Wayne Easter explains why the Liberals like bill C51

This is an email a friend got this week.  I explains why the Liberals think the new powers in C51 are a good idea for Canada
____________________________________________________________________

From: "wayne easter" <wayne.easter@parl.gc.ca>
To:  
Sent: Wednesday, May 13, 2015 9:11:18 AM
Subject: RE: the vote today on C-51

Dear Mr.  

Thank you for taking the time to share your opinion on Bill C-51, the Government’s Anti-Terrorism Act.

The Liberal Party of Canada is voting in favour of Bill C-51 because it contains significant measures that will keep Canadians safe. We welcome the measures that (1) lower the threshold for preventative arrests, (2) expand the no-fly list, and (3) allow for greater and more coordinated information sharing between government departments and agencies involved in security matters.

Experts, including witnesses from the House of Commons Public Safety Committee, agree that these measures are necessary to ensure Canadians’ collective security. Without collective security, the individual freedoms we cherish as Canadians cannot exist. This truth is supported by the great majority of witnesses presenting before the House of Commons Public Safety Committee, who, while raising concerns about civil liberties, also recognized the need for additional security measures during these times. 

We understand Canadians’ concerns regarding oversight and accountability for this bill.  Liberals know that if a government asks its citizens to give up even a small part of their liberty, they must ensure that there are legislated transparency and accountability safeguards so that these powers are not abused.

That is why we tried to work with the Conservatives to make this bill better, proposing amendments that balance security and civil liberties based on conversations with Canadians like you. These measures are found in legislation crafted by a Liberal government in response to heightened international security following 9/11 and are similar to measures that are standard internationally.

Following the C-51 committee process, the Government submitted the following amendments that address the issues raised in amendments put forward by the Liberal Party of Canada:

• Remove the word "lawful" prior to “advocacy”/ “protest”, so that legitimate forms of demonstration are not captured under this legislation;
• Narrow the scope of information sharing from “with any person for any purpose”‎ to 17 government departments and agencies, therefore restricting the possibility for abuse; and
• Limit and clarify the Minister’s intervention powers over Canadian airlines.

Further, due to public pressure the government clarified in law that CSIS is not a police agency and has no power of arrest.

These were needed and welcomed changes, but not enough. Canada is the only nation of its kind without national security oversight being carried out by parliamentarians. If the Harper Government will not act responsibly and legislate transparency and accountability measures into this bill, then the Liberal Party of Canada is committed to presenting these proposals as part of our platform in the upcoming federal election.

We also know that Canada’s response to terrorism goes far beyond legislative measure alone; it must include a robust plan for preventing radicalization before it takes root. This means that our security agencies must be adequately resourced so that they can carry out these new tasks required of them.

Thank you again for taking the time to share your opinion. It is through dialogue with Canadians like you that we can continue to ensure that the policies we support and create are representative of the values and needs of Canadians.

Sincerely,

WE

Wayne Easter, P.C.

MP for Malpeque

If you can not vote for yourself why should be allowed to run?

I think a simple change in our democracy is to require everyone that runs to be able to vote for themselves.

Right now there is no requirement to run and be on the voters list.  In BC you can choose to run in any local election around the province.   Provincially and federally a candidate does not need to live in the riding where they live.   In all three cases, there is nothing that I can see that requires someone to be registered to vote.

Meanwhile the Senate of Canada, that insult to democracy, does at least require a senator to be a resident of the province they are representing.  

It feels fundamentally wrong to me to have a place represented by someone that is a local voter.  It should be the first requirement to run as a candidate that you are a locally registered voter.  

I know some people will say something like:

 "If the people do not like that the candidate is from elsewhere they do not have to vote for them.   Letting people run elsewhere allows for better people to be elected."  

If residency does not matter, why bother with restricting elections to citizens?  Open it up to everyone and  you can get the best people in the world to run.

I feel strongly about this.  It is a change that needs to happen.

The Next Leader of the BC NDP, another middle aged university educated white man?

