On Sunday, April 17, Adrian Dix won the NDP leadership race, edging out Mike Farnworth by around 700 votes: 9,772 votes to Farnworth’s 9,095. His win prompted excitement from some and groans from many other. The Province newspaper labelled it a “a hard turn to the Left” for the provincial NDP. The photo featured Dix wooping it up in a less-than-flattering pose. The headline contrasted with the paper’s earlier cover of Christy Clark decked out in Canucks gear and a hockey stick, smiling broadly cheek to luminous cheek. The contrast couldn’t be more telling.
Some NDP insiders are already blaming a skewed media for fawning over Clark’s style while ignoring Dix’s substance. While almost everyone I’ve talked to lauds Dix for his work ethic, intelligence and scrappiness, that may not be enough. Unfortunately, often what matters most in politics it seems is a strong blend of both style and substance. Often (like it or lump it) the mix is 2 parts style for 1 part substance.
Since policy so often takes the back seat to politics and perceptions, it will be interesting to see if Dix can avoid the “left wing radical”-branding, though recent actions in the past week do not bode well. During his convention speech, he talked at length about 1.5 million mystery voters he intends to reach out to. The plan of attack? Introduce more aggressive government redistribution programs. Roll back corporate tax cuts. Ruthlessly attack the HST. Focus more money on childcare programs and advocacy.
This strategy is not focussed on the moderate “progressives” that vote federal Liberal and could be swayed to support a centrist NDP. Rather, it targets British Columbians who are politically disengaged because the major political parties haven’t been aggressive enough with instituting big changes in provincial economics. This presumption ignores another explanation for low voter turnout. That people who don’t vote are apathetic cynical and generally disinterested in who rules the province as long as grocery prices stay reasonable, jobs remain (relatively) plentiful and gas doesn’t get too expensive. I suppose we’ll soon see if Dix is right on this front.
Regardless, it seems likely his agenda will appeal the union movement which strongly supported Dix in his leadership race. It will also ring true to many community activists and more “left-wing” organizers who’ve long been frustrated with Carole James’ perceived outreach to big business and the “powers-that-be” in Vancouver. It may not have the same resonance among the progressive business and green-oriented supporters drawn to the Farnworth camp. Meanwhile, outside the party sphere, it’s unlikely we will see Dix making any forays to the BC Chamber of Commerce, UDI luncheons or Board of Trade Meetings. While such outreach may be painful (and perhaps useless) it does represent a first step to making an NDP government more palatable to the progressive business community and young professionals whom the party must attract for both funding and support. Ultimately, the province’s political sphere has progressed beyond the polarized workers on one side and bosses on the other.
Clark also has some significant hurdles to clear in the coming months. The Premier’s first challenge will be to first sell and then survive the upcoming HST-vote. Added to that is the (possibly) resurgent right wing BC Conservative party led by former MP John Cummins. With a realistic alternative, word among many BC Liberals in the lead up to the leadership race was that a Clark victory would lead to a split of the party’s right wing. Apparently, people have already started to walk and while power is a strong magnet for people to stick around, it only works if the leader can win and is willing to placate the defeated with political/policy nuggets they can call their own. Expect some right-wing appetizers to compliment the Premier’s more liberal “Families First” main course in the coming year. Despite these challenges, Clark will remain in the eyes of many voters (and thanks chiefly to the leadership race coverage) firmly ensconced in the centre of the BC political spectrum.
With a provincial election predicted Spring of next year, it’s likely we won’t have to wait long to see how these new leaders will reshape the political landscape. If Clark is dragged to the right of the “free-market coalition” to keep the BC Liberals together and if Dix does end up taking his party more to the left of the political spectrum though, there could be room for a new force. In such a case, a provincial version of Vision Vancouver, a progressive party that has made itself sufficiently palatable to the Vancouver business community and the unions could fill the void. Or even more likely, it might be a perfect environment for Gregor Robertson – Vancouver’s popular Mayor – to jump back into the NDP fray. In any case, it could be a new era of BC politics and would certainly be exciting times.
