Putting Populism In Perspective

Martin Amis offers his acerbic assessment of the current populist mania:

Genuflecting At The Digital Altar (Or, Is Nothing Sacred?)

They say that age is but a number, and there are many days I believe that. Often, I awake feeling relatively youthful, and the daily walks I undertake are conducted with vigor and strength of purpose. Other days, I feel rather keenly the aches and pains (still relatively minor at this point, thankfully) that age imposes, and my walks take on the character of prescribed medicine, nothing more.

But that is just the physical aspect of age. The other, more important one, in my view, is the thinking and attitudes we bring to each day of our lives. In that regard, I like to think that I am more youth than aging man.

I try, for example, to stay conversant with and engaged in important issues, although admittedly at more of a remove than when I was younger. As well, rather than regret my generation's waning influence on life, I welcome it. When it became feasible, I retired, partly because the job and all of its attendant politics had become a heavy burden; the other reason was the moral obligation I felt toward the young people coming up in teaching. Full-time jobs were and still are hard to find, and to continue occupying a spot a younger person could do with more energy and creativity struck me as wrong. Unlike some of my generation, I harbour no delusions about indispensability.

However, there are other times when I feel old, because there are some things I doubt I shall ever embrace, my beliefs confronting and contradicting the perceived wisdom of our time. A prime example is my feeling about smartphones in the classroom, about which I recently wrote. To me, the putative educational benefits are far outweighed by their costs in terms of attention and focus. Being wirelessly connected to the outer world sacrifices or at the very least severely compromises our attention to the world of our immediate environment and, even more importantly, to our inner world. Digital distraction hardly facilitates reflectiveness.

Sadly, educational institutions are not the only ones that have prostituted themselves in the rush to demonstrate relevance in the digital age. That mania is now spreading to organized religion. The Campbell River Baptist Church has decided to genuflect at the altar of the digital god:

Pastor Jeff Germo ... is among the first pastors in the world to use a Swedish developed communications technology, Mentimeter, to make online, real-time spiritual connections with his flock while preaching. Mentimeter, used widely in corporate board rooms and academic lecture settings, is an interactive survey tool that posts instant answers and results to the mobile devices of those connected to the event.

On the surface, some might say this is a divinely inspired idea:

Germo started his sermon by asking parishioners to take out their smartphones and tablets, click on a Mentimeter link and punch in a code.

Moments later an email arrived asking parishioners if they had ever failed terribly.

Just two per cent replied: “No, I’m a winner.”

Germo expressed amazement that any member of the congregation said they had never experienced failure.

“If you are more than a year old, you probably would have failed at something,” said Germo as a man at the back of the auditorium of about 250 people raised his hand to acknowledge he chose the no failure answer.

A large display showing the survey results allowed the good reverend to drive home his point:

... most people are experiencing some difficult things and have a hard time getting over failure,” Germo said. “So, you are not alone.”

So what am I on about here? Is this a reactionary rant, or an opinion borne of age and experience?

Some years ago at a staff meeting, we were each given a handheld device that would achieve the same kind of survey input available to the Campbell River congregation. We were told such technology would revolutionize the classroom experience, making it far more interactive and relevant. After a few 'rounds', I think most of us felt more like game-show participants than educators undertaking some professional development. The medium indeed was the message. Needless to say, the idea gained no traction and was never implemented.

So far, the Campbell River church attempt at digital relevance seems to be an isolated incident. I sincerely hope it stays that way. In this connected age, people very much need refuge from distractions and sensory overload in order to rediscover their centres. Churches have traditionally offered such refuge, but like so many social media adherents today, will they now be tempted to increase their number of 'followers', not by anything deep or meaningful, but by embracing the latest trends? This particular one, if followed to its logical conclusion, will achieve no such thing.

How long will it be before part of Sunday services involves checking your email, your Twitter account and, last but not least, the ever-present Facebook? Once the genie is summoned, it cannot be put back in the bottle.

