Post 109—Transparency Revisited

Happy and Unhappy

Transparency is once again an “in” topic.  On the one hand that makes me happy, for it seems governments and their agencies at all levels constantly need to be pushed towards transparency.  So I’m happy that people keep pushing it. On the other hand, it makes me unhappy, for why should governments and their agencies need constant pushing?  Why don’t they just be up front with how they spend the people’s money without being pushed, without needing laws to force them—and then still try to squeak by with all kinds of tricks, legal or otherwise? This makes me not only unhappy, but actually raving mad, angry, and every synonym along this line you can think of. Any official elected or appointed who resists transparency in my book does not deserve to continue in his/her post, let alone be re-elected or re-appointed. It should be the natural thing to do and done automatically without discussion. 

The Vancouver Situation

The latest local development took place in Vancouver’s City Hall last week. Opposition Councilor George Affleck put a motion to the Council asking that the Mayor disclose all of his expenses, including so-called discretionary funds, on a quarterly basis.  He wants the same for the councilors.

It’s a simple matter of yes or no, Affleck argues. Are you going to disclose or not? Why not? he asks. “Be transparent about it. If you think it’s what you need to operate your office, then what’s there to hide? Just let us know and justify it to us.”  Indeed, seems simple doesn’t it?  It should be, of course. On what basis can anyone refuse and still be trusted?  It should not take a motion  or a freedom of information request. It should be out there for anyone to access without any hindrances put in the way.  Alas.

It’s not that the Vancouver City Council does not practice any disclosure.  Most expenses by the councillors are disclosed quarterly, but not those of the Mayor’s office. Nevertheless, however the information was gained, the article discloses some of the Mayor’s spending. Mike Magee, the Mayor’s outgoing chief of staff, indicated that he had approved some of these expenditures and that “they all meet auditing scrutiny.”  I am more than happy to recognize that things are on the up and up. But still, why this hesitancy concerning full, regular and automatic disclosure?  It only arouses suspicion on the part of the tax payer—and the electorate is sure to remember at the crucial time.  (See Matt Robinson, “Councillor pushing mayor to disclose all office expenses,” Vancouver Sun [VS] of April 29, 2016.) 

Fortunately, it turns out that the Mayor is backing Affleck’s motion. He claims pretty well every expenditure is already reported and publicly available. Affleck’s motion will bring “an added layer of transparency to City Hall,” he said.  In spite of this mayoral explanation, “It took a protracted effort by a local journalist to obtain those records under Freedom of Information rules.”  (Anonymous Brief in VS, April 30, 2016, p. A10). I would expect that with this kind of mayoral support, such information will from now on be readily available to anyone. That would be an unusual situation. Maybe the Vancouver City Council will one of these days be featured in Guinness’ Book of World Records? In view of the Mayor’s almost childish eagerness to have Vancouver recognized as a “world-class” city and his strenuous efforts in that direction, one could argue he deserves it.

Now the above issue is mostly, it seems, one of principle. Disclosure is just the right thing to do. There is no indication of massive corruption in Vancouver. I for one, deeply appreciate that. Although I do wonder sometimes about corruption in the relationship between the City Council and Councilors on the one hand and developers on the other hand, but that's another, though related, issue.

The Quebec Situation

But there are other and larger issues of disclosure in other structures in the country where it is more serious, where it is not merely a matter of principle but of resistance to disclosure because of massive fraud. Of course, this has long been a serious problem in the province of Quebec, but I have not followed that very closely. It’s so far removed geographically from where I live here on the West Coast, even though I know that indirectly that affects me also by way of Federal transfers to the provinces of huge sums of money. But in spite of Quebec’s massive fraud, the average citizen there still lives a fairly comfortable life. Brian Lee Crowley, author of the Canadian game changing book Fearful Symmetry, asserts that “If Canada were removed from the equation, in 1953 Quebec’s income per person would have made it the second-richest society in the world after the United States” (p. 69)!  Now who would have ever thought that of our poor abused and mistreated Quebec. 

I suggested above that people will remember such issues at election time. But now I ask, “Will they really?  Michael Den Tandt is much more on top of these things than I am. Speaking of federal budgets, he writes bluntly, “Nobody cares.” He writes that “the most notable about…critical post-mortems of the Trudeau…first budget” is precisely that: “No one cares” (“Liberals hiding budget plans,” VS, April 8, 2016). 

Let’s sleep on that one and take it up from here in Post 110. 

Post 95--Trudeau: Due Diligence? (2)

  

More “Spontaneity” and Populism?

