In Canadian politics the leader of a party sets the tone and direction of the political party. When there is no permanent leader the party is adrift and this is not good for Canadian politics.

The Conservatives are not choosing a new leader till May 27th 2017, 11 months from now and more than 18 months after Stephen Harper resigned.

The NDP is waiting even longer. The party will not have a new leader till October 2017 which is almost two years after the last election. The NDP has not even finalized the rules for their leadership race.

Without leaders for the two primary opposition parties there is very little serious parliamentary opposition to the Liberal government. A weak opposition makes for a weak government. Governments need a force within parliament that holds their feet to the fire.

More concerning about the leadership races is that because they are so long there are very few candidates in the race yet. Not only do the parties have no leader, they have no serious candidates to give anyone a sense of where the parties might be headed.

Among the Conservatives the gulf between the potential direcitons for the party are huge. The party could become very libertarian, socially conservative or Trump-like populist.  The Conservatives have three candidates so far but none of are ones I would call serious heavy weights.   The best known is Maxime Bernier and if he were to win the Conservatives would be a very different party than under Harper, it would be tending towards libertarianism.   

Among the NDP the leader will define if the party is a pragmatic social democratic party trying to be government or a significantly left of centre party that is there to raise issues but not govern.  At the moment there is a single candidate in the race, Cheri DiNovo.   If she were to win it would be a move to the left by the NDP.

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

State of Treaty Negotiations - Dead in the Water!

The BC Treaty Commission is back in the news for the first time in a very long time because the BC cabinet would not approve George Abbott as Chief Commissioner even though he was the one suggested for the job by the province.   With the BCTC in the media because of this event there has been commentary about the state of Treaty negotiations in BC but very little of that has been well informed about the reality of what is going on in Treaty negotiations.

Ts'Kw'aylacw Negotiating Team in 1999

The BCTC was created as a tripartite "Keeper of the Process" as part of the 1991 BC Claims Taskforce Report.   The purpose of the Treaty Commission was to make sure each of the parties would take the negotiations seriously.   By 2000 it was clear to everyone that the BCTC was toothless and could do nothing other than mildly scold the parties if someone was not taking the process seriously.   Ultimately the BCTC is little more than giving the negotiations a veneer of non-partisan respectability but can do nothing to make the Feds or the Province seriously negotiate.    The BCTC oversees a Treaty process that has been fundamentally flawed from the start.

Old church on the Leon Creek reserve

Negotiations in the BC Treaty process started in 1993.  After 22 years there have only been four final agreements representing a total of eight Indian Act Bands.    Why have there been so few settlements and why have those taken so long?

The primary reason Treaty negotiations are stalled in BC is because there is a fundamental disagreement between the Crowns and First Nations on Aboriginal title and rights.

First Nations assert their ownership over much of the province and come to the negotiations from the perspective that they would not have to surrender their ownership of the land.    First Nations assumed that by being accepted in the negotiations that this was a tacit recognition by the Crown that there are Aboriginal title and rights held by the First Nation.

Pavilion Lake in the winter

The previous comprehensive claims process required the First Nation to prove what lands they had aboriginal rights to.    It was a costly research process and many First Nations were insulted they had to prove they existed.

The two Crowns come from the perspective that any Aboriginal title or rights not specifically recognized by the courts de facto do not exist and that the Treaty negotiations would replace any possible Aboriginal title and rights with new Treaty rights but since there were not court recognized ownership, any Treaty rights would be an improvement.    The Crown has acted as if the First Nations came with nothing to the table and were mere supplicants seeking government largess.

This fundamental difference has lead to the very different assumptions about how the negotiations would go.   First Nations assumed that each settlement would be unique and based on the title and rights of each First Nation.   The negotiators from the Crown have approached the negotiations with a one size fits all model in which an Indian is worth X in cash and land and that all settlements would be broadly the same in value.

The Chilcotin - no need for Treaty negotiations here

This difference in assumptions means that what First Nations expect is dramatically more than what the Crown is willing to agree to at the table.   For a typical First Nation in BC the scale of the land settlement most likely on offer is only about 10% of what the First Nation is willing to accept.  

Some people on the First Nation side see the approach of the Crowns to the negotiations as settlement through exhaustion - if the talks drag on long enough eventually the First Nations will have to settle for the position of the Crowns.   Certainly that seems to be core to the Federal government negotiation position and has been so for the last 22 years.  

Cynical people would point to the fact that negotiating is cheaper than settling for the Federal government, so why rush to a settlement?

Few First Nations in the BC Treaty Process see the current negotiations as a path towards a settlement.

So why have only two First Nations left the BC Treaty Process if it is not something most First Nations see as a path to a settlement?   Money.    First Nations in BC have few revenue sources that allow them to decide what they will do and how.    The BC Treaty Process comes with loans and grants for the negotiations.   This money can be used to do a lot of the important capacity building work that needs to be done by First Nation governments.  It is also the only money that allows First Nations to do the research needed to know their land better.

Christy Clark was right in saying there have to be fundamental changes to the BC Treaty process.  The charade that are the current negotiations have to come to an end because of the Tsilhqot'in decision.

In June 2014 the Supreme Court of Canada released their decision on Tsilhqot’in Nation v. British Columbia.  With that one decision the courts affirmed that Xeni Gwet'in had ownership of a lot more land than anything that would be possible within the Treaty process.  Not only does Aboriginal Title exist, it exists as First Nations have always said, over a large amount of the land.

The current template that the Crowns are using for the negotiations are no longer viable because First Nations could get control again over a lot more land through the courts.  Not only is the court route more likely to offer a much better settlement, it also faster and much cheaper than the current Treaty negotiations.

It has been almost ten months since the Tsilhqot'in decision which should have marked an end to the BC Treaty process and finally forced the Federal and Provincial Crowns to come to the table with a process to recognize Aboriginal Title in BC.

-------------------------------------------------------
From 1995 to 2002 I worked as a Treaty negotiator for the Ts'Kw'aylcw First Nation.   The First Nation chose to leave the process when it was clear that the governments would only agree to a tiny amount of the land being returned to First Nation control.

Fundamental differences between the US and Canadian Supreme Courts

Canada and the US are two neighbouring countries that both mainly come out the English common law tradition.  Both countries have 9 member Supreme Courts, but the two courts are very different because the countries they are in.