Welcome to Learning from Pirate Communities, one of the best-selling series here at The Daily Gumboot. Here’s the deal: we participants in humanity operate within a paradigm or framework or clusterf&$k of themes and ideas (gender, race and culture, environmental stewardship, ideology, weapons, business, entrepreneurship, art, tasty drinks, and fashion). Many people from many academic disciplines explore such themes from a myriad of perspectives. The Editor-in-Chief of this publication discusses such ideas through a lens of Piratology, because, hey, pirates represent an edutaining and approachable subject that interests people. Consequently, we can learn a lot from pirates. Just read more to find out!
Will clever commentary be backed up by accountable piracy?
Today we will be discussing tax, representation and rejecting an unfair socioeconomic system to, possibly, become a pirate.
I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that you’ve heard about the HST. Maybe you even have an opinion about it. From Bill Tieleman to Bill Vander Zalm to Kurt Heinrich to Kevin Milligan, people have opinions that run the gamut of sensation; from raging social injustice to practically good policy. Whether you despise taxes altogether or just hate this one, I have a solution for you. Become a pirate! Literally, if you like (I’ll get to that), but metaphorically is probably a better solution for all of us (at least until the puffy shirt factory starts pumping things out a little faster). Here’s the deal: many people feel unrepresented by the HST, just like many people feel unrepresented or cheated by the GST, income taxes, the Carbon Tax, exorbitantly priced Canucks tickets, lack of affordable housing, police, universities, Walmart, Translink, and talent agencies (honestly, I think you’re a great singer and were treated unfairly). We’re really good at complaining, but not as good at being accountable for our ideas – ideas like collectively changing and/or withdrawing from an unfair, broken, corrupt, and imbalanced system that seems to encourage and reward corruption, incompetence and general shady shenanigans. We can do better if we learn from pirate communities.Even the University of Chicago recognizes the power of pirates as educational tools!
People, our community is thoroughly more positive, intelligent and cohesive than this rather unequal, unrepresentative and restrictive paradigm of governance allows. Perhaps we can do better by rejecting the system and embracing our inner entrepreneur – or inner pirate. I understand if this scares you. But there are certainly models for change out there, too. First, let’s explore taxation and democracy in a historical and global context and then examine community and unfair political decisions from a piratical perspective:
Mad at being unrepresented? Maybe we should actually be a democracy.
A recent article in The Independent by Johann Hari suggests that modern
Embrace your inner entrepreneur and start asking questions about the system to which you belong.
day pirates, like their historic brothers and sisters, have rejected today’s unequal, corrupt and punishing global “system.” Hari cites the last words of William Scott, a pirate hanged in Charleston, South Carolina during the Golden Age of Piracy: “What I did was to keep me from perishing. I was forced to go a-pirateing to live.” BC’s democracy makes me chuckle. Heck, our perception of democracy makes me chuckle. Democratically speaking, most of us don’t usually vote for the party in power (ie. the NDP in the 1990s – never more than 45% of the vote – and the current BC Liberal government – 46% of the vote – and Federal Conservative – 37% of the vote – government were brought to power with less than half of the popular vote, which doesn’t even account for the tens of thousands of people who didn’t vote because of their dissatisfaction with the system and the people steering it).
One hundred years before the French Revolution, pirate ships – or pirate companies – were run on the ideals of liberty, equality and brotherhood. It was the rule, rather than the exception. According to scholar and fellow Piratologist, David Cordingly, author of Under the Black Flag: The Romance and Reality of Life Among the Pirates, at times, it was difficult to even get a pirate ship going anywhere. You see, the crew actually voted on a destination before the captain set a course; arguably, this accounted for pirates’ time being spent in warm places like the Caribbean, Gulf of Aden and the Strait of Malacca. This whole time, we’ve been looking to France and the US for our democratic models, when we really should’ve been looking towards pirate ships!
Pirates drafted and signed “The Articles of Piracy” before each voyage. These articles regulated the distribution of plunder, the scale of compensation for injuries in battle, and outlined basic rules for shipboard life (ie. no one is allowed to drink all the rum and/or wear the captain’s eye patch in jest) as well as punishments for those who broke the rules (ie. you wore the eye-patch in jest and now the captain, who turned out to be pretty sensitive, won’t come out of his cabin and, well, he’s got the map). After the articles were written, every pirate aboard signed them. Sure, it’d be tedious, but perhaps we need to re-draft our terms of agreement with our leaders before each election or major decision that affects so many stakeholders.