The same issue arose in my mind with respect to the PM’s announcement that his government was going to accept all the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Committee—and, if my memory serves me right—they are up into the 90’s!  Again, that mix of spontaneity and populism.  Again, what seems like a serious lack of due diligence. All 90+ without careful analysis, even before he was enthroned?  I loved and still love the composition of his Cabinet, assuming that the Ministers are all fully qualified, but even that I am beginning to wonder in view of this pattern of spontaneity and populism without due diligence. Did he and his advisers possibly practice ethnic and tribal politics by glad handing Canada’s various races and religions, including recent immigrant arrivals as well as more settled non-Caucasians?  In view of already mentioned instances of seeming spontaneity and populism, the question of due diligence refuses to go away, even though I have no doubt that there are people worthy of cabinet appointments among all of us.  Once you have the suspicion of lack of due diligence, rightly or wrongly, you begin to look for it everywhere. 

Andrew Coyne’s Take

I have great respect for Andrew Coyne, one of Canada’s most prominent and, perhaps, most popular political commentators in both Canadian press and TV.  He recently published an opinion column under the title “Maximum political mileage with minimum thought.” The subtitle was “Promises: After three months in office, Trudeau big on smiles and symbolism but short on substance” (Vancouver Sun, Feb. 6, 2016).  Wow! Coming from Coyne, this is like a bomb shell. Under a picture of a smiling, waving Trudeau, the editor comments “A tendency ‘to announce policy first, then figure out the consequences later’ is the modus operandi of PM Justin Trudeau’s government….” 

In case you haven’t caught on yet, I want it understood that the suspicions I am airing are pre-Coyne. That is to say, they were raised in my mind before I read any commentator on the subject. They popped up immediately I first read about the 25,000. But Coyne strongly confirmed these suspicions and he buttresses them with more facts at his fingertips than I can muster.  So, with your permission, here’s a little more of Andrew’s take. I promise that tomorrow I will move on to another subject.

Apart from their tragic content, namely a seemingly light-hearted playing with the destiny of 34 million plus people, Coyne’s article contains so many pithy and humorous quotables, that I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. Here are some samples about Trudeau’s government:

It is one part not being Stephen Harper, one part symbolic gesture, one part wriggling out of campaign promises, and one part saying yes to everybody. … Get used to it.

For a government that makes much of its…forward-looking credentials, the Trudeau crew are unusually obsessed with digging up the recent past. The platform itself was filled with promises (my colleague, Bill Watson, puts the number at 50) to reverse this or that Conservative initiative.  … What was common to all was their relentless symbolic focus, achieving maximum political mileage for least expense.   

Is it to be supposed that the “evidence-based” party had any research to support its claim to be able to safely admit 25,000… refugees… by December?

Referring to the announcement of a tax increase for high incomers that would precisely offset a tax decrease for the “middle tax bracket,” Coyne asks, “Was there any basis for the party’s claim?” The original $3 billion income from the increase was subsequently whittled down to $1 billion.  Any basis?

Of course not: they gave…about the same amount of thought as Trudeau did in announcing…that he would implement all 94 of (the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s) recommendation. Which is about twice as much thought as he and his advisers gave to the implications of abolishing party caucuses in the Senate. Or, for that matter, than they gave to their pipeline policy.

You have no idea how hard it is for me to refrain from just reproducing Coyne’s entire article, but I have to watch copyright restrictions and may already have transgressed them.  I plead for mercy from the Vancouver Sun on the grounds that I am such a strong advertiser for them apart from being part of that rare breed of remaining loyal paper subscribers.

Coyne does not relent. Two weeks later, he published another article entitled “Liberals fooled by their own image” with the subtitle “Broken promises: This Trudeau government says one thing and does the other at the same time”  (Feb. 20, p. B2), also loaded with gems:  “It is one thing to say one thing and do another in sequence. But to do both at the same time is deeply worrying.”  But be comforted; things are not as bad as they could be. Andrew writes that he would not go as far as therapist Evan Solomon, who describes Trudeau “as a kind of psychopath, alternatively charming (‘the romantic’) and homicide (‘the killer’). I think…he poses no danger to anyone but the economy. Still a number of recent incidents give one pause.” And then comes another litany of examples.

If Andrew does not relent, I will, right here, before the temptation overpowers me. I am no politician, but I do recognize political irresponsibility when I see it, at least this brazen variety of it. And this is not a political column, but I have stated somewhere in the past that social responsibility is one of my trademarks that comes straight out of my Christian convictions. When I see that, whether political or not, I get my dander up high and mighty. I need time to cool off. See you next time.

P.S.--It’s February 28, 2016. Today the announcement was made that Canada received the quota of 25,000 refugees.  