As a member of the middle aged university educated white male tribe it guess it should be heartening to me so see that realistically this tribe will once again be the source of all the serious leadership candidates for the BC NDP.   The problem is not just with the NDP but with all politics within Canada and it is not fair of my to pick on them from the same failing all parties suffer.  The NDP leadership really speaks to an ongoing problem in politics when such a small tribe of people retain so much of the power.

I know this is not a news flash, but I had expected things to change faster than they have.   I think it is important for people to understand how small the group is from which most of our political leaders come from.

There were 757,045 middle age men in BC as of 2011 of which 75% of them are white and 30% university education leaving us with 170,000 men from this this tribe.  This is only 3.9% of the population of BC.

Yes, realistically the leader of a political party is going to be middle aged and maybe we should only look at middle aged people.  When we account for that the percentage that comes from the "power tribe" is still just 8.9%.

As a member of the middle aged white men with university education, I like most of us do not feel like I have any easier a path to power.  Most of the 170,000 of us are not in positions where we could realistically be elected as MLA or MP and certainly not within the crowd that has a chance to lead a major political party.  The reality is that most of the political leadership is from the richest 1/5th of the population.  The main political class comes from a small group of 34,000 people in BC.

It is not good for the political process when the core of the political class comes from such a small part of the population.   We elected MLAs as representatives of people but the MLAs are not representative of the population.  How can we govern well when so many of the people in power have no personal connection to the reality of the most of the population?  The lack of lived experience will always handicap the political class from making the best decisions.

How do we change the world of politics and have a broader set of people in the leadership?   How do we make it possible for a early 30s barista living under the poverty line with kids to become a political leader?   There are intelligent and capable young women working two and three jobs to make ends meet who are as able to lead in politics as the leaders we have now but there is no path to how they can get into power.

Maybe the time has come to think outside of the box.  We need a fair and democratic mechanism that will represent the people better.  Maybe we need a second house of people selected at random from around the province, a jury like structure to keep the elected house in line?  A jury is a legitimate and accepted form of democracy.   I would much prefer this any system of quotas.

Whatever the solution is, we do have to do something different because the status quo has been a failure.

Andrew Coyne 'The Alarming State of Canada's Democracy' the Merv Leitch QC lecture at the U of A law school Nov 4th 2013.

If democracy matters to you, this is very much worth watching

Decriminalization Petition in BC

There are only 26 days left in Sensible BC's petition drive to get a referendum in BC to decriminalize marijuana.  I suspect they are going to fall short, which is effectively what Dana Larsen said on Global.

I have no idea how well they are doing in getting the signatures they need.   They need to gather 10% of the eligible voters in each riding in the province.   The bar is not an easy one to achieve but it is also not outside the realm of possible.   They need to achieve 316,554 signatures which is close to 3,500 per day.  They have 4,061 canvassers signed up as of today, which means if each canvasser can get 100 signatures they have a chance of succeeding.

The campaign seems weaker than I expected.   I do not get any sense there is a lot of strong organization.

In the Anti-HST petition drive there were regular updates on how the campaign was doing but I am not hearing any from Sensible BC.   In the Anti-HST petition drive I had numerous chances to sign, in this petition drive I have seen one canvasser at a strip mall and I think someone came to the house.  For the Anti-HST petition I was asked several times to help even though I was very much for the HST, in this petition I have not had people come ask me to help and I even offered, sort of.  By this point in the Anti-HST petition there were about 6,500 registered canvassers as compared to 4,061 Sensible BC has.

For me the issue is not a crucial one and I have a busy life.   I do not have the time to volunteer a lot of hours on the petition drive, but the lack of any sense of urgency about the petition is not making the case that I am needed.   From the start I have not seen the local organizing that would be needed to make the campaign a success.   I do not see anything on the group website about a big push at the end.  

I also may hang out with a crowd that is not engaged with the issue, but knowing who a number of the important people are in Sensible BC, this seems unlikely to me.

So can it succeed?

Anti-HST petition had to collect 299,011 signatures and managed to collect 557,383 valid signatures and 156,500 invalid ones.   With about 6,556 registered canvassers they averaged about 85 valid signatures each.

We have had two other significant initiative campaigns in BC:
In 2002 there was an initiative campaign to try and get a form of proportional representation in BC.  It had 4,002 registered canvassers but only managed to collect 98,165 signatures which were not verified.   This is only about 25 signatures per canvasser.

