Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - June 06, 2012, Winnipeg, Manitoba C M Y K PAGE A10 EDITORIALS WINNIPEG FREE PRESS, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 6, 2012 Freedom of Trade Liberty of Religion Equality of Civil Rights A 10 COMMENT EDITOR: Gerald Flood 697- 7269 gerald. flood@ freepress. mb. ca winnipegfreepress. com EDITORIAL EDITORIAL T HERE is a fundamentally good reason why the governing NDP has never mustered the temerity to apply for the per- vote taxpayer " allowance" it legislated in 2009. Public optics of grabbing hundreds of thousands of dollars annually from the provincial treasury has dissuaded the NDP government to date from availing itself of the subsidy. Sloughing off the dicey decisions on how to distribute such an allowance to an independent commissioner will not make this offensive subsidy law any more palatable to voters. The NDP has been pushed into appointing a commissioner for the job by its own membership. Last weekend's near revolt at the party's annual general meeting over the issue is just the latest manifestation of a fight that broke out when the party's executive, on the bidding of the government, decided against taking the subsidy, that would have given it some $ 250,000 or more in 2009 and in each year afterward. In that year, the NDP followed the Progressive Conservatives in declining the allowance, which now is based on the number of votes a party received in the previous election. In the legislature, only the Liberals have accepted the per- vote subsidy. Financial disclosure to Elections Manitoba shows that party was hit hardest by the NDP's legislation in 2000 that outlawed corporate and union political contributions. The NDP membership is insulted that the executive refuses to follow a motion first passed last year directing it to apply for the subsidy. New Democrats say that public subsidies are a boon to democracy, encouraging the proliferation and success of smaller parties, but tell that to the Liberals, who have watched their fortunes fall, despite having taken successive per- vote subsidies. Cash also flowed to the Communist Party and the Green Party. The latter party almost doubled its popular support to 2.5 per cent, but neither party came close to electing an MLA. A commissioner, the government says, will be asked to come up with an entirely new formula for awarding the allowance. The formula will have to consider a party's operating and administrative expenses and the costs incurred in complying with the Elections Financing Act, but will not include a party's spending on advertising and polling. This gives a fair amount of power to an individual appointed by the government. It is almost certainly a formula designed to dish out increasing amounts of cash - what party bureaucracy wouldn't grow if its expenses were underwritten in large part by the public treasury? Ultimately, it remains in its very concept as offensive as the original idea, which is that taxpayers should foot yet another bill in the electoral exercise, which is itself increasingly and enormously expensive. The tax system already generously rebates elections expenses to parties and candidates who meet a threshold of support at the polls. This subsidy supplants the fundraising work that political parties once did to support the campaign machines. Putting it now into the hands of an " independent" commissioner to deflect the political heat of a publicly unpopular allowance does not change the fact it turns a treasury held for public service into a trough. The better idea is to scrap the law entirely - as the federal Tories are doing, in phases - and Premier Greg Selinger ought to do just that. D EFENCE Minister Peter MacKay was in Singapore earlier this week for the so- called Shangri- La Dialogue, an annual meeting where the region's security issues are discussed, but a good part of his time was spent in private negotiations for a possible Canadian military base on the island state. Mr. MacKay said a staging base would make it easier to provide humanitarian relief in a region that is frequently hit by natural disasters and to ensure ships can safely navigate the pirate- infested sea lanes. These are fine goals, even for a military as thinly spread as Canada's, but the elephant in the room in Shangri- La was the rapid expansion of China's armed forces. Mr. MacKay acknowledged Ottawa's search for a military hub was also motivated by the desire to support America's so- called pivot to the Pacific as a result of the region's " new power dynamics." The word " pivot" is a euphemism for a fundamental shift in American military power from the Atlantic and other areas to the western Pacific. By 2020, 60 per cent of the U. S. fleet, including the majority of its aircraft carrier groups, will be stationed in the Pacific - a military buildup of historic proportions. The U. S. says it doesn't want the buildup to be interpreted solely as a response to China's own military expansion, but there is no other way to interpret it. The Americans are undoubtedly sincere when they claim they hope they can work jointly with the Chinese to secure prosperity for all, but they are also being realistic and prudent in beefing up their own muscle in the region. China has several territorial claims in the area and has embarked on an aggressive spending program to acquire short- and medium- length ballistic missiles, anti- ship missiles, advanced aircraft, submarines, and other capabilities, including cyberweapons. China, of course, says its aims are defensive, but a military buildup by one major power inevitably leads to a corresponding increase by another. The intent in this case is not to threaten China, but to ensure that no one in the region is intimidated and that disputes are settled peacefully and under international law. Common security can be a basis for economic growth and prosperity, but those benefits are less certain if one power overwhelms the region militarily. Canada is correct to seek a military presence in the region, both to support its principle ally and in recognition of the country's significant interests in the region. W E are volunteers in North Point Douglas. We have mobilized the community, and most of the crack dealers and gang types are gone. In so doing, we also have developed a wonderful network of caring people who call us when they have no one else to call. On a recent, normal day, a 40- year- old woman with FASD was having serious problems and threatening to commit suicide. Chris and I had put up bail for her when she spent 20 days in remand for forgetting her court date and breaching her probation. She normally trusted us but she was so upset there was nothing we could do to calm her down. We finally convinced her to go to her mom's house. In spite of her being really angry, she did and phoned me to say she was at her mom's. While I was talking her down, I went to the house. Her mom invited me in to see the mouse poop. They had