeat. That Corner we thought we had left behind is Start ing to look in front of us again and its not just the mosquitoes and the weather. Lets take the barricades first. Of or. Mayor you think the City should stick by agreements it made in the past and the agree ment for the barricades with the property owners at Portage and main lasts until 2019. But who says it cannot be renegotiated and who says that the agreement is even in the interests of the majority of landowners and tenants at Portage and main and Winnipeg Square the downtown development Agency Centre venture has a Legal opinion that says the covenants demanding the barricades can not be enforced. The former mayor Glen Mur Ray saw the removal of the barricades As essential to raising the spirit of downtown and yet you say we Are stuck with them for another 15 years. It is such a different attitude to the one or. Katz took in forcing the building of his own Ball Park. Council did to want it. He was presented with what he thought was a thoroughly bad Deal and went ahead and made it work any Way. The Ball Park is a highlight of downtown but we need More. Portage Avenue remains a dispiriting Street of panhandlers and closed store fronts. Entrances on to Portage from Portage place Are closed and the shop fronts Given Over to unappealing displays and yet the seeds of renewal Are there in the its Centre and the proposed Headquarters for Manitoba Hydro. The kicker is the Symbol of Portage and main. Or. Mayor you could at least study it As you Are studying the rapid transit system. A bus corridor from downtown to the University of Manitoba May not be the Best for the City but sir you Are being too negative too quickly. I suggested to the Manitoba Marathon some years ago that they might consider starting and finishing downtown. The Marathon in the twin cities which i have run starts in the Ball Park in Minneapolis and finishes at the Capitol in St. Paul. A Beautiful River run could be devised from downtown Winnipeg that would help celebrate our downtown. Urban marathons should glory the Urban Environ ment. As a Symbol switching the Start of the Marathon from the University to downtown would have sent a great message but the Deci Sion was won by those who want things to remain the Way they always were. Unfortunately in Winnipeg the Way things were is the Story of decline. I Don to know whether a water Park in the old Arena could have worked. It May be that More retail is a great idea at the Edge of Polo Park but again As a question of Public policy the decision does not inspire. Neither does our politicians response to the Federal govern ments belief that it never promised to match the private dollars raised by the human rights museums supporters. Surely no one seriously considers that the Asper foundation and its backers went ahead with a plan for a museum without believing that All the Federal Money was committed but it is not so much the disappointments and the setbacks that concern and depress its the feeling that the cheering Section is muted the fanfare cancelled. Like or dislike or. Murray like or dislike our former Federal advocate Lloyd Axworthy they raised our expectations. Or. Murray in the last few years helped create a different sense of purpose in Winnipeg. He helped build an image of a City that no longer needed to apologize for itself but instead was a City at the forefront of change. Winnipeg was it seemed at the tipping Point where virtuous change could propel the City to a future it could to have dreamed about until recently. That a the legacy. It needs to be built on. Its up to our leaders to do it. Confidence is a fragile thing. its All in the hands of bureaucrats by Leslie millin after every Federal election a More or less new Cabinet is sworn in and shortly thereafter its members have to eat reality sandwiches and Swallow the fact that their senior Public servants Are in fact running the show. As each minister sits Down at a desk she or he will be faced with a stack of documents described for convenience As a briefing Book. But the purpose is not simply information. In fact it amounts to a set of instructions As to How the minister is to act in the foreseeable future and perhaps beyond. If the minister has a particularly competent set of Public servants the briefing Book will be in two parts a 30-Day Book describing the most urgent matters and a More general Book setting out departmental responsibilities exist ing organizational Structure financial projections continuing and Long term considerations important milestones when something or other absolutely must be done and so Forth. Some ministers or at least their aides will read All this stuff. They May or May not ques Tion it they May or May not understand it. They May or May not care. Experienced ministers will probably consign these books to a suitable shelf with suitable thanks having carefully perused the 30-Day stuff and wait for the direct personal Brief ing. This is when the Deputy minister ? the top Public servant ? and his major subordinates Tell their Boss what is really going to Hap pen. These Days this will be essentially an Oral presentation with the absolute minimum of documentation. Documents ? even those prepared and saved on computer discs and never formally printed out ? can be pried open by the deter mined and knowledgeable under Access to information legislation. Spoken words can to. A ministers aide May make notes ? these Are trickier for the Access experts to Access ? but the Public servants will rely largely on memory. They have been burned too often. Neophyte ministers in this curious and per haps arcane process will come to understand just How Little Power they have. In time they will come to appreciate that the Public Agenda is not determined in caucus or Cabinet com Mittee or in meetings of full Cabinet although it will be confirmed somewhere along that line. Public Agenda is overwhelmingly determined in places that Are at once both More Public and More private restaurants like mama Teresa shy a Henri Berger for the traditionalists or clubs like the Rideau or the Cercle universe Taire. There the Deputy ministers and top Assis Tant Deputy ministers gather and talk. They tend to arrive at a consensus because they Are by nature Given to finding solutions and get Ting along together and in any Case they Are at the top of a powerfully normative system ? if they did not generally agree with their Peers they would to hold their jobs. Bewildered voters be labour the cybernetic Chat world with their endless refrain that politicians say one thing while campaigning and then when in Power do something quite other ? introduce or confirm the goods and ser vices tax for example or sign on to the North american free Trade agreement. Whether or not any person running for office prior to its introduction in 1991 agreed with the get it would have been introduced in any event and pretty much in its existing form. Any minister who questioned it ? and Sheila Copps at least had the guts to do so ? was spit Ting into the wind. Every Deputy minister would have advised that the get was inevitable which was probably True and that the recommended form ? which required every invoice and Cash Register receipt in the country to spell it out ? was equally inevitable. User fees for Public services Are another creation of the senior Public servants. Unlike taxes they can be varied at will. They have no particular relation to the service provided and since these Are monopoly services ? try finding a private supplier of a Legal pass port. Some of the things espoused by the senior Deputy ministers Are beneficial or at least relatively harmless some Are More dire. Yet they tend ultimately to depend on the consensus of unelected Folk mostly male and necessarily of an age who achieved their status by agreeing with each other. Voters frustrated by politicians who ? even in this country ? present themselves As Dis agreeing with each other and thus represent ing alternative ideas should feel a Little sympathy for those who Are elected and face those briefing books. They Don to have much of a Chance. Leslie millin is an editor with the issues network. He was formerly a Federal Public servant. ? 2004 Winnipeg free press a division of up Canadian Rudy Redekop newspapers limited partnership president up Canadian newspapers limited partnership published seven Days a week at 1355 Mountain Avenue Murdoch Davis / publisher Winnipeg free press est 1872 / Winnipeg Tribune est 1890 Winnipeg Manitoba r2x 3b6, pm 697-7000 Nicholas Hirst / editor ;