Thursday, December 27, 2007

Benazir Bhutto

I guess it was only a matter of time. Benazir Bhutto, opposition politician in Pakistan, was assassinated earlier today, December 27, 2007 by a gunman who shot her in the the neck, and then exploded an IED, killing himself and about 2o people around him.

It sort of makes you thankful for the society you live in, not having to worry, for the most part, about such despicable acts of political violence, which have become an almost everyday thing in certain parts of the world, particularly central Asia. You almost expect that its going to happen, particularly in a country like Pakistan, with its unholy mix of Islamic extremism, military rule and general civil unrest.


Bhutto probably represented the best chance the country had for a turn towards stable democracy, but I guess that's too much to ask for in a region of the world that just doesn't seem to want to embrace democracy. I gather, with our "western bias", that our expectations are just too high for countries like Iraq, Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan. This is an argument frequently used to advance the position that our militaries have no business interfering in the region. They just aren't ready, willing or able to embrace democracy in its western form. Human rights? Who needs them, when you can advance your agenda at the butt-end of an AK-47 or at the lit fuse of an improvised explosive device?


The fact that Bhutto was a woman is also of note. Here was someone who had a chance to make history, not only in potentially bringing something remotely resembling democracy to a country that has historically been in a constant taffee-pull between the forces of Islamism and military dictatorship, but also to be a female in a leader in a culture that has subjugated women.


It is, indeed, a sad day for democracy worldwide. (Hey I just heard Gordon Brown use these exact words on the news!)

Sunday, August 19, 2007

Why I can't support the Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform report

This October 15th, Ontarians will be asked in a referendum whether they wish to adopt a "Mixed Member Proportional System (MMP) as a means of electing our provincial legislature and government. Put simply, if adopted Ontarians would be asked to cast two ballots in every subsequent provincial election, which are now held at fixed dates; one vote for their local member and a second one for their political party of choice ("list" candidates). The Ontario Legislature would be made up of 90 local members and 39 list members, whose purpose would be to ensure that a party's popular vote in the election actually reflects their proportion of seats in the provincial parliament. Therefore if a party garners 25% of the popular vote, but only elects 15 members, that party would be allotted 17 of the list members to ensure their entitled 32 seat (25% of 129) composition in the Legislature.

However, there are two important caveats to this proposed restructuring of our electoral system. The first is that a party must garner at least 3% of the popular vote province-wide in order to be eligible for any list seats. The second is that, even if a party's local member composition exceeds their seat entitlement based on percentage of popular vote, they do not lose any seats. For example, if a party earns 45% of the popular vote and wins 70 of the 90 local seats, their overall entitlement including list seats would be 58 out of the 129 in total, based on percentage of popular vote. This party would not have 12 seats taken away; they would keep their 70 seats even though their percentage of seats in the legislature exceeds their percentage of popular vote. These two limitations contribute to many's belief that the proposed changes to our electoral system would be ineffective and perhaps cause more confusion than they are worth.

At the bottom are election data from the last four Ontario elections, taken from the Citizen's Assembly report itself, and which are applied to the proposed MMP scenario. The first three columns are the political parties who won seats, the percentage of vote and the percentage of seats actually won, based on the first past the post system of electing one member per riding. The fourth column represents how the seats would have broken down in a legislature with 90 local seats, as proposed under MMP. The fifth column indicates the number of list seats that would be allocated under MMP, while the sixth indicates the total number of seats in the proposed MMP. The final column suggests the number of seats to which each party would be entitled if the above two restrictions were not in place.

The first thing one notes is that it would be virtually impossible for a party to obtain majority standing in the Ontario Legislature, wherein a party would require a majority of the popular vote province wide. Indeed, the report itself points out that the last time this occurred in Ontario was 1937. The report suggests a bias against majority governments in that they are undemocratic. Unless the actual allocation of seats matches the percentage of popular vote, we somehow have a breach of democratic principles.