In 1996 there was an initiative campaign to end the bear hunt.  In this one 1,774 registered canvassers collected 88,357 unverified signatures or about 50 per registered canvassers

In both these cases I seem to remember the campaign being clear it was not going to succeed and people sort of stopped trying.   I believe not all the signature seats were turned in so the counts may be low.   I also know that organizationally both those campaigns were much weaker than they should have been.

If Sensible BC can achieve 85 valid signatures per registered canvasser, they would be at 345,185, which is more than 10% of the whole province, but they have to achieve that in all 85 ridings.    I suspect that there would be ridings where 10% was not reached if only 345,185 signatures were collected.

If the signature rejection rate of the Anti-HST petition is broadly realistic, then Sensible BC needs to collect more like 400,000 signatures to allow for one in five being invalid.  That would be with an even distribution.  It seems to me that they are likely not going to get to their goal

What I would like to know from Sensible BC is what are the counts in the various ridings?  Have they managed to get more than 10% in any ridings?  Have they managed to get more than 12.5% in any ridings, which I see as the bare minimum needed to allow for errors?  Do that have a good start everywhere or not?

I hope enough signatures are collected though I am pessimistic.  I am still willing to go out and collect some signatures, but I suspect that in Victoria Swan Lake they have managed to collect more than enough signatures.

The Proposals for Reform of the Legislature by Simpson, Huntingdon and Van Dongen

Bob Simpson, Vicki Huntingdon and John Van Dongen today released their proposals for democratic reform in BC.  If the NDP and Liberals do not adopt them they do not deserve to be elected in May.

• Move the fixed election date to the first Tuesday of October
• Ban corporate and union donations and only allow BC residents to contribute money
• Party leadership contests should be run by Elections BC
• Elect the speaker of the house by secret ballot
• Empower Legislative Committees
• Free votes in the Legislature   

I think all of them are good ideas and I can not see any good reason why any of these proposals should be opposed.   What I expect the Liberals and NDP to do with them is to ignore them and hope that they will go away.   If we do not hear from the Premier and Adrian Dix within a couple of days that they agree with the changes I can only assume that they do not want the changes.

One reason neither the government nor the official opposition will talk about these proposals is because political parties have little or no interest in any improvements to our democratic system.   All political parties should put democratic reforms ahead of the interests of the political party but I have no expectation of this happening.  Fundamentally, if the Liberals or the NDP do not embrace these changes neither party deserves to be elected.  Voting for either party is a vote against reform.

Personally I think we need a lot more changes than what these three MLAs have proposed.   As an example we need to see the power of the premier dramatically weakened.

Show your support for the changes by liking them on Facebook

Bill M-209 2011 - Election Finance Amendment Act, 2011

I meant to write about this AGES ago as this is a change I very much believe in.

Bob Simpson, independent MLA for Cariboo North,  introduced in October a private members bill to change the Elections Act to restrict who can donate to political campaigns in BC.

His bill makes a fundamental change to who can contribute to political campaigns in BC.   The private member's bill restricts donations to people that are registered voters in BC.   This means no donations from businesses, unions, non-profits, immigrants, foreigners, people elsewhere in Canada or youth.  It restricts donations to people that can actually vote in BC elections.

I am a big fan of a change like this.   I do not think any person or entity that is not allowed to vote in the election should be allowed to give money in the election.   If you are not a registered voter, the election is none of your business.  Elections are only for registered voters in BC.

This change would move BC in line with the law in Quebec.

I doubt the bill will go anywhere, it will simply fade away like the vast majority of private member's bills but it is nice to see it come forward.  I have a faint hope the current government might consider it, I have no expectation the NDP will support the idea.  At this point there is no date or mention of when the bill might come to a second reading.

Bob Simpson also brought forward M205-2011 - Fall Fixed Election Act, 2011 in November, which would alter the BC Constitution to move the fixed election date to the second Tuesday in October.  I think this is a much better date for elections to happen in BC other than as it is now in May.