• The Canadian Supreme Court works in two languages as required by law, the decision are in English and French and in theory equal. The US Supreme Court is exclusively English but not required to be so by law though I suspect a decision written in English and Spanish would cause a shitstorm in the US.
• The US Supreme Court has a single member under the age of 60, Canada has 4
• The US Supreme Court has 4 members over the age of 75, Canada has none and has a mandatory retirement age of 75
• Both courts appointed their first women at roughly the same time, the US appointed the first female justice in 1981, Canada in 1982 but what is different is that since then Canada has appointed 9 women in total to the US with only 4
• The US Supreme Court only has 3 women on it, Canada has 4
• The US Supreme Court has had 3 women on it since August 2010,  since September 1999 Canada has never had less than 3 women on the court
• 5 of the US Supreme Court Justices have served more than 20 years, only 1 Canadian has served over 20
• 4 of the US Supreme Court Justices have served less than 10 years, 7 Canadian has served less than 10 years
• Canada has had 85 justices in 139 years, the US has had 112 in 226 years though both courts have had 17 Chief Justices
• Religion matters a lot more to the Americans and people track the religion of the justices, currently they have 6 Catholic and 3 Jewish justices, historically there the US Supreme Court has been overwhelmingly Protestant.   In Canada 3 of the current justices are Jewish, 2 are Catholic and for 4 of them their faith is unknown.  Historically Canada has always had at least 3 Catholic background justices are any given time
• In Canada geography matters, legally 3 justices have to be from the Quebec but by convention 3 are from Ontario, 2 from the west and 1 from Atlantic Canada.  In the US geography does not seem to matter at all with 4 justices born or raised in New York. Six of the current US justices from from the Northeast
• In the last generation Canada has appointed three justices that had never been judges, I am unaware of the last time this happened in the US
• The US Supreme Court is highly politicized and everyone seems to want to paint all the judges as liberals or conservatives.  In Canada the court is very apolitical even though 7 of the current court members were appointed by Stephen Harper
• In the US the names of the justices are very well known to a large part of the population.  In Canada, outside of a small world of academics and legal geeks, virtually no one knows who the justices are
• The US Supreme Court has been working in a well defined legal framework for the last generation, the Canadian Supreme Court has often been interpreting the meaning of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms over the last 30 years and creating the modern legal landscape of Canada 

No Parole for 35 Years and Bill C51 - Solutions to Problems we do not have

I think the prime minister is doing a great job of creating some serious wedge issues in the run up to the October federal election.    Bill C51 and the new extension of time till some convicted of life imprisonment can apply for parole are both changes that will no measurable impact on crime and policing in Canada but will resonate on a populist level with a large part of the population.  

A lot of time will be spent talk about these issues that are marginally relevant to Canada which means much more important issues will be pushed off of the stage.  It will take time away from

The simple reality with terrorism and Canada is that there has been very little of it over the last 25 years, a lot less than from 1966 to 1989.   This is the case not only in Canada but in western Europe as well.   The early 90s IRA bombing campaign in London was intense and ongoing for three years.   The 1970s in Germany and Italy there were the Red Brigades and Baader-Meinhof.  Nothing in the last 15 years compares to these acts.  C51 exists for political purposes only.  It is intended to appeal to a populist irrational fear of Islamic terrorists to get support for the current government.   It is also intended to make the NDP and Liberals look like they like terrorists.   Thankfully the NDP has come out against C51, but the Liberals intend to vote for it and amend it if they form government.  

The issue is an utter non-issue in Canada and could not do anything to stop the most common quasi political acts of violence, those by crazy lone gunmen like the two last October.  C51 is egregious enough that I suspect the majority of Canadians will see it as unfair.  This should benefit the NDP over the Liberals.  Even if a majority thinks it is wrong, enough people have an irrational fear of terrorism that it will help the Conservatives

The other wedge issue is increasing the length of time before someone convicted of first degree murder could apply for parole and the option to allow for consecutive sentences.   Once again, this is not something that there is any need for in Canada and it is only being done for political purposes.  Making these changes could actually end up with more murders getting earlier parole.  

An unintended consequence which could happen is that fewer first degree murder charges may be laid because of the change and there is Canadian data to back this up..   From 1965 to 1971, when Canada still had the death penalty on the books but was not using it, only 6% of people where charged with first degree, 28% second and 65% manslaughter.    From 1977 to 1988 the stats are 38% first, 52% second and only 9% manslaughter.   Assuming the population was acting dramatically different, some of the people charged with manslaughter from 1965 to 1971 had committed crimes that should have warranted first degree charges.

The changes will be popular among many people.  It will push the NDP and Liberals to either agree with the government or look like they are pandering to the worst criminal element of Canada.   It is a lose/lose situation for both parties.  It is the sort of issue that could get the Conservative base more motivated to get out and vote.   The positions taken by the NDP and Liberals will be used as fundraising appeals by the Conservatives.

Canada does not have a problem with terrorism in Canada.  Canada does not have a problem with people convicted of life sentences being released on parole too early.   Canada only has a government playing politics with issues in hopes that the public will be diverted from the much more important bigger issues.
____________________________________________________
My Experience with Terrorism

I lived in London for three years in the early 1990s.    I worked in office off of Oxford Street not far from Tottenham Court Road during a three year long IRA bombing campaign.

I was impacted by a terrorist bombing about once every two weeks.   The main impact was that the Underground was shut down for several hours after most attacks.   When this happened I could not go home because there was no space at all on the buses.  Central London pubs benefited from extra drinking because of commuters were stranded by the IRA.

The bombings were also at times very real.  I did see the police tape for about half a dozen bombings and heard a number more.   The April 10th 1992 bombing of the Baltic Exchange was loud enough that three and half kilometers away we heard it very clearly.   Some hours later that night the A406 Flyover at Staples Corner was bombed.  That bomb was large enough that even 6 kilometers away the window in our bedroom rattled seriously enough to wake us up.

For three years the IRA managed a terrorist act in London almost weekly and the UK government was helpless to stop it.

I raise my experience because the UK has very draconian anti-terrorism laws that did nothing to stop the IRA from this ongoing and serious bombing campaign lasting several years.   You learned to live with bombings unless you were a Catholic from Northern Ireland.    The authorities used the act to specifically target Northern Irish Catholics for harrasment.   I worked with some Catholics and because I was a Canadian after several years they started to tell me the stories of what had happened to their friends and relatives.    All of the stories were of people being arrested and held without access to counsel for days at a time.  They were also not allowed to sleep or eat.   None of them were ever charged for anything.

