Archive for the The Chairman’s Corner Category

THE OBAMA LEGACY

On January 13, 2017   /   Blog, News, The Chairman's Corner  

January 2017

President Barack Obama walks from Marine One as he arrive on the South Lawn of the White House, Friday, Feb. 7, 2014, in Washington, as he returns from Michigan. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

President Barack Obama walks from Marine One as he arrive on the South Lawn of the White House, Friday, Feb. 7, 2014, in Washington, as he returns from Michigan. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

With five days left in Barack Obama’s Presidency, everyone, including the President himself, is offering their view of what the legacy of his administration says about a man of whom so many expected so much.  But it is also true that the polarized views of that legacy say a lot about the state of a nation of which the world expects better.

By far the most reviled aspect of the Obama legacy is the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, derisively termed “Obamacare”.  At its root, the intention and effect of Obamacare was straightforward: to provide primary care to the 15 -20 million Americans who did not have access to health benefits by virtue of unemployment or disqualifying pre-existing conditions.  To Canadians that have four generations of experience with socialized medicine, this is a no-brainer.  That it would result in increased costs for all users of the health care system can hardly come as a shock to anyone.  Unemployment is highly correlated with poverty, poverty is highly correlated with poorer general health and people with pre-existing conditions….have pre-existing conditions.  Adding two higher risk groups to the ranks of the insured will raise the costs of primary care.  That the US managed to have the highest per capita health care costs in the world despite this systematic exclusion from primary care of its most vulnerable citizens only highlights the moral bankruptcy of the healthcare system that Obamacare sought to reform.  The willingness of the opponents of the President and Obamacare to ignore this moral question is both notable and disappointing.

Contrast this with Obama’s foreign policy.  While it is clearly the aspect for which he is unrelentingly mocked, the most notable diversion from historical precedence of Obama’s foreign policy was not his arguable isolationism and reluctance to bring American power to bear in global hot spots.  That tradition has deep roots.  Even the many actively interventionist post-WWII administrations that preceded Obama’s consistently met strong domestic opposition.  The innovation that Obama introduced to American foreign adventures was a technological one.  The use of drone technology to effect extra-judicial killing of American and foreign nationals, often with material civilian “collateral damage”, was open and rampant.  That is not to say that its use was not popularly accepted and justified for its expedience.  Indeed, no one questioned the moral justification of the breach of Pakistani sovereignty that was instrumental to the attempted arrest and ultimate execution of Osama Bin Laden.  But the general willingness of Obama supporters to ignore that there is an ambiguity to this practice that just might cede the moral high ground claimed over the terrorists at whom they are directed is, again, both notable and disappointing.

In the context of the popular assessments of these aspects of the legacy of the outgoing administration, it is hard to be surprised that Barack Obama is to be followed by a President without any discernible compass other than an exasperatingly vague promise to ‘Make America Great Again”.  Not surprising; just disappointing.

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PREMATURE EXCLAMATION (and other forms of Electoral Dysfunction)

On December 13, 2016   /   Blog, News, The Chairman's Corner  

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Every man has been there, particularly in our youth.  In the heat of a vigorous election campaign, we get too caught up in the moment and let loose with something that it would have been better to hold onto just a little while longer.  Happily, most of our politicians in general and party leaders in particular are of an age at which it is far more often the case that the greatest electoral challenge they face lies in steeling themselves for the rigours of the campaign.  Not so with Justin Trudeau.  One of the few shortfalls (among the many benefits far too numerous to mention) of having a Prime Minister who is younger in spirit and outlook if not in chronology is a slightly higher susceptibility to the risk of Premature Exclamation.

We all remember the statement if not the moment.  Painfully empathizing with the plight of right-thinking Left-leaning Canadians fearful of splitting their votes in the last election among the two parties of the Left, our Justin boldly announced that the election of 2015 would be the last conducted under the undemocratic “first-past-the-post” rules.  Never again, we were told, would the country be subject to the ideological whims of a party that received a majority of seats and only 39.6% of the popular vote.

