Gwyn Morgan

I find it somewhat disturbing that someone who is either this dumb or this dishonest is considered one of our great national businessmen.

My favourite bit of lunacy (among many) from the column:

"Both history and logic about consumer behaviour tells us that when the price of something has already reached expensive levels, adding a little to that price has no real impact on consumption."

Seriously, wtf? Never mind the tortured grammar ('logic about'?), how do we define 'expensive levels', how do we define 'adding a little', how do we define 'real impact' If history is so clear, perhaps a historical example would help, if the logic is so clear, spell it out for me, because I'm not following. Is he saying it would work if the price wasn't at 'expensive levels', or that adding 'a lot' to the price would make a 'real difference', but adding half of 'a lot' makes no difference?

Ah screw it, why am I responding to this dishonest clown as if he puts any thought into or even means his words. You know what, forget it, don't even follow the link I put in above. Do something more constructive. Read this. Or go for a walk.

Race To Where?

Let's talk about words - two in particular: 'top' and 'bottom'. These words have a huge variety of meanings in a huge variety of contexts but, when it comes to outcomes, their meaning is fairly clear - you'd rather come out 'on top' then 'hit bottom' - better to be a 'top gun' than a 'bottom feeder'.

OK, enough about words, let's talk about jobs. Let's say that you work (i.e. earn a wage) for your living. I'm guessing that, for the most part, you would generally prefer more pay to less pay, a 35 hour week to a 60 hour week, good benefits to no benefits, fewer people looking to take your job, not having to learn another language to keep your job, and, if you are in a union, the government not making it illegal for you to go on strike.

So would it be fair to say, that if you had a job with high pay, reasonable hours, great benefits, little threat of being replaced and a legal right to strike you might feel like you had come out 'on top' - and if you had a job with less pay, really long hours, no benefits, no right to strike and a high likelihood of just being replaced if you ask for anything better then you would be more likely to feel you had 'hit bottom'?

Now perhaps you are wondering, why am I insulting your intelligence with this mind-numbing discussion of the obvious? Well, the reason, dear reader, is that apparently the foregoing is not at all obvious to some people. And not just any some people, some people who study this kind of thing for a living and write for a famous newspaper.

Which brings me to Thomas Friedman's column in the New York Times from the other day. It is titled, 'A Race to the Top'.

And this isn't just the work of some rogue headline writer, the column itself states that, "They [Indians] are not racing us to the bottom. They are racing us to the top"
So let's examine this race for the top, using only Friedman's column for source material:

"French voters are trying to preserve a 35-hour work week in a world where Indian engineers are ready to work a 35-hour day. Good luck."

So people will have to work more hours than they do now, or want to, because desperate Indians will work 35-hour days. From our earlier discussion, more work = bad = bottom.

"I feel sorry for Western European blue collar workers. A world of benefits they have known for 50 years is coming apart,"

You know the game by now: fewer benefits = bad = bottom.

"how explosive the next decade in Western Europe could be, as some of these aging, inflexible economies - which have grown used to six-week vacations and unemployment insurance that is almost as good as having a job - become more intimately integrated with Eastern Europe, India and China in a flattening world"

fewer vacations, less unemployment insurance = bad = bottom.

"Are you willing to learn another language to get a job. The Indians are, "A grass-roots movement is now spreading, demanding that English be taught in state schools - where 85 percent of children go - beginning in first grade, not fourth grade. "What's new is where this movement is coming from," said the Indian commentator Krishna Prasad. "It's coming from the farmers and the Dalits, the lowest groups in society." Even the poor have been to the cities enough to know that English is now the key to a tech-sector job, and they want their kids to have those opportunities."

having to learn a new language to get job = bad = bottom.

but wait, what about:

"The dirty little secret is that India is taking work from Europe or America not simply because of low wages. It is also because Indians are ready to work harder and can do anything from answering your phone to designing your next airplane or car. They are not racing us to the bottom. They are racing us to the top."

First I note that lower wages, harder work = bad = bottom.

Second I point out that just because the Indians are doing high value added work doesn't mean they are racing us to the top, it means that the race to the bottom they are part of affects not only our bottom but also our top.

But won't Indian wages just catch up with Western ones and then after a little adjustment period we can all have good benefits like the Europeans do?

It looks promising...

"This is not about wages at all - the whole wage differential thing is going to reduce very quickly," said Rajesh Rao, who heads the innovative Indian game company, Dhruva. It is about people who have been starving "finally seeing the ability to realize their dreams."

but the very next line reads,

"Both Infosys and Wipro, India's leading technology firms, received more than one million applications last year for a little more than 10,000 job openings."