The Articles seem pretty darn democratic, and I wonder what we can take from these lessons on a pirate ship and apply to our system. After all, the crew aboard the Jolly British Columbian seems to be talking about steering the ship in a new direction with recent movements against the HST.
Seriously, we’re crying about the HST?
When things go bad here on the West Coast of Canada, I like to put them in a global perspective. How bad are they, really? From the BBC to CNN to Al Jazeera, the world suddenly became very interested in Somali pirates after they hijacked a Saudi tanker, the Sirius Star. They did what nobody thought possible and they got noticed. Like, really noticed. Oh, and they made $3 million from the ransom, too. Sure, many – or most – of the pirates are gangsters. No, this doesn’t make hostage-taking okay and, no, this blog does not condone hostage taking (although, for the record, Theo Lamb is a fully trained hostage negotiator). But this article has outlined some of the ways that these seagoing thugs are dealing with a recessive global economy. “Pirates were the first people to rebel against this world,” says Hari. They didn’t like the rigour, restrictions and “oppressiveness” of the seafaring alternatives of, say, the Merchant Marine or Royal Navy, so they chose a more independent, democratic and risky life at sea.”
In his article, Hari examines the circumstances by which many Somali fishermen have been thrust into the world of piracy. After the fall of the country’s government in
Somali pirates or the Somali Coast Guard? You decide!
1991, Africa’s longest coastline (Somalia’s coast spans about 2,000 miles) has been unprotected. This power-vacuum has provided a perfect opportunity for the international fishing industry to steal Somalia’s food supply and use the region as a dumping ground for nuclear waste (“yes: nuclear waste,” says Hari – cadmium and mercury were also, allegedly, thrown in the mix). Hari interviewed Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN envoy to Somalia, who claims that “there has been no clean-up, no compensation, and no prevention” of such a gross example of pollution. But one can also see how market forces have driven them to think outside the box, get creative, take risks, and work together in innovative ways in a new, community-based entrepreneurial system that exists beyond the one the world helped break.
In a recent Time magazine article, Ishaan Thardoor argues that “Somali piracy has metastasized into the country’s only boom industry. Most of the pirates, observers say, are not former fishermen, but just poor folk seeking their fortune. Right now, they hold 18 cargo ships and some 300 sailors hostage — the work of a sophisticated and well-funded operation.”Recent findings show that in excess of $300 million US in shellfish is being stolen from the Somali coast by illegal trawlers each year. They have no government to speak of. Organizations are dumping nuclear waste in their waters and on their land. Somalia just might be the worst place on Earth. Kinda puts the global recession and BC’s tax-shift in perspective, eh? They don’t “fit” in the current economic system, which is probably why the independent Somalian news site, WardheerNews, found that 70 per cent of Somalians “strongly supported the piracy as a form of national defence.” Some even call them the “Volunteer Coastguard of Somalia”! And we can most certainly call them rejectors of an unfair system swirling in chaos.
Well, this doesn't seem fair at all!
But, um, yeah. The HST is tough, too. After all, a study released by the Recent Findings Institute reported that the HST is “oppressive” and a “betrayal” of the BC people mostly because of the amount of nuclear waste in it.
Now. Obviously a good binary opposition can make any argument look ridiculous by putting it next to, well, something ridiculous. In any case, if you do in fact believe that, in the context of all things British Columbia, the HST is grossly unfair and a violation of our democracy, perhaps you might consider breaking from the system to which you are very connected. Find some friends. Find a boat. And change your life. Maybe start small, you know, by taking your illegal downloading of music one step further: download a movie or some software and then some tv shows and then, when you’re ready, overtake a ship by force and pillage its contents! BC has a lot of water, you know. Or perhaps you’d like to explore the ways in which your community (local, regional, online, or otherwise) can be used as a vehicle for positive social change within this HST-laden system of ours. Whatever the case, I encourage you to be a democratic, creative and entrepreneurial pirate. If things in BC are really so bad, there are some great historical and contemporary models of fighting injustice to explore, such as the inclusive and democratic experience aboard a pirate ship. Whatever direction you choose, be sure to exercise collaboration, safety and aim to have your community’s best interests in mind; sure, such ideas might seem matter-o-fact, but – every now and then – it doesn’t happen.