What the UK showed very well was that restricting freedom not only foes do nothing to combat terrorism, it made the oppressed group more sympathetic towards the terrorists.

There is no need for Bill C51

There is no reason for Bill C51 now when terrorism is dramatically down from the past.  The threat today is much lower than the era of 1966 to the end of the Cold War.

From 1966 to 1989 we had the following (not including crazy one off killings by lone gunmen):

• FLQ - various bombings, two kidnappings of which one ends in a death
• Yugoslavian embassy and one consulate were bombed in 1967
• Anti-Castro terrorists - 10 bombings over 14 years resulting in one death
• Anti-Turkish terrorists - three incidents 1982-1985 with two deaths and one man paralyzed 
• Squamish Five  - three bombings in the early 80s by Bader-Meinhof wannabes.  
• Babbar Khalsa - the Air India bombings in 1985, an attempted assassination in 1986 and and attempted assassination of Tara Singh Hayer in 1988 

Since end of the cold war including the "War on Terror"

• Anti-abortion terrorists - four attempted murders of doctors between 1994 and 2000.  Two clinic fire bombed
• 1998 Tara Singh Hayer is assassinated 
• Islamist terrorists - A 2004 bombing of a Jewish school in Monrtreal, One serious plot in Ontario in 2006.   August 2010 - Misbahuddin Ahmed of Ottawa was arrested of knowingly facilitating a terrorist activity
• Anti-natural gas terrorism - a number of bombings of Encana pipelines in 2008 and 2009
• Quebec Nationalist terrorists bombings in 2000 and 2001 

Lone "gunmen"

• 1984 Denis Lortie tries to kill Rene Levesque but fails though kills three others
• 1984 Three people are killed and 30 wounded when American bombed Montreal's central bus station to protest the pope coming to Canada
• 1989 Charles Yacoub hiujakcs a bus to protest the Syrian invasion of Lebanon
• 1995 attempt to bomb PEI legislature
• 2001 someone sends a hoax anthrax letter to Gordon Campbell
• 2012 Richard Bain tried to assassinate Pauline Marois but failed though killed someone else
• July 1 2013 Canada Day attempt to bomb the BC Legislature
• October 20th 2014 ramming attack against two soldiers by Martin Couture-Rouleau leading to one death
• October 22nd 2014 Michael Zehaf-Bibeau shot and killed soldier Nathan Cirillo in Ottawa 

I separate the lone gunmen because there is they are not part of an organized group and therefore not terrorists.  They also tend to act without any warning.

1966-1989 332 deaths
1990-2015 1 death
Lone Gunmen 9 deaths

The case has not been made for any need for a new law to deal with terrorism since terrorism is declining in Canada.

Regional results from latest EKOS poll

I find this chart from the latest EKOS poll interesting

Overall the regional results have been reasonably consistent over the four polls EKOS has conducted since the new year.   

Clearly Alberta and Saskatchewan will remain strong Conservative and Atlantic Canada Liberal.   Ontario is a serious battle ground.   Though what I find interesting is the four way tie in Quebec and the Liberal lead in BC.

I had not expected to see the four parties tied in Quebec.   The Liberals and Conservatives are at roughly the same levels of support they saw in 2008, the Bloc is in the range of their 2011 results.  The NDP are down from 2011, so what will this mean in Quebec?

Here in BC EKOS keeps having the Liberals in the lead but organizationally on the ground the party is not nearly as evident as their polling numbers would indicate.   I wonder if the Liberal support in BC is weak or are people parking their vote?  One reason I wonder if parking the vote is the case is because 5% of people in BC answered some other party.  Another reason I wonder is because I am not hearing an enthusiastic endorsement of Trudeau in BC.

In BC the support for the Green has been very stable at between 15% and 17% over the four polls.   this is higher than the Liberals achieved in 2011 and only marginally behind their 2008 vote.

 The sample size is in BC is between 400 to 450 so it is large enough to tell us something, I just do not know what it is telling us.

In 2015 it might be time to pay some attention to the Libertarian party

It is eight months till the 2015 federal election and the Libertarian Party already has 45 candidates nominated(1).   In the last 11 elections they have at best managed to nominate 88 candidates in 1988.   45 is already more candidates than what they have run in the six elections.   There could be a chance they will  run a full slate(2) and that would be an important change to the 2015 election and possibly harm the Conservatives.

It will be interesting to see what the impact of a full slate by the Libertarians might have on the election.   The one group of Conservatives, above all others, that Stephen Harper has disappointed are libertarians.   People had hoped for a secret libertarian agenda once the government had a majority but quickly found out this was not going to happen.

My expectation for the 2015 election is that most libertarians would have decided to stay home or reluctantly voted for the Conservatives.  With a full slate from the Libertarian Party of Canada there is a place for people to protest the status quo and have it reflect their values.

Tim Moen, leader of the Libertarian party

I do not expect with a full slate for the Libertarians to do well enough to place ahead of any of the parties that currently hold seats, but winning between 2% and 4% of the vote nationally is very realistic.   Their impact will be enough that Conservatives will start to worry about vote splitting hurting them.   Their best candidates could get as many as 3,000 votes and that is clearly more than the margin of Conservative victory in many seats in 2011.

Managing to run a full slate is not easy.  Since the 1965 election the Liberals, NDP and Conservatives(3)  have always run a full slate.  In the last 15 election the only new parties to run full slates were the Canadian Alliance in  2000 and the Greens in the last four elections.   If the Libertarians were to manage a full slate, they would be only the third new party to do so in 50 years.

The Green party came onto the national scene in 2004 because of the tireless work of the new leader at the time, Jim Harris.   He managed to organize the Greens well enough for the 2004 election that the party did run a full slate.  If this had not happened the Green Party of Canada would not be what it is today.

Not only have few parties managed to run a full slate, there are only five other parties that have even managed to run more than 100 candidates in the last 50 years.   The Libertarians are already at 45 candidates, I have no doubt they will easily break 100 candidates, but can leader Tim Moen get them close to 338?

