Dealing with the current global problems

Canada is coming into this "crisis" better prepared than almost any other developed country in the world.

• Our government was paying down debt, not adding to it during good times.
• We have better financial regulations than elsewhere and should not see a collapse of the banking system.
• The demand for our much of our commodities is not going to drop significantly, though the prices have fallen.
• We have both a trade surplus and a current account surplus.
• We have lower interest rates than almost anywhere else
• We have higher rate of labour force participation than elsewhere
  

We are in a position to weather the problems but we will have problems. Ontario and Quebec are much too dependent on the car industry and could take a huge hit if things for GM, Ford and Chrysler are as bad as they might be. Our lumber industry is going to continue to suffer because demand in the US is so low.

What can we do? Making life easier for business will be important. We should not do any sort of direct support of any business sector, but instead reduce the costs for all businesses. We need to reduce taxation on business. We need to make sure TILMA expands across the nation. It is insane that provincial government create trade barriers within Canada. TILMA will allow BC and Alberta to function as a much seamless economic unit for businesses.

The federal government also needs to do everything it can to avoid a deficit. If we are to have tough times, that is the time for government to cut all non essential programs. The federal government needs to ask of EVERYTHING it does "Why are we doing this?" "If we were not doing this at the moment, would we start it?" "Can we justify collecting taxes for this program?" "Can the provinces or private sector do this better?"

There are a lot of things we could cut tomorrow and it would not have a dramatic impact on Canadians.

• The Canadian Forest Service - the provinces already to everything they do, directly support provincial ministries as this would be cheaper to do than the current structure.
• Canada Health - other than a few accountants to send the cheques to the provinces, there is nothing they do that is not done better by the provinces and territories.
• All business support programs - the market chooses much better than government what businesses should work and which should go under. The scope and scale of federal economic development programs is staggering
  
• National Park Service - all the provinces run parks, they have the expertise and staff to operate the national parks, turn them over to the provinces now.
• Stopping paying athletes - why are we providing montly payments to athletes in the first place?
• National Capital Commission - we are paying taxes so that Ottawa/Hull can be nicer and foster Canadian unity????
• National Farm Products Council - what can I say, it is pointless and repeats what the provinces do.
• Policy Research Initiative - a seperate body to do what politcal staff, civil servants and others are already doing. Read their mandate, it will stun you.
  

These are just a few ideas to consider to cut costs. Government can also look at outsourcing a lot more of what it does. There is still more scope for privitization in Canada. Atomic Energy Canada, the Business Development Bank, Canada Post, and Via Rail are a few to mention.

I have avoided mentioning ones that have very strong and vocal support systems.

There is a huge scope to reduce the spending of the federal government. When times are tough, you tighten your belt and you make sure the core things are looked after. I know that many vested interests will scream if the reductions happen, but they must happen.

The best thing the federal government can do is reduce how much money it needs to take from the public and business. If we can reduce the federal tax burden by $30 000 000 000 per year, that is $1000 per Canadian per year. If you can reduce business and personal taxes equally, that is enough money for business to support another 150 000 jobs and to see the average annual family income rise by 3.5%.

Free Ride of Stephen Harper till May 2009

The Liberal Leadership race means that there will be at least three and as many as a dozen Liberal MPs not in Ottawa on a regular basis for the next six months.

As it stands, with the election of Peter Milliken as speaker, Stephen Harper needs 154 votes to pass anything and he has 145. He is nine short. With a number of Liberal MPs on the road with the leadership race, he gets closer and closer to having enough votes to pass legislation without partners.

If the Conservative whip pays attention, there will be numerous chances over this winter for the government to pass things without any of the opposition parties in support.

Post leadership race things should go back to 'normal' unless a number of Liberals retire. The Liberals have a lot of MPs that served numersous terms and are aging. Here is a list of MPs are are close to 60 or older and have been through at least four elections: Wayne Easter, Laurence Macaule, Hedy Fry, Ralph Goodale, Alan Tonks, Derek Lee, John Mackay, Paul Szabo, Joe Volpe, Maria Minna, Stephane Dion, Irwin Coltler, Raymondo Folco, Marecel Proulx. Odds are that almost none of them will run in the next election and many of them will resign before then.

In the 39th parliament the Liberals had 9 MPs resign, four cross the floor and 11 not run in the next election. That is a total of 24 members of a 103 member caucus.