Hopefully these little guys or gals will be around next year to see the Olympics
I have a wonderful friend named Catherine. And she really, really likes bears. Especially polar bears. But especially grizzly bears. So you can imagine how upset and angry she is over the recent Globe and Mailarticle that predicts thousands of black and grizzly bears will starve to death this year. BC’s Environment Minister, Barry Penner, has even issued a bear count, as many conservationists have already reported a drastic drop in numbers. Are there less tourists for them to eat? No. In fact, there are more tourists in grizzly country – and they are much more delicious – than ever before. But the sockeye salmon population – from which the bears gluttonously grab most of their food – in BC has been cut in half. And there will be problems to overcome this, um, problem, as we humans have a very, very difficult time articulating the interconnectedness of warming oceans, depleting salmon stocks, suburban sprawl, starving bears, soaring food costs, slowing eco-tourism, unemployed Parks Canada people, and an un-balanced (which means un-healthy) ecosystem. I mean, we just “misplaced” 510,000 cubic meters of water in Lake Louise for crying out loud! Like a coral reef and Kevin Bacon’s global reach, everything on this planet is connected. And, still, we continue to separate it. Sure, it makes things simpler to compartmentalize ideas and things, but life on this planet is made of complicated stuff, so I say we owe Earth a more complicated, interconnected attempt at problem solving.
Take this example, for instance. A few months ago, Peter Robinson, CEO of the David Suzuki Foundation, outlined the top five issues that Canadians wanted addressed during the last four federal elections. In no particular order they are: the economy, health care, the environment, education, and social problems (ie. why do we have poor people in Canada?). Mr. Robinson’s
argument is that these are not separate issues. They are all connected because they are all environmental issues. Here’s what he had to say in a recent interview with Vista Magazine Online: “the link between human health and environmental health is not being addressed properly. Part of that has to do with putting a value on what nature provides us as human beings other than monetary. We’re exploring a full ‘systems assessment’ for each natural resource. For example, when we build a dam, traditionally all we consider is the value that is contained in the water as an energy source, used like a battery to generate power from the force of the water. And a forest, in traditional accounting, has no value until you cut it down. But in fact, a forest provides many other services in terms of filtering CO2, and various species that we rely on within it, like spawning grounds for fish, that only remain if the forest remains.”
The Walrus‘s Chris Turner has a much funnier assessment about the need for global symbiosis not unlike that of a teeming coral reef: “And then there’s the extraordinary symbiotic web the reef’s myriad denizens have woven, enabling this aquatic Babel to thrive more or less self-sufficiently for
Don't get too close to this photo: there are sperm and eggs everywhere.
millennia. Hermaphrodites and sex changers abound. A great many of the reef’s coral polyps mate once a year, simultaneously, in a great cloud of eggs and sperm whose release is precisely timed with the lunar cycle.” I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: if our planet is going to survive we need more hermaphrodites engaging in orgies based on the lunar cycle.
Moving on…
Educationally, there are several effective strategies for teachers to incorporate environmental issues (which nicely include health and economic topics as well). My personal favourite is the BC Ministry of Education’s CARE document, which outlines four environmentally-based learning outcomes that teachers from kindergarten to post-graduate seminars can role into their classroom. Such an interdisciplinary approach is where the world of education needs to go if we are to solve such complicated, interconnected problems.
The social determinants of health as outlined by the World Health Organization certainly interconnect with economic, educational, and environmental issues. Check this out: the 1986 Ottawa Charter pretty much started the discourse of environmental factors having to do with health. Let’s walk the talk here, Canadians. Perhaps start walking down to the cool graph in the article, which shows how people with permanent jobs have much, much higher rates of mental health. Like I said, it’s all connected.