If Tim Moen does manage to get the party to a full slate they will become a factor in the election.   As much as I am a vote splitting skeptic(4), the Libertarians could be enough of a factor in close races that they could cost the Harper Conservatives a few seats.

It will be very interesting to see how the Libertarian party plays out in this election.
______________________________________
Some Data
Here is the list of fringe parties that managed to run more than 100 candidates but not a full slate in the last 15 elections

•                         Candidates
• Party         Election Number Percent. % of vote
• Green            2000    111   36.9%     0.81%
• Natural Law      1997    136   45.2%     0.29%
• Natural Law      1993    231   78.3%     0.63% 
• National Party   1993    170   57.6%     1.38% 
• Rhino            1980    121   42.9%     1.01%
• Marxist-Leninist 1980    177   62.7%     0.13%
• Marxist-Leninist 1979    144   51.1%     0.12%
• Marxist-Leninist 1974    104   39.2%     0.17%

Major Parties since 1965 that did not run full slates(5)

• Party     Election   # of Cand.  MPs
• Bloc              2011    75      4
• Bloc              2008    75     49
• Bloc              2006    75     51
• Bloc              2004    75     54
• Bloc              2000    75     38
• Reform            1997   227     60
• Bloc              1997    75     44
• Bloc              1993    75     54
• Reform            1993   207     52
• Reform            1988    72      0
• Social Credit     1980    81      0
• Social Credit     1979   103      6
• Social Credit     1974   152     15
• Social Credit     1972   164     15
• Rall. créd+Socred 1968   104     14+0
• Rall. créd+Socred 1965   163      9+5

NOTES

(1) With 45 candidates nominated, this places the Libertarians ahead of the Greens who have 44 candidates nominated as of today

(2) By full slate I do not mean 100% of the seats, but relatively close, within 10 or so seats of running in all of the seats

(3) By Conservatives I mean the PCs till 2000 and the CPC since 2004 

(4)I think the impact of vote splitting is very much over rated.   In most cases it is not going on and very few seats are won or lost based on it.

(5)  Major meaning they won seats in the election, were holding them or won them in the next one.

We urgently need to add 112 more federal MPs to make representation in Parliament fair

We have a serious problem in Canada when it comes to representation in parliament because right now we are not even close to equality between the people of Canada.    The House of Commons is intended to represent the people of the country equally but this is not what we have in Canada.   Yes, the parliament has been increased to 338 members from 308 but we are still a long way off from equality.

If we were to distribute 338 seats fairly this is what the House of Commons representation

Ontario     129 +8 
Quebec       79 +1 
BC           44 +2 
Alberta      37 +3 
Manitoba     12 -2
Saskatchewan 10 -4
Nova Scotia   9 -2
New Brunswick 8 -2
Newfoundland  5 -2
PEI           2 -2
Territories   3  0

This works out to roughly 100,000 per riding other than in PEI and the North.   While the large provinces do not gain a lot overall, the important change is the drop in MPs from the low population provinces.    

Because of the Senate clause this redistribution can not happen.

If instead we were to have one MP per 75,000 people this is how it would look

Ontario      171 +50 
Quebec       105 +27 
BC            59 +17 
Alberta       49 +15 
Manitoba      16 +2
Saskatchewan  14  0
Nova Scotia   12 +1
New Brunswick 10  0
Newfoundland   7  0
PEI            4  0 - should be 2 but Senate clause raises it to 4
Territories    3  0

We would now have 450 MPs and only PEI would have more MPs than it should.   This is in my opinion the lowest number of MPs we could have have and still retain a fair representation in parliament and not get rid of the Senate clause.

I know that many people will think that adding 112 more MPs is crazy and too much, but it is much better than the status quo.   As long as the Atlantic provinces are wildly over represented in Ottawa it becomes hard for the country to governed well.    If adding 112 MPs is unreasonable to people, the alternative is to get rid of the Senate clause and allowing provinces to lose MPs if their population does not warrant the number they have.

The abolition of the Senate would remove the Senate clause and allow a fairer representation to happen.

Justin Trudeau seems to be against consdering electoral reform

On December 3rd 2014 the House of Commons had vote on a motion from Craig Scott of the NDP about proportional representation and the Liberal leader Justin Trudeau voted against it.   Here is the text of what Trudeau is opposed to:

That, in the opinion of the House: (a) the next federal election should be the last conducted under the current first-past-the-post electoral system which has repeatedly delivered a majority of seats to parties supported by a minority of voters, or under any other winner-take-all electoral system; and (b) a form of mixed-member proportional representation would be the best electoral system for Canada.

In total 276 out of 307 current MPs voted.  All the MPs for the NDP, Greens, Bloc and Forces et Démocratie voted for the motion, all of the Conservative MPs voted against.   The Liberals split with the leader voting against the motion.

What should concern people is that the leader of the Liberals, Justin Trudeau voted against the motion.   It does not give much hope to seeing any change to the electoral system if there are more members of "Team Trudeau" elected.

In total 16 Liberal MPs voted for improving the voting system  14 voted against and five chose not to vote.   Interestingly, three of the five Liberal MPs elected in by-elections sicne 2011 voted against, one did not vote and only one voted for.

Here is how all the Liberal MPs voted: (the year is the first year they were elected)

Liberals Voting for Proportional Representation - 16 MPs 

• Mauril Bélanger (Ottawa—Vanier) 1995
• Carolyn Bennett (St. Paul's) 1997
• Scott Brison (Kings—Hants) 1997 (Lib since 2003)
• Rodger Cuzner (Cape Breton—Canso) 2000
• Stéphane Dion (Saint-Laurent—Cartierville) 1996
• Kirsty Duncan (Etobicoke North) 2008
• Wayne Easter (Malpeque) 1993
• Mark Eyking (Sydney—Victoria) 2000
• Hedy Fry (Vancouver Centre) 1993
• Ted Hsu (Kingston and the Islands) 2011
• John McCallum (Markham—Unionville) 2000
• David McGuinty (Ottawa South) 2004
• John McKay (Scarborough—Guildwood) 1997
• Joyce Murray (Vancouver Quadra) 2008
• Frank Valeriote (Guelph) 2008
• Adam Vaughan (Trinity—Spadina) 2014