However, the application of MMP principles to actual election data shows that there are flaws with the proposed model. In the first place, the elections of 1990 and 2003 are telling, in that both the NDP and Liberals, respectively, benefitted from a gross over-representation of seats based on popular vote, to a point where, under an MMP model, they won more seats than their percentage of popular vote entitled them to (the Conservatives came close in 1995). In the earlier election, Bob Rae's government would have won 51 local seats when, as a function of proportion, they only ought to have had 49. In the latter, Dalton McGuinty's Liberals won 63 with an entitlement of only 59. MMP, in spite of its seemingly dogmatic adherence to the principles of proportionality, can still result in parties "stealing" seats to which they are not proportionally entitled.

What is also telling is the fact that in each of the elections, some of the list seats would not even be allocated! This is a result of the restriction on list seats to those parties who gain more than 3% of the popular vote. The number of unallocated seats ranges from 2 in the last two elections, where independents and other parties garnered 4 and 2 percent of the popular vote, to as many as 6 in 1995, where they earned 6 percent of the vote. In some cases, the winning parties are skimming seats to the detriment of the smaller parties, while in others seats are just being wasted. Overrepresentation of seats certainly occurs with the status quo. However, why would we want to embark upon a course of potential complication and confusion if we are not going to eliminate the unfairness of the allocation of "list" seats? Ultimately, what is the point?

There are those for whom an election at least every five years just isn't democratic enough. Unless every government is a minority one, critics assume that there is something insidious at work. All parties must have their part in the formulation of public policy and if one party has a majority, that is just not possible. It is for these people that MMP is designed to assuage. However, the scenarios foreseen by the don't lend themselves to much of anything different from the status quo.

On page 11 of their report, the Citizens' Assembly asserts that "coalition majority governments" (ostensibly a mixture of two of the main parties, neither of whom has an outright majority on their own) are common under MMP and are both stable and effective. What they don't point out is that such coalitions are possible and common in the current system. Not only that, the ones we have seen recently at the federal level, where Harper's Conservatives have danced alternatively with both the Bloc and the N.D.P., may even be more to the liking of MMP supporters, as they frequently change within the lifetime of a parliament. This is the opposite of what MMP supporters hate most; an unchanging, unflinching monolith of a majority government that can't be moved for at least four years.

What is more strange, and potentially disturbing, is the report's claim that MMP "may actually enhance stability by discouraging abrupt shifts in policy that can occur in the current system when the government changes from one party to another...". Huh? I thought one of the benefits of democracy was that if the public grew tired of a party in power too long, that they could throw the bums out?! It isn't the place of an electoral system to dictate the pace of policy change, but the voters themselves. Many would argue that after eight years of Conservative rule under Harris and Eves (or even five years under Rae and the N.D.P.), incremental change wasn't the order of the day, but a wholesale change in policy direction. That's democracy.

In terms of list seats, those allocated solely on the basis of "topping up" parties who are underrepresented following the allocation of the local seats, there is a potential for problems. As it is proposed, each party would nominate their list candidates and rank them in order of preference from 1 to 39. If, for example, the Conservatives were entitled to 24 of the list seats (as in the 2003 election scenario), then the top 24 on their list would find their way onto the floor of Queen's Park. The Ontario Citizens' Assembly Report seems naively optimistic that the process of selecting and ranking of these 39 candidates for each party will not be problematic, suggesting on page 8 that "voters will be able to assess whether parties created their lists in a fair and transparent way". Thirty-nine politicians. For each party. Recent history suggests that parties have difficulty with transparency in nominating a single candidate in some ridings, if the recent spate of direct party appointments (ie. those without a formal nomination process) is any indication. The often unsavoury business of the party nomination process has the possibility of multiplying exponentially if the 39 list seats are included in a revised electoral format.

All MMP really does is make us feel better about the results being more statistically fair.....to the three established parties. It does precious little for smaller parties, nor will it have much of an effect on how parties cooperate over and above the status quo. If the intention, coupled with the imposition of fixed election dates, is to move us towards a more Americanized system of gridlock and stalemate (what the architects of MMP really mean by "stability"), then perhaps one would consider voting for a system of MMP. For my part, I will stick with the devil I know.