Unemployment, underemployment, stressful or unsafe work is associated with poorer mental health (Source: Wilkinson and Marmot, 2003)
And for all you Canadians out there who are concerned about unemployment, GDP and the economy, well, I encourage you to consider what exponential growth on a finite planet looks like. Is the expansion of humanity and the shrinking of biodiversity sustainable? Will shrinking of biodiversity result in the detrimental function of our world? Is using the word “sustainable” sustainable? David Suzuki has some ideas about what we need to start doing with our global economy – bottom line: stop being selfish. David A. Wilson, President and CEO of the GMAT exam, recently gave a talk at UBC’s Sauder School of Business regarding the role of the MBA in a new sustainable business model. Mr. Wilson’s arguments were fairly simple: as humanity moves forward, economic growth can, and should, only happen within environmental and social contraints. And if biodiversity and/or people are compromised in order to make a buck, well, then such growth is truly unsustainable and – ahem – musn’t be sustained any longer.
Here are three things you can do to encourage a discourse of connectedness between environmental, economic, health, educational, and social issues:
1. Read things and talk about them. Whether you learn about the science warning about the danger of climate change or about the science warning against the science warning about the dangers of climate change, learn about the issues and have an educated opinion about them. As for talking about what you read, I recommend public transit as a fantastic place to strike up a complicated conversation. People like learning new things when they can’t escape…
2. Demand more from our political “leaders.” I use “quotations” because modern democracy is based more on self-interest and party-preservation than it is on large, collaborative, global strategies for real, positive, effective, longlasting change. Still, write letters to Steve, Mike, Jack, and Gilles about how the environment – and all things symbiotically existing within it – is slightly more important than who gets to be Prime Minister during the Olympics. Perhaps you’d like to speak with Gordon Campbell about why the HST is great because it taxes consumption, but should probably be higher for Hummers and not apply to bikes, lightbulbs, seeds, and vehicles that are more environmentally friendly (like our Premier). Just a thought.
3. Be the change you want to see. If you think the disappearance of millions of salmon, starving bears, ferocious pine beetles, and a global economy that feeds (and is fed by) a population that expands while biodiversity shrinks are important challenges, well, do something about it. Join a community group, start a business, teach a class – whatever you do, get involved.
So, the next time someone asks “what’s your issue?” Think about responding with something along the lines of “all of them.” Because it’s not just about the economy or the environment or health care or education or social issues. Our challenges are completely and symbiotically connected and the environment is the thing that binds it all together (mostly because it’s where we live). So it is with coral reefs and salmon and grizzly bears and tourism and my friend Catherine, who, like millions of people around the world, is none too pleased that so many cuddly, naturally peaceful and delicious creatures are about to starve to death.
“In spite of what such signals as the gross domestic product or the Dow Jones Industrial Average indicate, it is ultimately the capacity of the photosynthetic world and its nutrient flows that determine the quality and quantity of life on Earth.” Well said, Paul Hawken. Well said.
Now. Go out there and read, demand and be the change. Most importantly, have fun with it!
[Editor's note: Aboard the Editor's Pirate Ship is pretty similar to "from the Editor's desk" or "The Editorial Section" of a "newspaper" (remember those, kids?) - thing is, I spend a lot of my day at a desk, so, when I get to twitblogging, it takes place on a creativity-inducing pirate ship where I can stretch my legs as I expand my mind. To you, dear readers, I say "Welcome Aboard!"]
Ideology just got exclusive, ridiculous and so much cooler!
Militarism. Communism. Conservatism. Fascism. Socialism. Liberalism. Pansexualism. Capitalism. Bullionism. Humanitarianism. Modernism. Post-Modernism. Cannibalism. Existentialism. Hylomorphism. Environmentalism. Idealism. Primitivism. Realism. Terrorism. Zoomorphism. Relativism. There is a long list of ideological isms out there. They all have their strengths and weaknesses. For example, people are very, very delicious. They also control the universe through their sexual energy, but need to be cared for by the State lest their hedonistic ways destroy the environment to the detriment of exponential, free market growth! Or take democracy – democratism – as a great example of a fantastic, but horribly flawed, ideological system. As up-and-coming historical figure Winston Churchill, and his glass of whiskey, pointed out: “It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government, except all the others that have been tried.” Zing, Winnie! In 1835, Alexis de Tocqueville even warned America about “the tyranny of the majority” as a veritable Achilles-heal of our favourite social system. Democracy, claimed de Tocqueville, had the potential to marginalize minorities, fix peoples’ pursuits on material pleasures and/or relax people into seeking “to use government to protect them in their mediocrity by restricting the freedom of any who might challenge or endanger them” (evidently, Iraq didn’t get de Tocqueville’s memo).