Yeah, I can see a real incentive for them to raise wages when they have 100 applicants for every job. Ever heard of supply and demand? Of course there is a way for workers to earn a reasonable share of the value from the work they do even when there is an oversupply of their labour - it's called unions.¹

But things aren't looking too good on that front.

"The Indian state of West Bengal has the oldest elected Communist government left in the world today. Some global technology firms recently were looking at outsourcing there, but told the Communists they could not do so because of the possibility of worker strikes that might disrupt the business processes of the companies they work for. No problem. The Communist government declared information technology work an "essential service," making it illegal for those workers to strike. Have a nice day."

Strikes made illegal = bad (if you're a unionized worker) = bottom

The thing is, everything Friedman describes in this article is really happening, and it makes for a very graphic depiction of exactly what a race to the bottom is - communist governments banning strikes, downward pressure on wages and benefits, upward pressure on hours, huge numbers of desperate people willing to accept whatever job is offerred - but I can scarcely imagine the cognitive dissonance he had to face down in order to categorize it as a race to the top. And I can only wonder why he would feel compelled to put such a ridiculous spin on the message his own column is trying so hard to get across.


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¹ Of course, the truly effective way to raise wages by limiting supply is by instituting some arbitrary examination requirements (see doctors, lawyers, accountants, actuaries etc.) but I don't see Indian IT workers forming some sort of exclusive IT profession which only admits a limited number of people allowed to work in IT every year, so that's not too relevant to this post.

Paint it True

"Paint it True, paint it true - to miss or mister
if you don't we wont get the picture
lies and deception is a terrible mixture
when you speak from the heart it'll uplift ya"¹

So I've been trying to avoid writing too many dissections of media articles since that seems to lack a certain style or originality but, to tell the truth, part of my motivation for blogging in the first place was to no longer bottle up the irritation I feel when I encounter the worst of the media so let's have at it...

Tommy Steele, (from Canadian Steele) has a good post up on what it means to be non-partisan. All I'll add right now is that to me non-partisan means a) what Tommy said and b) the opposite of an article in the Tyee today by Mitchell Anderson, entitled 'Let's Keep Vote Reform Alive'.

The article is a pro-MMP piece which attempts to show that the 'message' sent by the referendum was that the people of B.C. want to see an MMP system brought in. Which is fair enough for an objective, it's just the implementation that went awry. Let's do a line by line critique...

"The referendum question on BC-STV needed 60 percent support to succeed. It got 57 percent.

There are two lessons that we should take from this result. The first is that BC-STV is a dud. A poll by Ipsos-Reid in late April showed that 64 percent of British Columbians knew "nothing" or "very little" about BC-STV. A second poll by Nordic Research Group poll on the eve of the referendum showed that only 37 percent of respondents could even name STV."

So here's my question, how can the reason that (43% of) people voted against STV be because it is a dud if they couldn't even name the system being voted on? How could people be expected to prefer MMP, if they're not going to bother to even learn the name of what they are voting on? Will people be more likely to learn the acronym MMP than the acronym STV because the system which the MMP acronym corresponds to is a little bit simpler than the one which STV corresponds to?

If people don't even know the name of the proposed system, that doesn't indicate that it's a dud, it indicates the people are a dud because they have no interest in how they are governed and/or that the process for educating people was a dud. It says nothing about MMP being better than STV (or vice-versa).

"British Columbians were voting for change. They were not voting for BC-STV."

It's nice that the author believes he knows the motivations of all the people of B.C. who voted, but I for one voted for STV and I think a lot of other people did as well. It seems like pretty hard spin to suggest that people who answered 'yes' to a question, 'do you want to adopt STV as the new electoral system' weren't voting for STV. Maybe not all of them, but enough to make the 57-43 split in favour? definitely.

"While BC-STV has now failed, electoral reform continues to move forward. Just one day after the election, both Gordon Campbell and Carole James have stated that improving the voting system is a priority that should be revisited before the next election.

This is stunning rebuke to the cynical argument made prior to May 17th that while voters might not like or even understand BC-STV, they had better vote for it or electoral reform in BC will be set back for years."

And I guess if Campbell comes out tomorrow and says the Liberals want to help out the poor, that will be a stunning rebuke to those who said that voting NDP would be better for the poor than voting Liberal. When it comes to politics, action speaks a lot louder than words. If we end up getting a new electoral system some time in the next, say 6 years, *that* will be a rebuke to those who thought a 'No' vote would set back electoral reform. And besides, the only reason electoral reform still has the momentum it does is because so many people voted 'Yes'.