Post 56—Introducing the Metro Vancouver Alliance (MVA)

Douglas Todd of the Vancouver Sun (VS) recently introduced the above Alliance to his readers. Though the Alliance’s address is only about four blocks from my residence, I had not heard of it before. It is my guess very few people had heard of it, but now that Todd has widely publicized the organization, it is my hope that many people will support it and actually join it via whatever organization they belong to. Actually, the Alliance is abundantly celebrated on the internet with many websites devoted to it. Go check it out for yourself, but be sure you include “Vancouver BC” in your search, for it is an international organization with more than 60 similar ones in various countries. 

We humans have a sad history of surrounding ourselves with fences to separate us from other humans. We do this in a myriad ways. We are born within some of these fences as, for example, tribal or national borders that clearly mark us as different from the people on the other side of the border, but often as better than them as well.  We may be born within religious borders that separate us from other religions or even from other denominations within the same religion as, for example, Protestants vs Catholics. Or, even within Protestants such as Reformed against Anabaptists. Or between organizations based on faith and secular ones, though that distinction, popular as it is and representing the common sense of our day, is a secular myth based on secular delusion.  

Now there is nothing wrong with borders per se. I doubt that we can live without them. They represent diversity within the human community; they enable diversity and they protect diversity. Vishal Mangalwadi, an Indian Christian philosopher, argues rather convincingly that national and tribal borders, for example, are willed by God.  In an age of intolerance in my birth country, The Netherlands, Abraham Kuyper argued for a radical political and social pluralism in which each party or grouping has a legitimate place around the table, including your most vociferous opponent, enemy even. I fully endorse that kind of pluralism that makes room for both borders and diversity within and across borders.

Right, there is nothing wrong with borders per se, as long as the people within one set of borders can tolerate, respect and cooperate within another set of borders. And that is precisely the aim of MVA. It is not to erase the borders so much as to encourage the folk on one side of the border to cooperate and improve the society within which the various groups co-exist as neighbours. The MVA includes a fairly wide range of religions, social groupings and labour unions who, after carefully listening to each other, have selected four issues to work on in its catchment area: transit, housing, living wage and social isolation. As a citizen of Metro Van, I can assure you these are indeed hot buttons in our community that seriously need to be addressed. They are not the only ones. If given the chance, I might have selected one or two additional ones, but, heh, just for an extremely diversified group like this to have agreed on four is itself a huge achievement.

I am deeply interested in all four issues, but today will concentrate briefly on the living wage issue. Deborah Littman, introduced by Todd as the “lead organizer” and a Jew, explains that among the “faith communities” interest in this issue “goes back to Catholic social teaching on the value of labour.” (I think she means within Christian faith communities.)  According to Todd,  the group has convinced the Vancouver City Council to “commit to a minimum wage of $20.68 for all its workers and contractors.”  According to Tara Carman in the next issue of VS (June 30, 2015), Mayor Robertson intends to offer a proposal to this effect this very week. MVA plans to be there with a “living wage rally” outside City Hall. Good for them.

Though in principle I fully support such a move, I do hope that those who have to make the final decision will have all the facts at their command and not simply act out of “leftist” idealism. Carman reports that Vancouver’s Fraser Institute has discovered that such a move “reduces employment for low-wage workers by 12-17 per cent.” It may be one thing for governments to pay such wages, but when it is imposed on business, problems arise. “Employers respond by cutting back on jobs, hours, and on-the-job training.” 

Justin Trudeau, the current leader of Canada’s Liberal Party, has just been quoted to insist that environmental issues like oil pipelines should be decided not on basis of idealism so much as on factual evidence (VS, July 2, 2015). I would hope that the final decision on living wage will similarly be based on factual evidence—and I do sincerely hope also that such evidence will indeed support a positive decision, for too many workers and their families make do with wages that simply do not meet their daily needs.  It appears that New Westminster, a member of Metro Vancouver, has already moved in that direction without the negative consequences having showed up so far. That is hopeful.  

Continuing the mixing idea of the last posts, this one has turned out to be yet another example of mixing religions with both the self-described secular community and with "worldly" affairs. Actually, such mixing happens all the time and should happen, for neither religion nor the world thrive when separated from each other.

Thank you, MVA.  I encourage my root church, the Christian Reformed Church, to join the movement as has the other denomination of which I am an “adherent,” the Baptist Church, already. 

This post is based especially on these articles in VS: (1) Todd, “Metro Vancouver Alliance builds bridges and makes things happen,” 29-07-2015; (2) Carman, “$20.68/hr: City looks at paying all staff and contractors a living wage,” 30-07-2015. With thanks to both.