Of course that was before Justin’s Liberals sailed to a majority in the 2015 federal election on the strength of …39.5% of the popular vote.  But to their credit, the Liberals did not back down on their pledge.  Following the election, Federal Minister of Democratic Institutions Maryam Monsef quickly announced that she would appoint a Parliamentary Committee to bring forward proposals for the reform of the electoral system.  The problem was that that Committee was to be populated by members representing the federal parties that mirrored the seat count in the House rather than the popular vote in the most recent election.  Howls against this hypocrisy were immediate, as was the step down.  The Committee that delivered their report two weeks ago was indeed populated by members more closely reflecting the relative popular vote among the major parties.  Predictably, the government was less than pleased with their suggestions.

The reality is that there are broadly speaking, only two alternative electoral models.  The most complex and far reaching, with many variants in application, are proportional representation systems.  These systems would enshrine the representation in Parliament of every party receiving a minimum vote count, but would do so at the expense of some element of local representation.   A proportional representation system would, more importantly, also almost ensure that no one-party majority government would ever again arise in Canada.

The more modest alternative system is a ranked ballot system by which voters would rank all of the candidates on their ballot instead of casting a vote for just one.  The lowest polling candidate would be eliminated and his or her votes allocated to the next ranked candidate on each ballot until one candidate achieves a majority of the votes.  This system is used in French presidential elections.  It would eliminate the scourge of vote splitting and would leave our system of local representation entirely intact.  However, given that virtually all Conservative and NDP voters would list the Liberal candidate as the next ranked major party and that Liberal voters would likely be close to an equal split in ranking Conservative and NDP candidates second, it would also virtually ensure that the Liberals would enjoy majority governments in perpetuity.

It is easy to imagine which of these alternatives to “first-past-the post” was dancing in Justin’s head at that moment of his Premature Exclamation.  Sadly, some fantasies are destined to remain the source of private pleasures only.

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The Trump Who DIDN’T Steal Democracy

On November 9, 2016   /   Blog, News, The Chairman's Corner  

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I am bleary-eyed as I write this blog on November 9th.  Like many around the world, I was up until 3:30 EST last night, watching with fascination the unfolding spectacle of the US Presidential election.  Although no one can claim to have confidently predicted the outcome of this historic election, there was no shortage of pundits of all political stripes that were confident that this election, however resolved, was going to discredit democratic politics and weaken even the increasingly tenuous argument that democracy was a system worthy of loyalty, adoption or respect.

The vitriolic divisiveness and absence of substance so evident from both sides in the campaign were, we were frequently reminded, being observed with horror by all around the world who rely upon both the myth and reality of America as a source of stability and inspiration.  Perhaps more troubling was the notion that it was being watched if not stoked with glee by those seemingly poised to exploit for their own global strategic gain the inevitable decline of not only America itself but the popular romantic notion of a robust democracy as the ultimate model for the governance of a society capable of economic progress and social justice.

And at times last night, as the outcome slowly tipped and then flooded toward the improbable candidacy of Donald Trump, it seemed that the worst had happened and all was lost.  As much as even the most optimistic can and should not believe that half of all of the people of the world’s most wealthy nation had intended to ratify misogyny, xenophobia and isolationism, there could be no doubt that that is an element of what they had in fact done.

But then a strange thing happened.  It was entirely like the scene at the end of the Seuss’ classic The Grinch That Stole Christmas, in which the exultant and mean-spirited Grinch stares down upon Whoville on Christmas morning, having stripped the citizens of the gifts and glitz and treats of Christmas.  The scene in Whoville on Christmas morning, and on the streets of America on November 9th, was not one of despair, anger and hopelessness.  Like the Whos who joined hands in song to the spirit of Christmas, both the defeated candidate and the incumbent sitting President expressed their willingness to manage an efficient and effective transition and asked their followers and all citizens to suspend their doubts and extend their best wishes to the new administration.  Even Trump himself found humility and restraint in his acceptance of his mandate.

The magic of elections, like Christmas, does not lie in always getting what you want.  It is the corresponding reassertion of faith in Constitutions and the Rule of Law that constrains, both by term and extent, the exercise of the power of the majority upon all minorities.  It is this act of faith that permits even fundamental political transitions of power to take place without violence.  No one can or should tell anyone that democracy will always deliver the best government.  But even on its worst days, it provides the means to address divisive differences without violence and preserves the hope of all for a better tomorrow.  And for that, even on its worst days, we should all join hands and sing.

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