2003 results

% of vote

% of seats

applied to 90 seat legislature of "local" members

allotment of "list" seats

Total number of seats in MMP legislature

Entitlement of seats in MMP legislature (based on % of party vote)

PC

35

23

21

24

45

45

Liberal

46

70

63

0

63

59

NDP

15

7

6

13

19

19

other parties

4

0

0

0

0

5

TOTALS

100

100

90

37

127

128

1999 results

PC

45

57

51

7

58

58

Liberal

40

34

31

21

52

52

NDP

13

9

8

9

17

17

other parties

2

0

0

0

0

3

TOTALS

100

100

90

37

127

130

1995 results

PC

45

63

57

1

58

58

Liberal

31

23

21

19

40

40

NDP

21

13

12

15

27

27

other parties

3

0

0

0

0

4

TOTALS

100

99

90

35

125

129

1990 results

PC

24

15

14

17

31

31

Liberal

32

28

25

16

41

41

NDP

38

57

51

0

51

49

other parties

6

0

0

0

0

8

TOTALS

100

100

90

33

123

129

Sunday, July 22, 2007

Meet Blueberry


If Dinsdale were alive today, he'd be rolling in his greyhound grave! He would be most displeased! Or, maybe not.

After several months of lobbying, I finally gave in and we have adopted "Blueberry", a lovely five year-old rescue Miniature Pinscher. She was rescued from a puppy mill somewhere in Ohio, where she had spent her entire life being bred up the wazoo. Her grossly elongated teets (sp?) are testimony to the number of puppies forced out of her. Apparently, and this may be the case in Canada, they give out kennel licenses in Ohio like they were cereal box toys.

After Blueberry outlived her "usefulness", she was mercifully handed over to a rescue operation, I.M.P.S. (Internet Miniatur Pinscher Society) and found her way to a nice lady in Ottawa, who fostered her. We had been warned that this particular breed was not the best to have around a young child (Liam is approaching his first birthday as I write this!), however we were assured that Blueberry had been exposed to children and seemed alright with them.

We have had Blueberry for about 24 hours, and what a fun full day it has been! Even as I write, he is baying in the background, likely because Cathy has gone out and hasn't returned for a couple of hours. He arrived yesterday with four other dogs who were travelling with the nice lady from Ottawa. Within ten minutes of their arrival, there were four "accidents" on our living room carpet, for which Blueberry was responsible for two! Both number one and number two! Good thing I talked Cathy out of getting a new rug for the living room!

Since then, not a single one! We were concerned, also, about how her first night would be with us. Again, no problems. We (and she) decided that she would sleep between Cathy and I the first night. We put her down between us at about 9:30 p.m. and she didn't make a sound the whole night.

She hasn't eaten too much since arriving, either. We hope that changes once she gets a little more used to her new surroundings. We have Eukanuba in a small dish for her. I swear by this product, as it kept Dinsdale the fit of health for his 11.5 years! Although, it didn't keep the cancer away (sniff!). She has a mildly disconcerting habit of taking bits of the food away from her dish and strewing it across the kitchen floor. We hope she can "unlearn" this habit.

Liam is thrilled. He was the reason I eventually bent and allowed Blueberry into our home. I am still feeling devastated at the loss of Dinsdale and said, initially, that I wanted another year before getting another dog - and another greyhound. However, Liam screeches with delight every time he sees a dog, so we figured now was a good time to get another one. He has tried to gently stroke her on a couple of occasions and Blueberry seems quite tolerant of him. If she isn't interested, she'll simply scurry away (like she does from me on most occasions!). She likes to hide from me under the dining room table. However, when I do manage to get my hands on her, she doesn't offer too much of a protest when I pick her up.

Its been a busy weekend! Between the Tour de France and the British Open on television (Rasmussen still leading, Padraig Harrington over Sergio Garcia in a playoff), and trying desperately to get through he new Harry Potter book before I find out who dies from an outside media source, I have been of somewhat limited help to Cathy in looking after Liam and now Blueberry. But we have the rest of the summer to get her used to her new home.

Just a bit of an editorial for those wanting to get a pet: never mind a puppy or a kitten. There are many, many adult animals that need rescuing just like Blueberry and Dinsdale all those years ago. Only today, there was an article in the Toronto Sun about the fact that the Toronto Humane Society has been overrun with over 1,000 unwanted animals. Contact your local SPCA or Humane Society, or find another rescue organization. They even have breed specific ones, such as the Internet Miniature Pinscher Service or the Greyhound Lovers of Hamilton Wentworth. You won't regret it!