Furthermore, I would challenge the author to point out where 'Yes' supporters are on the record as saying that people who don't understand STV should vote 'Yes'. It was the 'Yes' side which did by far the lion's share of the work to get people to know about and understand STV. The 'No' side seemed reasonably content to rely on simplistic (and often misleading) fear-mongering rather than try and educate people.

"Carole James has also revealed that she does not favour STV -- a sentiment shared in the vast majority of the public submissions of the now defunct Citizens Assembly.

In fact, fully 80 percent of the public submissions to the Citizens Assembly process were in favour of some form of "mixed-member proportional" (MMP) system, used in some variety by most established democracies around the world. Unlike STV, MMP has a solid record of delivering proportional results and achieving gender equity of elected officials."

This is the real heart of where the article goes awry. First off, as is well known by now, the Green Party stacked the submissions to the Assembly, by lining up speaker after speaker to support MMP without any other system having such organized support behind it. So the quoting of statistics which the author must surely (by now) know to be misleading is quite disingenuous.

Speaking of which, the statement that MMP is used in some variety by most established democracies around the world is simply a falsehood. As far as I know, out of the 30 or so countries which make up the OECD (a group of the world's wealthiest / most advanced nations) only Germany, New Zealand, Mexico, the U.K. (for some regional elections) and Italy (lower house) use MMP. That's hardly *most*. In fact, it's only 2 more than use STV (Ireland, Australia (upper house), and U.K. (again regional elections). And maybe this would be a good time to mention that New Zealand is only using MMP because it won a referendum - with a 54% yes vote, 3% less than voted for STV in B.C.

But even worse is the statement that 'unlike STV, MMP has a solid record of delivering proportional results' - another outright falsehood, since by pretty much any measure STV has a solid record of delivering proportional results as well.

As for achieving gender equity, I've been over this ground many times. I don't think allowing party leaders to basically appoint women to MLA positions is the solution to the gender gap nor do I think that differences between countries in the number of women elected can be attributed with any degree of reliability to the electoral system.

"The main advantage of MMP is that it preserves local representation while also ensuring that elected seats accurately reflect the popular vote. Under MMP, minority and coalition governments rather than simple majorities are far more likely.

Because different parties know that they may one day have to work together, the public debate tends to be more respectful than the embarrassing spectacles seen regularly in Victoria or Ottawa. Coalitions also mean that governments are much more accountable to the people between elections - not just on voting day."

Sorry, how is this any different from STV? (and this is the 'main' advantage of MMP -over what? - oh I see, we're doing the old shifting comparison game, comparing MMP vs. FPTP when it suits us and vs. STV when that suits us).

"Countries that use MMP also have better representation from women - up to 42 percent in Sweden. This system has also been shown to significantly increase voter participation - over 80 percent in countries such as Denmark, Sweden, and the Belgium."

Which would be more convincing if a) Those countries actually used MMP and b) Those countries didn't have a long stories historical track record of equitable treatment of women extending across almost all facets of their society. But I'm sure more female MP's is down solely to the electoral system. Imagine how many women would be elected in the Middle East if only they used MMP! note: sarcasm

"There is little doubt that if BC voters had been given the chance to choose the much more popular system of MMP, the results of the referendum would have been very different."

Obviously there's no doubt since MMP is much more popular - the author says so! Less sarcastically, I say 'huh'? Maybe the results would have been different but I'd say there's lots of doubt. Keep in mind that STV's 57% support in B.C. was 3% higher than what MMP got when it was put to the test in New Zealand. And of the pro-STV blogs I listed on my STV-blog, I got the feeling that there were a fair number which supported STV but wouldn't have supported MMP.

"For reasons that remain unclear, the Citizens Assembly instead chose to disregard the vast majority of public input and recommend BC-STV"

The reasons are not unclear, they were spelled out (clearly) on the Assembly website and if the author had contacted any of the assembly members for an explanation I'm sure they would have answered at length as they did when the question came up at the public forum I went to.

Of course the reasons were the disadvantages that come with MMP (different classes of MLA's, the need to add more MLA's to the legislature, too much power in the hands of party leaders being the main ones) but maybe the author would rather cast vague aspersions against the integrity of the Assembly members than deal with the cognitive dissonance of how dedicated intelligent people studying the problem for a year might not think his favoured system is the best.