An Unreliable Narrator

In fiction there exists what is known as the unreliable narrator, which can be defined in this way:

It is a character who tells the reader a story that cannot be taken at face value. This may be because the point of view character is insane, lying, deluded or for any number of other reasons.

It is a useful convention for a number of reasons, including the misdirection it allows the author to engage in. An example of such a narrator would be Anna Fox, the protagonist of the recent bestseller The Woman in the Window, by A.J. Finn.

It seems to me that politics, by its nature, encourages the unreliable narrator. All leaders and their surrogates tell their version of truth, a truth diluted, even perverted by their electoral and policy goals. For example, the Conservatives regularly rail against what they see as Liberal fiscal profligacy, while the Liberals are always keen to portray Andrew Scheer et al. as crypto-racists. As for the the federal NDP, well, I'm not sure what story they are trying to tell these days.

Here in Ontario, Premier Doug Ford (and believe me, I abhor using that particular word combination) is proving to be an unreliable narrator extraordinaire as he strives to convince Ontarians that the former Liberal government was nothing more than an extended exercise in flagrant, unrepentant criminality.

Perhaps emboldened by weekend chants of “Lock her up!” the premier convened his caucus first thing Monday, and summoned the media to make a melodramatic announcement:

Doug Ford told Ontarians to “follow the money.” He boasted of a forensic “line-by-line audit” that would prove incriminating. And he claimed the numbers tell a damning story of Liberal “corruption” and enrichment.

Invoking his majority muscle, Ford announced a special “select” committee to “compel” evidence in a legislative witch hunt, lest Liberals “walk away from this.”

The foundation for this exercise in damagoguery is the claim by Finance Minister Vic Fedeli that he has discovered a coverup that puts the provincial deficit at $15 bullion, $8 billion more than was disclosed.

The only problem with this claim is that it is orchestrated nonsense, because

the outside report he ordered up, and relied upon for those claims, said no such thing. For all the overheated allegations that the last government “cooked the books,” the undisputed truth is that its pre-election budget was an open book, fully vetted by the province’s auditor general (even if she disagreed with the bottom line Liberal analysis).

Unreliable narrators rely on people getting swept up in the story, so much so that they do not think about what they already know or should know.

As for that supposedly damning forensic audit, it was no such thing. Peter Bethlenfalvy, the minister who ordered it up, sheepishly admitted to reporters later that it was produced by private sector “consultants” at EY Canada — not qualified auditors in the firm’s audit department. It was “not a forensic audit, not a line by line review,” he acknowledged.

And, in a classic technique employed by the unreliable narrator, Doug Ford is glossing over something the report did reveal:

...the quickie study noted that spending increases within the Ontario public service were virtually zero during the Liberal years. What has risen, significantly, is spending on health care and education — precisely what Ford promised not to cut on the campaign trail.

The Star's Martin Regg Cohn says that these exercises in deception and demagoguery serve only to debase our democratic discourse. That may well be true, but unfortunately, amongst the electorate, there are far too many happy to engage in that kind of destructive conversation.

Conveniently Ignoring History

While I am sure there are some interests within Canada who will applaud Justin Trudeau's latest effort at placating Donald Trump, I am not one of them. As history well demonstrates, policies of appeasement never work.

Trudeau's latest attempt at taming the insensate Toddler-in-Chief is to be found in his craven signing on to the United States' renewal of its demonstrably and profoundly-failed war on drugs, a war from which a Stanford University study drew the following conclusions:

By making drugs illegal, this country has:

1) Put half a million people in prison : $10 Billion a year

2) Spent billions annually for expanded law enforcement

3) Fomented violence and death (in gang turf wars, overdoses from uncontrolled drug potency & shared needles/AIDS)

4) Eroded civil rights (property can be confiscated from you BEFORE you are found guilty; search and wiretap authority has expanded.)

5) Enriched criminal organizations.

It is apparent that such facts don't seem to matter to our government if we examine what Trudeau has leapt to endorse:

The statement reiterates the primacy of international “narcotics control” efforts, with an emphasis on criminalization and the role of law enforcement. It does not contain the word “human rights”; advocates for harm reduction and against mass incarceration have been trying to inject a rights-focused approach into international drug policy.