Liberals Voting against  Proportional Representation - 14 MPs 

• Gerry Byrne (Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte) 1996
• Emmanuel Dubourg (Bourassa) 2013
• Judy Foote (Random—Burin—St. George's) 2008
• Chrystia Freeland  (Toronto Centre) 2013
• Marc Garneau (Westmount—Ville-Marie)2008
• Ralph Goodale (Wascana) 1993 (was also MP 1974-79)
• Yvonne Jones (Labrador) 2013
• Kevin Lamoureux (Winnipeg North) 2010
• Dominic LeBlanc (Beauséjour) 2000
• Lawrence MacAulay (Cardigan) 1988
• Geoff Regan (Halifax West) 2000 (was also MP 1997-00)
• Francis Scarpaleggia (Lac-Saint-Louis) 2004
• Judy Sgro (York West) 1999
• Justin Trudeau (Papineau) 2008

Liberal MPs that did not vote

• Sean Casey (Charlottetown) 2011
• Arnold Chan (Scarborough—Agincourt) 2014
• Irwin Colter (Mount Royal) 1999
• Scott Simms (Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor) 2004
• Lise St-Denis (Saint-Maurice—Champlain) 2011 (Lib since 2012)

For the record, here is how the independents voted

Independents Voting For

• Maria Mourani (Ahuntsic) (former Bloc, now close to the NDP)
• Manon Perreault (Montcalm) (former NDP)
• Brent Rathgeber (Edmonton—St. Albert) (former Conservative)

Independents Voting Against

• Scott Andrews (Avalon) (former Liberal)
• Massimo Pacetti (Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel) (former Liberal)

Did not vote

• André Bellavance (Richmond—Arthabaska) (former Bloc)
• Sana Hassainia (Verchères—Les Patriotes) (former NDP)

 

Talk of an early federal election

I am hearing from people to the left of the Conservatives about the potential of an early federal election.  I do not think it will happen because I think the risk of trying to call one is too high for the government.  I also do not think it will happen because the winning conditions are not there for the government at this time.

Right now we have a fixed election date within the Elections Act.  To call an early election the Governor General would have to over ride the will of the parliament as set out in the law with a clear reason for an election.

The Federal Court of Appeal heard a case in relation to the calling of the 2008 federal election.  In the end they said the Prime Minister could advise the Governor General to hold an election, what they did not do is say of the Governor General had to take the advice.  

A relevant section of the Federal Appeal Court decision:
But under our constitutional framework and as a matter of law, the Governor General may consider a wide variety of factors in deciding whether to dissolve Parliament and call an election. In this particular case, this may include any matters of constitutional law, any conventions that, in the Governor General’s opinion, may bear upon or determine the matter, Parliament’s will as expressed in subsection 56.1(2), advice from the Prime Minister, and any other appropriate matters

What is makes clear is that it is up to the Governor General to decide if there is a case for an election to held other than on the date set forth in the Elections Act.

Our constitutional and legal framework does allow for some real powers to be exercised by the Governor General or the Lieutenant Governors in the provinces.  It is the decision of the Crown when the election will be held and who will form the government.  In most cases it is clear who will be the government because of the seats each party holds after the election.   But it is not always clear.

• In 1925 the Liberals under Mackenzie King lost the election to the Conservatives but convinced the Governor General to they should stay in power because they could count on the Progressives.   When King lost the support of the Progressives he asked for an election only eight months after the previous one.  The Governor General refused and allowed the largest party in parliament to govern.  This was the King-Byng affair and even though the Governor General acted within all the rules he was supposed to, it became a constitutional crisis.
• In 1929 in Saskatchewan the Liberals won the most seats but the second place Conservatives formed a coalition government with the Progressives even though the Liberals wanted to continue governing.
• In 1941 in BC Liberal premier of BC Duff Pattullo won the most seats but had a minority.   His party wanted to form a coalition with the Conservatives to govern as a majority and the Lieutenant Governor of BC removed him as Premier and appointed John Hart.
• In 1952 in BC Social Credit won a minority government with less support from the public than the CCF.   Social Credit did not have a leader.  Social Credit elected a leader a month after the election but the Lieutenant Governor did not immediately appoint WAC Bennett as premier.   Social Credit had one more seat than the CCF but the CCF argued that they could get the support of MLA Tom Uphill.   WAC showed the LG that Tom Uphill was willing to support Social Credit and on that basis he was sworn in on August 1st 1952
• In 1985 in Ontario the PCs won the most seats but had a minority.   Frank Miller initially tried to govern but lost a vote of non-confidence.  The Liberals then approached the Lieutenant Governor with proof they would have a stable government and they were allowed to govern.

These are some of the examples where the Crown has exercised their reserved powers in formation of a government.

The Crown can also call an election without the advice of first minister.   This happens normally when there is a vote of non-confidence in the house in the government.   Federally this happened in 1979 and 2006 most recently.   There is no do over when this happens, the sitting first minister can ask to try and form another government but in this case the advice of the first minister goes against the will of the parliament and will be refused by the Crown.   The Crown retains the right to call or not call the election but that power is constrained by tradition and constitutional precedence.

People will argue that the 2008 election was called by the PM outside of the fixed election date and that shows the PM still has the power to call an election whenever for any reason.  I do not agree and I think it is a misreading of the Federal Appeal Court decision on the issue.  

I think it was clear to the Governor General that the first Harper government did not have a functional minority government.  When Harper won the 2006 election he was 31 seats short of a majority and could only govern at all with the support of the official opposition or a party opposed to the existence of Canada.  This was not a tenable position for the government.  When David Emerson crossed the floor it was possible for Harper to seek support from the NDP and independent to govern.  Even then the government was a weak one and election was inevitable.  Only a fool of a Governor General would not have granted an election because there was no alternative government possible.

People will than raise the issue of the 2008 prorogation of parliament.  I think the decision of the Governor General at the time was the correct one because not to have done so would have put the country back into an election almost immediately.  

The suggested Liberal-NDP coalition government would have had 114 seats to the Conservatives 143.  This is not a stable government.  Only with the support of the Bloc would they have had enough seats to govern but that then opens up an issue for the Governor General - should the Crown appoint a government that relies on the support of a party that is opposed to the existence of the country?   If the Liberals and NDP had enough seats to have a majority I think it would have been right and appropriate to make them the government but the addition of the Bloc likely ruled this out as an option.