Federal parties will deny BC, Alberta and Ontario better representation

I just read this in the Globe and Mail that bill C-12 has been dropped.   The bill would have added 30 more seats to the House of Commons, 18 in Ontario, 7 in BC and 5 in Alberta.    Without these seats, there is a growing undemocratic nature of our House of Commons in Canada.

BC and Alberta have more people than Quebec but have fewer seats.   This is the first time in Canadian history that two provinces with more people have had fewer MPs than one with fewer people.

There is no justification for ongoing electoral discrimination against people in BC, Alberta and Ontario.   The current formula entrenches inequity without justification.    There is no justification why some provinces should have smaller populations per riding than others.   Section 3 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms within the constitution makes it clear that you can not allow one province to have more MPs than another one unless they hit the senate clause limit.  

The courts have said for geographic reasons there are special circumstances in which there can be a lower population riding, but it never said that a long term systemic discrimination against some provinces is reasonable.

Entrenching an unfair distribution of MPs in Canada is also clearly in contravention of section 15 of the Charter and Rights and Freedoms.  We are being discriminated against as a definable group.

Am I pissed off?   Yes, very much so.    It is patently unfair that some people are given more political power than others in this country

Labor in Australia proposes a Citizens Assembly on Climate Change

Australian PM Julia Gillard is proposing a Citizens Assembly to tackle the issue of climate change.  This came about almost a month ago in Australia during their election campaign, I was unaware of this promise until today.

I am very happy to see a politician suggesting using a Citizens Assembly to deal with an issue, though I am not certain climate change is that work well.  The response has not been good, the majority of the public is opposed.    The non profit sector seems to think the process is a way for the government to avoid the issue.

I will be interested to see to if Labor will go forward this if they win the election, as of this week the PM is still saying she will go ahead with the idea.   In the election at this point it looks like Labor will just manage to win the election.

The time is now to push for democracy in the Middle East

This is my column for 24 hours this week:

Once more lives have been needlessly lost in the Middle East This is happening while people in the Canada express strong opinions about Israel in this conflict without condemning the much worse behaviors of the Arabic countries.

The whole approach of using the flotilla to try and goad the Israeli state into a reaction worked, but this publicity stunt only pours gas on the Arab – Israeli conflict. What did people think would happen if you sail towards Israel when you are told by the government not to approach?

As a nation Israel has no margin for error. It is the only democratic country in the region and the only one that allows freedom of speech, press, assembly and religion. The Israeli military is under civilian control and the government is answerable to the courts. These standards and human rights values are not shared with any of its neighbours and seems to have become the primary reason for opposition to the state of Israel.

Whatever anyone thinks of Israel, it does not excuse the actions of Hamas. Hamas is an islamo-fascist organization that is doing more oppress Palestinian people than anything Israel has ever done. They still call for an end to Israel. Its leaders are not unhappy at the idea of exterminating all the Jews.

The blockade is not a random thing, it is in place because Hamas will not renounce violence, recognize Israel and accept the agreements the Palestinian government had signed. This is not only an Israeli blockade but Egyptian as well. No matter what international law experts say about the blockade, for Israel there is a fundamental fear of survival.

Life under in Gaza under Hamas is a horror and not primarily because of the blockade. It is hard to get real first hand reports from Gaza because Hamas will not allow a free media. Gaza is one of the worst places on earth for basic human rights freedom. Anyone that disagrees with Hamas, or their invented version of Islam, has been either killed or forced to flee.

While all this goes on, there are ongoing rockets being launched at Israel from Gaza resulting in air strikes by Israel trying to stop the rockets. No one seems to calling for an international investigation of why Hamas will not stop launching rockets into Israel.

Ultimately holding Israel to account for their actions this week is right, but at the same time as Syria, Egypt, Hamas, Saudi Arabia and other countries and groups in the Middle East have to be held to account for their ongoing actions. For too long there has been a double standard in the Middle East conflict with only Israel expected to respect human rights, this needs to come to an end. We need an era where the focus is on the basic human rights of democracy, freedom of the press, and freedom of religion in all Arabic countries. Once the Arabic people are freed from tyranny, the conflict in the Middle East will end.

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Added a few hours later.