That our naif-like prime minister chooses to embrace such a retrograde approach has resulted in some very appropriate jeering:

Canada was rebuked on Monday by a group of world leaders and experts on drug policy for endorsing a Trump-led declaration renewing the “war on drugs” and for passing up a critical moment to provide global leadership on drug regulation.

Former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark said she believed that both Canada and Mexico − which also signed the declaration even though president-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has repeatedly said that the “war on drugs” has failed and he will pursue new policy − likely have signed on reluctantly, held hostage by the North American free-trade agreement talks in Washington, over which a critical deadline looms.

Fortunately, some countries held on to a modicum in integrity.

... 63 did not [sign]; the dissenters include major U.S. allies such as Germany, Norway and Spain.

The expedient nature of Canada's endorsement was not lost on Nick Clegg, the former deputy prime minister of Britain, who sees the decision as a
diplomatic, not a policy-based decision:

“I guess there was a judgment to be made, which from my days in government I can understand, why they did it – if you’re fighting lots of battles at once, you probably decide which battles to choose,” he said.

I am sure many others would argue that antagonizing Trump yields no benefit. But then, perhaps they choose to ignore history.

Does the name Neville Chamberlin ring a bell?

Pleasing Words Mean Nothing

Unless they are in the thrall of rabid partisanship, nice hair, sunny smiles or pleasing but empty rhetoric, most people, I suspect, would agree that the Trudeau government has been a massive disappointment. And while the list of its failure to live up to its promise is long, for me its greatest failure has been on climate change. Its purchase of an aging pipeline at public expense is a clear disavowal of climate-change integrity, as is its anemic carbon tax policy, one that likely has had the unfortunate result of convincing many that paying a little more for the fossil fuels they use will make a major dent in the peril that is quickly overtaking the world.

David Suzuki, for one, has called for Environment Minister Catherine Mckenna to resign.



Michael Harrris writes that, while Mckenna clearly will not resign, Suzuki's words have impact:

What the country’s leading environmentalist has done by calling out McKenna is call out the Trudeau government on its signal failure — the environment. And that could significantly alter the coalition that delivered a majority government to the Liberals in 2015.

The hopes raised by the government and then dashed are consequential:

In Trudeau’s case, the aspirational notion to move Canada toward a green economy has been eclipsed by policies worthy of a ‘fossil award.’ The only thing more dubious than the Trudeau government’s initial support of the Kinder Morgan pipeline was the unpardonable sin of buying it.

Publicly acquiring a leaky, decrepit pipeline for $4.5 billion and facing construction costs approaching $10 billion — all to carry the dirtiest fossil commodity of them all, bitumen, is hardly consistent with the greening of Canada or saving the planet.

But it is perfectly consistent with what Trudeau told an audience of oilmen in Houston who gave him a standing ovation.

“No country would find 173 billion barrels of oil in the ground and leave them there,” he said.

Susuki is not the only one calling out the Trudeau government for its arrant hypocrisy:

In a recent study by U.S. advocacy group Oil Change International, the authors concluded: “There is no scenario in which tar sands production increases and the world achieves the Paris goals… If he [Trudeau] approves a pipeline, he will be the one to make the goals impossible to reach.”

Other actions by this government are equally damning:

Canada continues to spend the most per capita of any G7 country subsidizing oil and gas development — $3 billion in Canada and $10 billion through Export Development Canada in foreign countries.

Last February, Catherine McKenna approved permits for British Petroleum to drill as many as seven exploratory wells off the southwest coast of Nova Scotia. The water is up to twice as deep as the ocean where BP had its Deepwater Horizon catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico back in 2010. Eight years on and people around the Gulf are still suffering the consequences.

Then just months later, McKenna approved the first actual deepwater well for BP 300 km off of Nova Scotia.

As well, the much-vaunted carbon tax is looking increasingly anemic, as Trudeau eases the burden of the worst polluters:

The carbon tax on the worst of them will now be triggered at higher levels of emissions.