The powers of the Crown are strongly influenced by time and tradition and in Canada over the last ten years this has meant fixed election dates have become the norm where a government has a majority.   In 2008, when Harper called the election, only one fixed election had been held in Canada.     Since then we have had 11 more fixed elections.   No jurisdiction in Canada where the government has had a majority has anyone attempted to call an early election if there was a fixed election date.   This is setting a significant precedence in the country.

So what would happen if a leader of a majority government were to ask for an early election?    The Governor General could say no on the basis of the act which is the will of the parliament which over rides the simple political interests of the Prime Minister.  Also, the government has a working majority and does not need an election to be able to govern.  If the Prime Minister gets a no we have a constitutional crisis.  This constitutional crisis would be a nightmare politically.

To avoid a potential constitutional crisis the Prime Minister needs to either change the act to get rid of the fixed election date or lose a vote of confidence in the parliament, neither of which would play out well in politics.

Federal by-elections by parliament

There have been more by-elections in this parliament than in a long time.  We still have 18 months till the next election but we have already had nine by-elections and are waiting of five more.   It is likely we will see another three to five more vacancies before the next election.

This will be the most by-elections in a parliament we will have had since the 30th parliament from 1974 to 1979.  Minority parliaments tend to have fewer by-elections not only because they are shorter but also because no party wants to lose any MPs when the numbers are close.

Parliament  # of by-elect # by death  Govt
41st 2011-now    14           2       CPC Maj
40th 2008-11      7           0       CPC Min
39th 2006-08      9           1       CPC Min
38th 2004-06      1           1       Lib Min
37th 2000-04     12           0       Lib Maj
36th 1997-00     10           1       Lib Maj
35th 1993-97     10           1       Lib Maj
34th 1988-93      6           2       PC Maj
33rd 1984-88      6           0       PC Maj
32nd 1980-84     12           4       Lib Maj
31st 1979-80      2           1       PC Min
30th 1974-79     25           3       Lib Maj
29th 1972-74      0           0       Lib Min
28th 1968-72     11           5       Lib Maj

Reasons for vacancies
10 run for provincial legislature
9 run for local government
8 death
7 appointed to senate
5 various other political reasons
5 various other personal reasons
4 to take a private sector job
4 retirement
4 illness or family illness
4 appointed ambassador
4 to allow a new leader to run
3 provincial appointment

Female Leaders in Canadian Politics

On November 14th 2013 Canada had six female first ministers, with the PQ election loss last night this is down to two.  If there is an election in Ontario in the near future and the Liberals lose, we will be down to one, Christy Clark in BC.

Even though over the last few years we have had more female leaders of major political parties than ever before in Canada, we have also seen a number of them have to resign or lose office.

• Pauline Marois - lost re-election in Quebec
• Allison Redford - resigned as Alberta premier
• Kathy Dunderdale - resigned as Newfoundland and Labrador Premier 
• Lorraine Michael - Newfoundland and Labrador NDP leader  had a serious caucus revolt in October 2013 and lost two of her five MHAs
• Olive Crane - PEI PC leader was removed as leader by the PC caucus in October 2013
• Eva Aariak - did not win re-election as an MLA in Nunavut, she had already said she did not want a second term as permier
• Carole James - resigned as BC NDP leader January 20th 2011

There are currently 40 political parties represented in the various legislatures of Canada but only nine of they are lead by women.  On November 1st 2013 this was 13.

Current women political party leaders in Canada:

• Christy Clark (Liberal) - premier of BC
• Kathleen Wynne (Liberal) - premier of Ontario
• Danielle Smith (Wildrose) - leader of the official opposition in Alberta
• Elizabeth Hanson (NDP) - leader of the official opposition in Yukon
• Andrea Horwath (NDP) - leader of the 3rd party in Ontario
• Maureen MacDonald (NDP) - interim leader of the 3rd party in Nova Scotia
• Lorraine Michael (NDP) - leader of the third party in Newfoundland
• Elizabeth May (Green) - leader of the fifth party in the House of Commons
• Rana Bokhari (Liberal) - leader of the third party in Manitoba, not elected to the legislature

The shift in Canadian politics over the last two generations

There has been a long term but steady shift of the number of seats in the House of Commons coming from BC, Alberta and Ontario.It means that the nature of Canada as a country will change as the political power shifts.

This is a table of percentage of the seats in the House of Commons in each region and how it is changed over time

Election
Years     BC     AB   BC+AB The West Ont    Que  Atlantic
1953-65  8.30%  6.42% 14.72% 26.42% 32.08% 28.30% 12.45%
1968-74  8.71%  7.20% 15.91% 25.76% 33.33% 28.03% 12.12%
1979-84  9.93%  7.45% 17.38% 27.30% 33.69% 26.60% 11.35%
1988-93 10.85%  8.81% 19.66% 29.15% 33.56% 25.42% 10.85% 
1997-00 11.30%  8.64% 19.93% 29.24% 34.22% 24.92% 10.63%
2004-11 11.69%  9.09% 20.78% 29.87% 34.42% 24.35% 10.39%
Next    12.43% 10.06% 22.49% 30.77% 35.80% 23.08%  9.47%

The four provinces of Atlantic Canada now have fewer seats than any one of the four provinces with the most seats.   In the 1988 election BC had as many seats as all of Atlantic Canada.  In the 2015 election Alberta will have more seats than Atlantic Canada.   In the 1950s and early 60s BC and Alberta combined had only six more seats than Atlantic Canada.

Quebec has also been on long term decline with respect to its relative number of seats in the House of Commons.   From 1953 to 1965 the gap between Ontario and Quebec was only 10 seats, it will now be 43 seats.   Quebec had more seats than all of the West till 1979 to 1984, it now only has two more seats than BC and Alberta combined.

For many years the Liberal Party of Canada could win power because it would win the vast majority of the seats in Quebec.  In 1980 the Liberals won 74 seats in Quebec leaving them only 67 seats required from the rest of the country to achieve a majority.   In the next election if a party were to win all of the seats in Quebec, they would still have to win 92 seats in the rest of the country to get a majority.

BC and Alberta have combined seen a 50% rise in their proportion of the seats in the House of Commons.   To be able to win a majority government in Canada now requires that you have success in the west, specifically in BC and Alberta.  Alberta has been a right wing strong hold going back generations but BC has also reasonably right wing over the last two generations.  In the 13 elections since 1972, only in 1988 when the NDP won 19 of 32 seats did the right not win the majority of the seats in BC.