Here is a link to what Terry Glavin has to say on the situation

Using Trade to further Democracy

I have been thinking about the concept of trade and how open a country is, how free the society is and wondering why how one could use trade to encourage more democracy.

Is being a dictatorship an unfair trade advantage?   I believe it is and should be treated as such.   The primary reason I take this opinion is that without a democracy, there is no fundamental rule of law and no fundamental way to enforce contracts or regulations.   It is also unfair to trade when a group of self imposed rulers can not only ignore the public will, but can actively harass, suppress, and oppress people that speak out against the people in power.

I come from the belief that all governments have to come from the popular will of the people and that without this they are no more a government than a biker gang, the mafia or other criminal groups.   Laws only have a meaning if you have a democratic judiciary, this means courts that are independent of the elected government.  A democracy also needs an independent media and a free flow information.

Within a dictatorship contract law can not be enforced because there is no independence of the judges or any free media.   Without either the people in power decide what contract is honoured and what contract is not.   This is a fundamentally unfair trade practice as it does not leave everyone on an even playing field.

If we look to China, we see a group of people holding power that have no mandate from the public.   We see a nation where the public is not allowed to know about opinions contrary to the wishes of the cadre in power.  The  regulations they claim are not enforced unless it is to benefit cronies of gang in power.   China is a dictatorship that uses fear and oppression of the people to ensure that they can sell products to the rest of the world at artificially lower prices.

A country like Iran does not allow a free press, free unions, or an independent justice system.  Why are they allowed to sell products to the rest of the world when it should be obvious that the rulers use repressive force on workers?

There are alternative countries to every dictatorship.   If not China, there is India to trade with.   In fact the developed world should be giving preference to India to reward 63 years of democracy.  In South America there are numerous other options of countries to deal with other Chavezland.  To allow Venezuela to trade with the world without restrictions is unfair to countries that do not allow oppression and theft as a tool of public policy.

The democratic countries of the world have to get serious and set some serious policies to reward free societies and punish dictators.   Using trade is one of the tools that could make a serious difference in the world.   I would love to see Canada overtly express a foreign policy goal of actively promoting democracy in all countries and using whatever tools we have at hand.  It is in our interests to work towards freeing the people of China, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela and other countries.  It is also the morally right thing to do.

Demanding Democracy - A Rant

When are the democracies of the world going to use their weight to demand that all countries hold free and fair elections? The biggest human rights violation in the world is the lack of free and fair elections - every other human right abuse flows from this.

How can you have a free press or freedom of speech if you are not allowed to elected anyone? How can you have a freedom of conscience or religion if you are in a country ruled by people no one chose?

Without a mandate from the people, there is no functional way to have a government that has a legitimacy to rule. Put simply, the rule of law is almost impossible to have when there is no government with a mandate of the people.

I dream of a Canadian federal parliament that puts democracy as the number one human rights issue globally.

I would like to see Canada demand China, North Korea, Cuba, Gaza, Iran, Algeria, Venezuela,and many others to hold free and fair elections now.

Even if you are not interested in the issue of human rights that much, the simply reality is that no two countries with free and fair elections have ever gone to war with each other. Globally democracy is the fundamental solution to war between nations.

If we are to see real change in Central Asia and the Middle East, we have to have the democratic nations help develop democracies in those locations. If Afghanistan can be made democratic and finally pulled out of the hands of the gang leaders that are robbing and terrorizing the people, this will be a strong signal to a dozen other countries.

Iraq has the potential to be first Arabic country to be a free and democratic nation ever. To date the Arabs in the middle east with the most freedom and the only ones with a long term history of being allowed to vote are the ones that are the citizens of Israel. Think about, the Arabs in the middle east that have it the best are the minority in the Jewish dominated country. They also have one of the highest standards of living of any Arabs even though Israel has no resources and the Arabs feel like second class citizens.

In the 1930s the democracies or Europe failed to support each other and we saw the end result in World War 2. The democracies of the world need to become proactive in the Islamic world especially to support the democracies or those people fighting for human rights. The fascistic elements in the Islamic world are working hard to destroy freedom and human rights anywhere they find it.

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.