The threshold at which the tax would kick in was moved from 70 per cent of an industry’s emissions all the way to 90 per cent in certain cases.

The explanation for abandoning his environmental post? Trudeau was worried that certain industries would lose their competitiveness.

Harris hopes that condemnations from people like Suzuki will lead people to realize that the Liberal Party is not the environment's friend, but rather what it always has been, the party of the economy. He ends his piece with this acerbic observation:

When it comes to the environment, the only growth industry in Ottawa these days is spin doctoring.

On The Carbon Tax

Now that Ontario, under the thuggish leadership of Doug Ford, is in the process of withdrawing Ontario from its cap-and-trade alliance with Quebec and California, baring a failure of political will, next year will see Justin Trudeau imposing a carbon tax here and in other recalcitrant provinces. Despite the fact that Andrew Scheer is salivating at the prospect of making it a key issue in next year's federal election, John Ivison suggests it may not go according to the Conservative leader's plan:

The National Post obtained an advance copy of a paper to be released by Canadians for Clean Prosperity, a non-partisan group led by Mark Cameron, ex-policy director to Stephen Harper, that promotes putting a price on pollution and cutting taxes.

The Liberals’ Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act requires Ottawa to return tax revenue to the province where it was raised in cases where it has imposed a “backstop” carbon tax in the absence of a recognized provincial climate plan. Trudeau has indicated that, rather than sending a rebate to the governments of those provinces, he may choose to send the money directly to its households.

This plan will go a long way toward undermining the populist-right's claim that fighting the tax will mean less money in people's pocket. In fact, it seems the tax itself will be a net benefit to Canadians' bottom line, according to research done by Research by environmental economist Dave Sawyer of EnviroEconomics.

Sawyer’s research indicates that the carbon tax will cost consumers more when it comes to gasoline and home heating — at $20 a tonne,roughly 4.5¢ more per litre of gas.

...for example, in 2019 an Ontario household earning $60,000-$80,000 a year would pay an average of $165 more in increased direct carbon costs for energy, while in Alberta and Saskatchewan, where there is more coal-fired electricity, that figure would rise to $249 and $259 respectively.

However, the study estimates the rebate per household would be $350 in Ontario in 2019, rising to $836 in 2022; $868 in Alberta in 2019, rising to $1,890; and $1075 in Saskatchewan, rising to $2,394. If this scenario plays out, in five years the net benefit per household at that income bracket would be $328 in Ontario, $1,231 in Alberta and $1,711 in Saskatchewan.

And there is a solid reason for these numbers:

Carbon taxes will be collected not only from households but also from business and industrial emitters, and Sawyer’s modelling assumes that while the federal government would return some industrial revenues to large emitters, most would be rebated directly to households.

The trued-and-true fiscal scaremongering tactics of the right-wing, it would appear, will have limited efficacy with the voters. Who doesn't like receiving cheques in the mail?

While I am of the view that our current climate peril means carbon taxes will be as effective as using a dust-pan to clean up after an elephant, it will at least quite possibly raise some awareness about the situation we are in, however late in the game that may be.

Manipulation 101

It is to state the obvious that politicians and their party apparatchiks are practiced manipulators. They target their demographic, employ experts to craft messages to that demographic and, sadly, seem to expend a disproportionate amount of time on the art of politicking at the expense of true democratic representation. Managing optics, not formulating principled policy, has become the raison d'être for far too many.

Combine this with an increasingly credulous and partisan populace, and you have a recipe for a decidedly unhealthy democracy. It is one in which increasing numbers of voters are forsaking critical thinking and the kind of challenge and critical analysis offered by traditional media for the much easier task of cheering on their favourite 'team' while embracing the animus directed at their opponents, skillfully cultivated by hired talent who see politics as a game to be strategized, with nary a thought for the public good. There are only Winners and Losers in this world of black and white, and the biggest loser is, of course, democracy's health and vitality.

Start at the seven-minute mark of the following news report, and you will see that the base art of manipulation is alive and well in Canada.