The other party likely to see more people resign is the Bloc. Of the Bloc MPs, 13 of them are over age 60, over a quarter of their caucus. For the Liberals and Conservatives it is 1/5, and the NDP a bit less than that.

In the 39th parliament the BQ had four Mps die or resign, one cross the floor and four not run again - nine out of a caucus of 51.

As government there are not going to be a lot Conservatives resign. The NDP has a fresh caucus, so I see little change happening there.

In one year I see eight MPs resigning, six Liberal and two Bloc. I see four MPs crossing the floor. With the by-elections done and floor crossing, here is where I see the house standings on Dec 31 2009.

• Cons - 146
• Liberals - 71
• Bloc - 47
• NDP - 39
• Ind - 4

Projecting out to summer of 2011

• Cons - 147
• Liberals - 65
• Bloc 46
• NDP - 40
• Ind - 6
• Vacant - 4

An interesting little factiod, in 2006 10 MPs backed Stephane Dion, only four of them are still MPs.

Richard Stewart - New Mayor of Coquitlam

One of the election results that made me happy in the local elections was the win by Richard Stewart in his race for mayor of Coquitlam. Richard has impressed me with his work ethic, his intelligence and his ability to work with people from all over the political spectrum.

In the case of Coquitlam and Richard's election, there is one more interesting point this. Coquitlam is home to Maillardville, a francophone community that was founded in 1908. Richard Stewart speaks French.

Liberal Leadership Race - Only Old White Guys Please

It looks like there are only two serious canidates in the campaign - Michael Ignatieff and Bob Rae. Dominic LeBlanc is running as well, but he not nearly well known enough to win.

The race has no woman it, but this is about par for the course in Canadian politics, we are still short of strong female politicians.

The fact there is not a single serious candidate from the west is a problem for the Liberals. Hedy Fry was in the race last time around but I do not think anyone was taking her seriously.

BC and Alberta will shortly have more seats than Quebec in the federal parliament. As a region it is much more important to Canada than it was even one generation ago. The fact that the Federal Liberals are the number three party in the west is a problem for them. The party needs to focus on this region more than anywhere else if it wants any chance to govern again.

The fact that there are no obvious western candidates for the leadership should scare the party.

If it is only two serious candidates in the race, the leadership will be decided before the convention. The delegate numbers will clearly show who will win before the convention starts. I believe that this person will be Michael Ignatieff.

Rae and Ignatieff are both on the old end of the spectrum to be leader. Both of them are over age 60 and Ignatieff will be a pensioner before the next election. They are more than a decade older then Stephen Harper. Should the Liberals win in 2012, by the end of the first term the Prime Minister would be close to 70.

Choosing old guys who will be leader for one election makes little sense to me. Is this not the time for the party to rebuild itself? Is it not time to choose someone as leader that was born in the 1960s and will be able to stay around as leader for a decade?

Personally I think they should be actively looking for a woman born in the 1960s from the west. Ideally someone like Christy Clark or Patty Sahota would be the sort of person that would break the mold.

I was a teenage Sandalista

The news from Nicaragua keeps getting more and more depressing. Turns out that Daniel Ortega is not a beacon of freedom and liberty as so many of us thought in the 1980s. He is interfering with the local elections in Nicaragua.

He has banned opposition parties, he will not allow election monitors, he has stopped scrutineers from opposition parties from watching the count. Not surprisingly his party won many of the elections including the all important position of Mayor of Managua. The people of the country do not deserve to be treated like this, they have a right to be able to express their political will.

In the 1980s the Sandinista were a beacon of hope for the left that the people could rise up and overthrow a dictator. When Reagen helped create the Contras, it was this plucky nation fighting against one of the most powerful nations on earth. Many people I knew went to Nicaragua to be a "Sandalista". The idea is that the poor people would be empowered.

We rationalized the restriction on freedom of the press or political rights because the country was in a defacto war with the US, but we should have known better.

My disenchantment with Ortega started in the late 1980s and crystallized in October of 1989. In the middle of the people of East Germany trying to free themselves from a brutal dictatorship, Daniel Ortega was an honoured guest at the Party of Socialist Unity 40th anniversary celebrations of the creation of the GDR. I looked at the TV screen and could not understand how he could be there and not in the streets.

In 2006 he was elected president of Nicaragua. He no longer seems to have any ideological beliefs and is only interested in power for himself and the rest of the kleptocracy around him. These latest actions depress me as I wonder how much more hell the people of Nicaragua can go through.

Ortega is in danger of being the same as Samoza.