Some stats Supreme Court of Canada Justices

The Supreme Court of Canada is an important branch of government but one that most people tend not to think of.   The court matters and the composition of the court can have a huge impact on the country.

Here is a table of the number of justices and how long they have collectively served on the Supreme Court of Canada.

Province    Total  Total   Chief     CJ
          Justices days   Justices days
Quebec       30   138,161    6    16,030
Ontario      30   119,406    5    15,731
BC            4    31,957    2     9,070
New Brunswick 6    23,340    1     5,007 
Nova Scotia   5    23,317    0         0
Alberta       4    14,707    0         0
Manitoba      4    13,672    1     2,265
Saskatchewan  4    11,350    0         0
PEI           1     8,255    1     1,987
Newfoundland  0         0    0         0

When the Supreme Court of Canada was founded in 1875 the country only had seven provinces and so the model of three justices from Ontario, three from Quebec and three for the rest of the country made some sense.   As the country has evolved we have added three provinces and the weight of the population in the country has shifted.   It has evolved that defacto one of the seats on the bench belongs Atlantic Canada and the other two to the west.  

Newfoundland has been part of Canada for 65 years but there has never been a justice from that province.

BC has 56% of the population of Quebec and 34% of the population of Ontario but has no certainty of having a seat on bench at any given time.   Alberta has not been represented on the Supreme Court since December 25th 2005.  When Beverly McLachlin retires in 2018 the replacement will likely have to come from Alberta leaving BC without a justice.

Maybe the time has come to increase the size of Supreme Court of Canada to 12 to 15 members.   You would have to keep the ratios of 1/3 Ontario, 1/3 Quebec and 1/3 for the rest of the country the same.   At 12 that would allow for one more western justice which would make it possible to always have a justice on the Supreme Court of Canada from Alberta and BC.

With Brian Jean resigning in Fort McMurray-Athbaska we have the 11th federal by-election

We are now up to the 11th federal vacancy since the May 2011 federal election which is getting up there in total number of by-elections within a single parliament.   If there are two more resignations or deaths before the general election in October 2015, the 41st parliament will have seen the most by-elections since the late 1970s.

We have seen a drop in by-elections in part because MPs no longer die in office which was once much more common.   Two generations ago you could expect two MPs to die every year.   We have only had four deaths in the last 20 years, once every five years.  Given that we have 16% more MPs now than several generations ago, the drop in MPs deaths is that much more remarkable.
 
With the resignation of Brian Jean, that is the sixth member of the government caucus to step down, that is also higher than has been the norm over the last decade but still short of a record.  If two more Conservatives resign this will tie the first Chretien term.  If three resign or die, this parliament will see the highest level of government held by-elections since the late 70s.

By-elections by parliament since World War II
Parl          # of    Govt  Off opp deaths
             by-elect Seats Seats
41st 2011-14   11      6      2       1     
40th 2008-11    7      1      1       0
39th 2006-08    9      0      6       1
38th 2004-06    1      1      0       0
37th 2000-04   12      7      1       0
36th 1997-00   10      4      2       1
35th 1993-97   10      8      2       1
34th 1988-93    6      2      3       2
33rd 1984-88    6      4      1       0
32nd 1980-84   12      4      5       4  
31st 1979-80    2      1      1       1
30th 1974-79   25     14      8       3
29th 1972-74    0      0      0       0
28th 1968-72   11      6      2       5
27th 1965-68   11      8      3       2
26th 1963-65    6      4      2       4
25th 1962-63    1      0      0       1
24th 1958-62   14     11      3       9
23rd 1957-58    3      2      1       1
22nd 1953-57   17     13      3       9
21st 1949-53   30     25      5      11
20th 1945-49   18     11      3       7

Why we are likely to see a minority government after the 2015 federal election

Since 1921 when Canada first had a significant third parties win seats in elections we have seen 46% of the elections bring us minorities.   A minority election result is something we should consider as probable in Canadian elections

15 Majority Elections
1930, 1935, 1940, 1949, 1953, 1958, 1968, 1974. 1980, 1984, 1988, 1993, 1997, 2000, 2011
13 Minority Elections
1921, 1925, 1926, 1945, 1957, 1962, 1963, 1965, 1972, 1979, 2004, 2006, 2008
(the Liberals in 1921, 1926 and 1945 managed to govern as functioning majorities through the support of other MPs)

A number of our majority governments were not very large majorities and it would not have take much for a minority outcome

• In 1974 only 9 seats needed to change hands to reduce the Liberals to minority
• In 1980 the Liberals only managed a 12 seat majority, if the Credistes had held onto seven seats the Liberals would have been in a minority
• The 1997 election came very close to being a Liberal minority, it would have taken five more seats lost for the Liberals to be in a minority    

Given that there will be very likely be five parties elect MPs in 2015 and no one party seems likely to break 40% of the vote, it is hard to see any other outcome other than a minority government after 2015.

In 2015 you will need 170 seats to have a majority in the parliament.  

• The Conservatives are likely to hold at least 70 seats in Western Canada and 30 seats in Ontario.  This puts them at 100 seats.  The redistribution of seats has tended to add seats in areas that hoave supported the Conservatives.
• The NDP is likely to hold at least 10 seats each in the west and Ontario as well as retaining at least 30 Quebec seats for a base of 50 seats.
• The Liberals are very likely to take at least 10 Atlantic, 15 Quebec and 15 Ontario seats for a base of 40 seats.   
• For simplicity I will assume the Bloc and Greens have a base of five seats total.

Which means about 195 seats are reasonably secure in who will win them.   This leave 143 seats up for grabs.    If the Conservatives can take half of them, they can barely get to majority territory.  The gap between what is likely secure and what is needed for a majority government by the NDP and Liberals is not realistically close at all.

If the NDP can hold onto 80-100 seats and the Conservatives can hold onto 120-140 seats, there are not enough seats available for the Liberals to come close to a majority.   This math leaves them at 93-133 seats.

What we are likely to see after 2015 is another minority Conservative government with two opposition parties vying to be the government in waiting.

Could we see an NDP/Liberal coalition government after the election?   It is possible that the two parties could win enough seats to have a majority between them but I have trouble seeing the two parties being able to form a coalition given that in many provinces the two parties are very much opposed to each other.