Needless to say, whether it’s Vancouver Parks Board Commissioners using taxpayer dollars to pay for rehab or 3 New Jersey mayors (and 5 Rabbis) being arrested on international money-laundering charges or HST and BC Rail – ahem - irregularities or the Shenzhen Construction Bureau spending much of their coffers on massages, foot rubs and other spa treatments or Obama being the re-incarnation of Hitler, well, democracy just doesn’t seem to be working too well these days. Voter turnout around the world is a shadow of its former self. People are cynical and uninspired. But with all the other ideologies being even more terrible than democracy we’re pretty much stuck with what we have, right?
Wrong.
There is an answer. There is a solution. It couldn’t be simpler. And it’s called Johnism.
John in Chinese
Like I said, it’s simple. See, fueled by democracy, the global political system is still built in a way that attracts and enables people who want to be the world’s powerbrokers and reap all the delicious, material, ill-gotten/gettin’ goodies that such power allows. So, we need leaders for our communities – from local to global – but we need a new selection process. Enter Johnism. Recent findings show that there are approximately 942,564,723 people on the planet named “John” (translation and regional dialects were taken into account during this study). So, this up-and-coming ideology isn’t based on status or age or experience or ability or education or qualification or being good at anything. It’s based on having a really common name. A name so common that, when the random, name-based selection of global leadership takes place, we can be sure that the new team in charge are truly drawn from all parts and places of society. Wow – think of how much extra cash we can spread around when credentials do not include the ability to raise $1 billion in campaign funds! People not last-named “Bush” or “Clinton” might be in the running.
The name “John” – after all – transcends all social classes, ethnicity and lines on a map. People named John are everywhere. Check this out:
Terrorism or Johnism? We know where John McClane stands.
…in Germany – Johann or Johannes
…in France – Jean
…in Denmark – Jens
…in Holland – Jan
…in Spain and Latin America – Juan
…in Italy – Giovanni
…in Russia, the Ukraine, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Serbia, and Croatia – Ivan
…in Estonia – Jaan
…in Israel – Yochanan
…in China (see named image)
…in the Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Sudan, Libya, Syria, Morocco, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates – Yahya
…and, finally, in Armenia – Hovhannes
Clearly, when it comes to ideas from, literally, everywhere, Johnism has Planet Earth covered (I could’ve listed more countries, but my market research has determined that Scandinavia and most of Africa is a veritable lock for this idea). And that’s just the name John today. In the present. Let’s look to the past to get a bit of a sense of some of the more famous and “leadership-capable” Johns throughout history. This cross-section, when taken in an active historicalmanner, allows us to learn from the past as we plan for the future. The historical success of the name “John” logically determines that such success will continue into the future.
In no particular order, here are some Johns (multiple cultures acknowledged) of note:
Political figures, writers, kingmakers, pirates, popes, entertainers, cowboys, revolutionaries, scientists, religious leaders, sex symbols. The name John/Johnny/Jonathan covers ‘em all and then some! Keep in mind this list doesn’t do justice to all the teachers, plumbers, architects, ninjas, fishers, businesspeople, doctors, lawyers, athletes, engineers, and community organizers who have made an impact on humanity but don’t appear on the list. Needless to say, if the past is any indication of the future (and it totally is) I think the world will be in good hands.
Does Kurt Heinrich support Johnism? Probably not, but he's giving a big "thumbs up" here!
So, what are the tenets of Johnism? Well, they’re pretty similar to those of The Daily Gumboot. The ideology’s mandate is to “collect ideas from everywhere and use them to build community.” Other than that, no structure has been hammered out; however, should Johnism get picked up by the people of the planet, the upcoming Summit of John will see the collaborative development of a vision for the future and a strategic plan to carry it out. When it all comes together, I’m confident that you will be impressed. And, hey, people who aren’t Prime Ministers or Mayors or Aldermen or Premiers or Governors or Presidents or Ayatollahs or Dictators for Life or Directors get involved in their communities all the time in organic, contagious and meaningful ways. Just ask Paul Hawken. Like Paul, you folks not named John will totally have a role in the new way of doing things. We’re all part of the same team, after all.
