When elections are fought by the numbers most of us don’t count
And they’re off… to another election in which most of us won’t count.
No one will admit it, of course, but take it from me.
This won’t be an election about ideas. Ideas don’t win elections. Can you say carbon tax? Or Kim Campbell? Forget meaningful debate about corporate tax cuts, budget deficits, debt, wars in Afghanistan and Libya, environment, globalization, poverty—except, of course, as those issues nudge numbers.
Like all recent elections in our first-past-the-post system, this one will be all about numbers—a small number of numbers in 50, give or take, of the 308 federal ridings in which one party or another believes, for one reason or another, it can wrest a particular seat from its rivals.
Start with the standard-issue 40 ridings in which the margin of victory last time was miniscule enough that the losing party hopes a leader-kissed baby here or a strategically timed announcement there will change the outcome. They’ll count.
But the only ever-shifting-winds-of-change riding in Nova Scotia is West Nova where the difference between a Tory or Liberal MP is traditionally a few popular-vote percentage points. West Nova voters will matter.
Each party also maintains its own additional list of ridings in which, for whatever reasons—its own star candidate, the stumbles of an incumbent, a particular policy—it hopes to make a gain.
The NDP is targeting one such Nova Scotia riding—Dartmouth Cole-Harbour—where they believe former provincial leader Robert Chisholm can knock off Liberal Michael Savage.
The Tories thought they had their own star candidate to take down another Liberal—Geoff Regan in Halifax West—but, for some reason, they’ve stopped talking about that particular “star:” Halifax Mayor Peter Kelly.
Conservatives say they’re also targeting rural Liberals and New Democrats like Peter Stoffer, who voted for the federal gun registry. But even they aren’t dumb enough to think they can actually defeat the popular MP, who gobbled up more than 60 per cent of the votes last time.
Which means…
In most Nova Scotia ridings, our numbers don’t add up. Our votes won’t matter.
We will once again be spectators at our own democracy. Welcome to Election 2011.
Copyright 2011 Stephen Kimber
Was our mayor as dumb as he pretends?
Here’s what we are supposed to believe. Howard MacKay’s Power Promotional Events was in deep doo doo. Tickets for its July 24 Black Eyed Peas concert on the Halifax Commons were selling so poorly the promoter was on the edge of cancelling that concert as well as a two-day country show set for the same venue less than two weeks later.
Three days before the first concert, Halifax Mayor Peter Kelly personally tried—and failed—to convince Premier Darrell Dexter to pony up cash for the concert.
Later that day, MacKay met with Kelly and HRM’s Acting CAO Wayne Anstey in a last desperate attempt to save the show.
At this point, we don’t know what transpired during that session.
What we do know is what the mayor claims happened next: “After the meeting, we all went our own way and Mr. Anstey… made a decision” to OK $400,000 in forgivable loans to MacKay’s company, a deal that violated the city charter. “He did not ask for my consent, nor was any given,” Kelly insisted last week. “I thought that it was according to policy and that he had the authority in which to do it.”
I’d like to believe that…
Check that. I’d rather not believe it.
Believing it means acknowledging we have a mayor who—in spite of being cheerleader-in-chief for mega-concerts on the Common—is so disengaged, so uncaring he didn’t ask, even after he learned the concert was on again: Hey, Wayne, how did you fix that problem with the Peas? Wow, isn’t that beyond your authority?
We also have to buy that the mayor didn’t at some point read the terms of the sweetheart deal and say: Whoah, Wayne, what the…!?
And we must accept that—even after Power Promotions went down the tubes in October—our esteemed mayor didn’t say to himself: Perhaps I’d better tell council and taxpayers what we’ve been doing with their money … And have been doing for years, only this time, uh… we got caught…
So I don’t want to believe the mayor was as dumb as he claims he was.
And I don’t.
I look forward to the auditor general’s report.
See also: For mayor, surely we can do better.
Copyright 2011 Stephen Kimber
Beware taxpayers defenders defending corporate rip-offs
So let me see if I have this straight.
The Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation, which prides itself on being the fists-up, fang-baring defender of downtrodden taxpayers, has its knickers righteously twisted because the province says it can save taxpayers $4.7-million a year…
Uh… this does not compute.
Or perhaps it does.
Some background. Nova Scotia’s Transportation Department believes private companies are over-charging—by up to 50 per cent—for roadwork in some rural areas because there was no, or little competition.
The short version: they were profiteering because they could.
So the Transportation Department decided to get back into the business—to provide competition in places where there wasn’t any, save taxpayer bucks and have more funds to do more roadwork on more roads.
The wounded howls from the Nova Scotia Road Builders Association—some of whose members, one would assume, had happily licked that honey pot—were predictable.
So too was the predictably Pavlovian, “government-bad” response of the so-called Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation.
Instead of upbraiding the road builders for ripping off taxpayers, the Federation hopped into bed with them, then snuggled up close.
It accused government of “colluding” with its highway workers’ union because the department had asked the union in advance how its new public paving scheme might affect the collective agreement. Sounds prudent to me. (When government talks with corporate lobbyists, the Federation calls it “consulting,” and thinks it’s a fine idea.)
It also attacked highway workers personally. The Federation claimed private sector flag workers earn $12 an hour—probably even if their employer has inflated a bid—while a public sector flag person sucks up a bloated $16 an hour from the public teat.
But let’s ask ourselves: what’s so bad about that?
Perhaps the still-hardly-rich flag worker will use her extra $4 extra to buy groceries or school supplies locally, not to forget contributing a few thousand extra in taxes to the public good.
Compare that with what might happen to the bloated profits a paving company can skim from uncompetitive bidding, which is as likely to be spent on a Caribbean cruise as school supplies, and more likely to be sheltered from the tax man.
Thanks for nothing, Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation.
Copyright 2011 Stephen Kimber
Is it time to ban the ban?
If it is possible—and it seems it is—for the Halifax Traffic Authority to lift the overnight parking ban a month before its official best-before date because the weatherman isn’t expecting snow for… well, a week, but who’s counting… then why is it not possible to hold off on imposing the ban until the first snow hits the ground instead of, arbitrarily, on Dec. 15?
If it is also true—and it is—that, under Section 139 of the Motor Vehicle Act, cars can be towed if they get in the way of snow removal, whether the municipal parking ban exists or not… then why exactly is it that we need said ban in the first place?
Just asking.
On Friday, Ken Reashor, the man behind the arbitrary Authority that pronounces on all things parking-ban, issued his third-year-in-a-row, ban-ending-early news release.
In it, he thanked us for being better children. This winter, only 7,637 of us—count me among them—were ticketed for violating the ban, a drop of more than 3,000—count me as one the naughty ones then too—from the year before.
Reashor also said he felt our pain—“there are frustrations with the ban,” he allowed, making it clear he occasionally reads newspapers or listens to talk radio—“but the rules always come down to ensuring our streets are well cleared and safe.”
But is the one-size-fits-all ban really the best way to ensure that?
The ban kicked in each night at 1 a.m.—more than an hour before some downtown night spots closed—and didn’t lift again until 7 a.m., an hour after many shift workers arrived for work.
While I have no excuse—just dumber-than-a-dustball carelessness—for my own tickets (I live on the peninsula and have a driveway), many who live in older sections don’t have easy options.
Halifax Coun. Dawn Sloane has been pressing—so far unsuccessfully—for changes to the ban: no snow, no ticketing; alternate side-of-street parking in the downtown core; distinct rules for different sections of the regional municipality; etc..
Before the next snow falls—hopefully in 2012—city council needs to have that discussion. Dec. 15 is just around the corner.
Copyright 2011 Stephen Kimber
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About
STEPHEN KIMBER, a Professor of Journalism at the University of King's College in Halifax, is an award-winning writer, editor and broadcaster. He is the author of one novel -- Reparations -- and seven non-fiction books.