The largest party is still likely to be the Conservatives and I assume they would push for another election immediately instead of allowing for a coalition government.  We could see a second election within six months of the 2015 election.  After the 2008 coalition talk the CPC rose massively in popularity.  I can see them risking another election on the hopes of getting a serious bump in the election.

One more thing that could complicate everything is a come back by the Bloc.   If the Bloc can re-take 15 to 30 seats the electoral math for the non Conservatives becomes much harder to get to a majority even with a coalition between the Liberals and NDP.

Realistically I would expect an election in the spring of 2017 to spring of 2018.

_______________________________________________________

For interest, here is how the 2011 and 2008 elections would have turned out with the new boundaries if nothing else was changed

Party   2011 new 2011 old 2008 new 2008 old
CPC      189      166      164      143
NDP      108      103       35       37
Libs      36       34       86       77
Bloc       4        4       51       49
Green/Ind  1        1        2        2

Is there any chance the Conservatives could lose Macleod?

In November Ted Menzies resigned as the MP for Macleod in Alberta.   Macleod is one of the safest Conservatives seats in Canada, one they have won with around 75% of the vote in the last four elections.   Is there any possible scenario in which they could lose?

In the Provencher by-election in November the Conservatives went from 27,820 votes (70.6% of the vote) to 13,046 (58.2% of the vote), still more than enough to win but a loss of more than half the Conservative supporters    The non Conservative vote went from 11,075  to 9,371, only a drop of about 15%.   No one was paying attention to this race still it was much closer than expected.

In 2012 in Calgary Centre was saw a similar dramatic fall in Conservative support but a much steadier support for the other three parties.

The margin of victory for the Conservatives in Macleod is even higher than Provencher or Calgary Centre which means the chances of losing are significantly lower making it more less impossible for the Conservatives to lose.   Everything in Macleod will come down to voter turnout in the by-election.  A low turnout will benefit a non Conservative that is running hard but even then the chances are very astonishingly small that the Conservatives could lose.

For the last several years I have been doing in depth analysis of federal by-election turnouts to see what patterns I can find among them, one of the biggest is that in safe seats the incumbent party supporters stay home.   When I look at the last 64 by-elections,  my estimate for the voter turnout in Macleod would be for 27,500.

Based on past election results for the non Conservatives, in the by-election they likely to achieve about 9,000 to 10,000 votes, which leaves the Conservative candidate with about 18,000 votes.   This would be a landslide win for the Conservatives.

The gap between the nadir of the Conservative support and the combined non Conservative vote is huge and I do not think there is any chance the Conservatives could lose this.

If in the by-election the turnout was worse than average for this sort of riding it could go as low as a 22,000.  If the non Conservatives could retain 90% of their 2011 vote, this would still leave the Conservatives with 12,000 votes and a large win.

For the Conservatives to lose this seat something dramatically different would have to happen - a whole bunch of red necks would suddenly have to embrace Justin Trudeau, something that the Manitoba by-elections indicated did not happen.

 

A Major Obstacle to the Northern Gateway

Sure the Joint Review Panel gave their conditions under which the Northern Gateway pipeline could be built, but they have no jurisdiction over the land.

To build the pipeline Enbridge will need a legal right of way.  Most of that right of way will cross over provincial Crown Land.   Enbridge will have to apply to the province for the tenure to the land and the province can say no.

The federal government can not issue tenures on provincial Crown Lands, that is Ultra Viries.   The province is the only Crown with the power to create new legal tenures for BC provincial Crown Lands.  The federal government would have to expropriate the land from the province and make it federal Crown Land.   Doing this would cause a legal nightmare for a host of reasons.

1) Jurisprudence in Canada on expropriation has changed and taking land from a province for the benefit of a private corporation that is unwilling to meet provincial standards is not likely to constitutional.   If this were for the needs of the Armed Forces, the feds might be able to expropriate, but do so because a company is not willing to come to agreement with the province is not realistic.

I can see the courts saying No to the feds because BC has had a clear position on the conditions it has for the pipeline and Enbridge did not try hard enough to meet them.

2) The federal government has long taken the position that it can not expropriate provincial Crown Lands to meet the needs of Treaty settlements.   The fact they have expressed their belief they could not expropriate for aboriginal people and were to then do so for a private for profit company means they are opening themselves up to very serious and expensive lawsuits from all the First Nations in BC for compensation.  

The federal government has a constitutional obligation to deal with First Nations in an honourable way and they have a fiduciary duty to ensure they do the best by the First Nations.   If they could have settled Treaties without the province through expropriation but did not do so they are now liable to four decades of screwing around not settling Treaties.  Based on Apassasin as a value precedence, conservatively the First Nations could legitimately win a law suit worth $50,000,000,000 and ownership of 100,000 square kilometers of land in BC.  That very serious threat alone is enough reason for the feds not to want to go down the path of expropriation.

Without expropriation BC has a veto over the project.

The end of door to door delivery will be good for neighbourhoods

One thing I loved when I lived in Lillooet was going to get the mail at the post office.   In small towns Canada Post has never offered delivery to your door, you had to get all your mail at the post office from your post office box.

In Lillooet, the Post Office was the heart of the community.

One of the great things about collecting your mail at a central location is that you meet all your neighbours.   If I went to get the mail at around the middle of the day I could be certain that the trip in and out of the building would take me at least 30 minutes because of all of the people I had to "quickly" talk to.   It was also a great place to put up a notice or just let people know about something.  Everyone came to the post office.

Lillooet is only a town of 3,000 people, but because of things like all of us having to get our mail at the post office, I knew more people in Lillooet than I do in Victoria.   More importantly, I saw a lot more people in person everyday.

Home delivery has always been a bad idea because it costs a lot of money and takes away from a sense of community in a neighbourhood.   Having central mailboxes will get more people walking in the streets and mean they meet each other and notice when something changes.   They will allow for a place for hyper local community communication to take place.  

Home delivery isolates people in single family home neighbourhoods.   It means that housebound people never see anyone, it gives people with declining mobility one less reason to get up and do something.   Getting the old and disabled out in their community is one of the best things possible for them and community mail boxes will help with this.

I am not sure what form the community mail boxes will take, but I would like it in my neighbourhood if it was close to the local shopping mall or the elementary school.