Oh, one other thing. At this point the female readers are probably losing their minds (sorry, mom). Relax, ladies. Johnism is merely a well-thought-out selection process. As part of my very strong belief that women are smarter than men it should also be noted that each John will bring two women to the collaborative, visionary and strategic Summit of John [insert lewd comment here if you so choose]. For example, I will bring Michelle Burtnyk and Naomi Klein [again, insert lewd comment here if you so choose]. Savvy?
I don’t know about you, readers, but I find this all pretty exciting. And, really, what’s the alternative? Should we just exercise our collective voice in demonstrations of mass democracy in an effort to clean up our current social and political systems so they evoke an efficient, egalitarian and productive triple-bottom-line mandate that defines the true ideal of liberated human progress in a way that creates a healthy and happy global community in which we can all thrive? Man, that’s ridiculous!
Billy Shakes once asked, “what’s in a name?” As it turns out, a lot’s in a name. And the name is John. So, Johns, Ivans, Juans, Jeans, and Yahyas of the world: I look forward to working with you soon.
This has been from Aboard the Editor’s Pirate Ship. Thanks for your time.
Right now there is an uproar over the provincial government’s plan to introduce HST. The plan is to harmonize provincial sales tax with GST bringing PST into a whole bunch of industries (restaurants, grocery stores among others) which had up to this point avoided them.
Business points to this new tax and scream about layoffs and jacked up consumer prices.
The NDP is rallying signatures. Editorials are lamblasting the Premier. People are griping to each other about how a) stupid and b) unfair the whole tax is.
What gets me about all of this is the seeming disconnect people have about why the HST is being introduced int he first place.
Taxes, as any political strategist (or person on the street for that matter) can tell you, aren’t popular. Why do governments bring them in? Because they can’t afford to supply the existing level of services (read education, health care, transportation infrastructure, etc) without a larger source of revenue.
Right now, BC, like the rest of the world, is in the midst of a recession. Profits are down, people are making less money and spending less of it. That means all sorts of traditional government taxes aren’t generating income like they used to. Yet at the same time, there aren’t fewer people going to the doctor (like is probably the case in the US’s privatized system) nor fewer people riding transit or going to school.
Canada and British Columbia have a terrific education system, and despite a lot of griping about hospital lines and other medical headaches, one of the best health care systems in the world. I don’t know about you, but I want to keep it that way and (ideally) continue to improve it. You don’t do that with less money – you do it with more money.
So when the provincial government looks at the balance sheet at the end of the fiscal year, they’re in an unpleasant conundrum: Keep services the same and yet somehow do so with withering profits. How can they do this? This simple answer is they can’t – at least not without figuring out a new revenue source.
Enter the HST.
While unpleasant, this new tax will go a long way to adding billions of dollars to the budget. In the end that will mean fewer cuts to the core services we all value. And that’s a good thing.
On Sunday, April 17, Adrian Dix won the NDP leadership race, edging out Mike Farnworth by around 700 votes: 9,772 votes to Farnworth’s 9,095. His win prompted excitement from some and groans from many other. The Province newspaper labelled it a “a hard turn to the Left” for the provincial NDP. The photo featured Dix wooping it up in a less-than-flattering pose. The headline contrasted with the paper’s earlier cover of Christy Clark decked out in Canucks gear and a hockey stick, smiling broadly cheek to luminous cheek. The contrast couldn’t be more telling.
Regardless, it seems likely his agenda will appeal the union movement which strongly supported Dix in his leadership race. It will also ring true to many community activists and more “left-wing” organizers who’ve long been frustrated with Carole James’ perceived outreach to big business and the “powers-that-be” in Vancouver. It may not have the same resonance among the progressive business and green-oriented supporters drawn to the Farnworth camp. Meanwhile, outside the party sphere, it’s unlikely we will see Dix making any forays to the BC Chamber of Commerce, UDI luncheons or Board of Trade Meetings. While such outreach may be painful (and perhaps useless) it does represent a first step to making an NDP government more palatable to the progressive business community and young professionals whom the party must attract for both funding and support. Ultimately, the province’s political sphere has progressed beyond the polarized workers on one side and bosses on the other.