been away for four days and came back to find mouse poop everywhere. All their cereal and boxed food was destroyed. The landlord had come and put out a bit of mouse poison but the place was so overrun that the mice just multiplied. The house was clean except for the mouse poop. I noticed the tap was running. Mom said that the landlord refused to fix the tap unless she paid for it. She showed me the bathroom, where the flush on the toilet didn't work and the sink tap ran continually. Again this elderly woman had asked her landlord to fix these things and he refused. Meanwhile, we discovered that the daughter had stolen a friend's pills. These included heart pills, which would be fatal if taken. We called everyone she knew but no one knew where she was. Someone said she had gone shopping. We searched the house but the pills weren't to be found. Well, who do you call when someone has threatened suicide and has enough pills to kill herself and you don't know where she is? The only people we knew who work 24/ 7 are the police. We called, very apologetically, recognizing that the police have serious crime issues to deal with but they are the only game in town. Most social service workers are home tucked into bed. Mom was wondering what she could do. The police came. It was like a needle in a haystack. Where was the girl with enough pills to kill herself? We all hoped she wouldn't, but how would we live with ourselves if we did nothing and she took the pills? While we were waiting for news I sent the information about the mouse poop to the Winnipeg bylaw enforcement department, one of the most effective government departments. We knew within days the landlord would be ordered to fix everything at this elderly woman's apartment. Why do I care? I think I owe it to my wonderful parents who took me to deliver Christmas hampers when I was 10. Addendum: The next day the police found our potential suicide. She was fine. The medications were still missing. The bylaw inspector arrived immediately and the landlord was ordered to get rid of the mice and fix the plumbing. C ANADA will never fulfil Prime Minister Stephen Harper's dream of it becoming an " energy superpower." Superpowers are coherent states capable of national policy making. They're not governed by a toxic combination of provincial autonomists and federal decentralists. Frightened by the fury unleashed in Alberta over the original National Energy Program in the early 1980s, successive federal and provincial governments of all political stripes have avoided even putting the words national and energy together in one sentence. Instead, Alberta Premier Alison Redford is now advocating a " Canadian energy strategy." Her idea was more or less embraced by the western premiers last week. She described it to TVO's Steve Paikin last winter. " The Canada energy strategy is an idea that a lot of people across the country have been talking about for about 18 months," she said. " The idea is our future, we believe, is very much tied to energy, not just the energy we have in Alberta, but the energy we have right across the country. " So for Ontario, I know that Premier ( Dalton) McGuinty is very committed to developing new industrial bases that would rely on renewable technologies. And there's hydro in Quebec and Manitoba. So what I'm saying is that as provinces we need to come together... and have a conversation about how we can work together on infrastructure projects, on research to make sure we're maximizing our energy opportunities as a global player." There's no flesh on those bones, nor much chance there ever will be. Yet even a schoolchild understands any energy strategy in a country as diverse as Canada requires the planning and leadership that can only come from the centre. Canada has one of the richest resource bases on the planet. But Canada is a resource policy black hole. Alone among the world's major industrialized countries, it has no national energy policy. In fact, Ottawa is in the embarrassing position of having no control whatsoever over the development of its energy storehouse. Instead it genuflects to each province's politics or to global corporate interests. When the prime minister calls Canada an energy superpower, he is thinking of Alberta's tarsands and oil exports to China and the U. S. A national power grid and green and alternative energy sources - energy that holds great potential for economic growth and development for all the other provinces besides Alberta, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland - don't interest him. Nor does the environment. So long as Harper is prime minister, there is no hope for alternative energy, federal policy direction, resource sharing or environmental stewardship. The list of abdication of federal leadership grows. This is a prime minister who is keen to remove Ottawa completely from all fields of provincial jurisdiction. His focus is the economy, defence and foreign affairs. He is determined to unravel Canada's social safety net - collective bargaining rights, pensions, employment insurance, equalization and medicare. When he ran for the Conservative leadership in 2004, Harper published a paper entitled Federalism for all Canadians . It advocated turning Canada into a true confederacy. All appointments to the Supreme Court, the Bank of Canada, federal superior courts and major federal agencies were to be drawn from provincial lists. The Senate would be elected. Each province would determine its process. Federalism for all Canadians has not been heard from since. Former senator Eugene Forsey, Canada's foremost parliamentary scholar, painted an uncannily accurate portrait of Canada's current state in a letter published in the Montreal Gazette during the 1979 federal election. National unity, he wrote, " is not just keeping on the map a splash labelled Canada, just keeping a common market, just keeping a league of semi- independent provinces with a central government and Parliament as mere conveniences, to do for the provinces things they cannot do for themselves. " It means keeping a real country, capable of doing real things for real people... Only a real country can maintain unemployment insurance, the old age and disability pensions, hospital insurance, medicare, family allowances and child tax credits. " But the voice of the province- worshipper is loud in the land... If the province- worshippers have their way, there will be no real Canada, just a boneless wonder. The province worshippers are reactionaries. They would turn back the clock 100 years or more. They would make us again a group of colonies, American colonies this time, with a life poor, nasty, brutish and short." Frances Russell is a Winnipeg author and political commentator. Centre of gravity shifts to Pacific Treasury isn't NDP trough Just another ' normal' day in Point Douglas SEL BURROWS ' Province- worshippers' doom real Canada FRANCES RUSSELL A_ 10_ Jun- 06- 12_ FP_ 01. indd A10 6/ 5/ 12 9: 49: 58 PM ;