"As for the die-hard boosters of BC-STV, the rules of the referendum are clear and though they came close, they lost. They should now graciously admit defeat, and either pitch in on the new struggle for a more palatable system of electoral reform, or clear out of the way.

Some BC-STV zealots have now suggested that the referendum threshold of the 60 percent should now be lowered retroactively to allow their preference to succeed. Can you image the outrage if the threshold was retroactively raised had BC-STV had achieved 63 percent support?"

The rules were clear, but perhaps not clear enough for the author to understand them properly. The mandate for the referendum only stated that the government would be required to bring in STV if it got 60% support, NOT that it would be forbidden to do so without that support. So the author's comparison is a false and misleading one. In fact, the vast majority of all changes in electoral systems have been made with less public support than the 57% who voted in favour of STV. Even having a referendum at all set a higher bar than is often used (PEI is planning a referendum with a 50% threshold, and last I heard Quebec was planning electoral reform without a referendum).

On a more personal level, I find it irritating to have someone suggest I clear out of the way in one paragraph and accuse STV-supporters of being zealots in the very next paragraph.


Stepping back a bit, I should note that I have nothing against MMP. I think it's a perfectly good system (far better than our current one) and I think B.C. voters should have the chance to vote on it. What I don't like are articles which contain multiple falsehoods, articles which try to exploit statistics the author knows (or should know) are misleading, articles which prefer to cast aspersions on upstanding citizens rather than acknowledge the weakness in their case and articles which resort to name calling instead of making logical arguments (STV is referred to in the article in various places as 'obscure', 'arcane', 'baffling', a 'pig in a poke', a 'dud', and an 'unfortunate artifact', and its supporters are called 'die-hards' and 'zealots').

If your argument makes sense then you should have the courage to make it honestly and not resort to a host of cheap debating tricks to try and fool the reader into supporting your point rather than making an informed decision for themselves.

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¹ From 'Sketch' off the album 'Connected' by the Stereo MC's.

Deconstructing the 'Vote No to STV' arguments

Note: I wrote this post for my 'Vote Yes to STV' blog which recommends that B.C. voters vote in favour of changing the provincial electoral system to STV on May 17, but it ended up being so long that I figured I'd post it here too, in the hopes of increasing the probability that at least one person makes it through to the end (you've been warned).

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A website has been setup for a Vote No campaign against STV. The url and the title on the site read 'Know STV'. I guess 'know' is the obvious pun to go with for a vote no campaign, but I find it a bit odd since, in my opinion, the biggest hope of 'no' supporters is that people won't 'know' much about STV.

Consider what happens when people 'know' a lot: The members of the Citizens Assembly studied electoral systems for over a year and at the end, they voted 146-7 that STV is better than the current system. The Law Commission of Canada did a study and concluded that just about anything was better than First Past the Post (the current system) including STV (they recommended MMP as the best choice).

The truth is that pretty much any time any group has seriously studied electoral systems they have concluded that both STV and MMP are better than First Past the Post.

So maybe it's not surprising that, on a site whose avowed mission is to help people 'know' about STV, there is no section which actually explains what STV is, nor is there a link to any of the many animations which are probably the best online resource for understanding how STV works (I like the Australian one the best) - but they do have almost 1000 words in their section on the biographies of the Know STV backers. Seems like they want you to know 'know STV' more than they want you to know STV, if you know what I mean.

Now, it's true, the site does have a long Q&A section but this is more of a forum for them to give answers to softball questions than it is a place to get clear answers to help you 'know' what STV is.

For example, the first question is, "What is the Single-Transferable Vote (STV) proposed by the Citizens Assembly as BC's new electoral system?" - which sounds promising right?

But the answer given is, "The Single-Transferable Vote (STV) is an alternative to the First Past The Post electoral system"

Wow, that really clears it up, thanks! The rest of the answer is devoted to a comparison of the usage rates of STV and First Past the Post around the world which is interesting, but not what was asked (I always find it annoying when someone is asked something and they hijack the question - but when it's their own friggin' question you really have to wonder).

They do go into more detail about how STV works in their next question, "How does the Single-Transferable Vote (STV) differ from our current electoral system?" but rather than explain it clearly they make a few misleading statements and send the reader off to the Citizen's Assembly website for a full explanation.

Since I brought it up, here are some of the misleading statements:

"BC currently has 79 different constituencies but under STV there could be as few as18 constituencies or less. Each larger constituency would have from two or three members in rural areas to as many as seven MLAs in larger urban areas."

Aside from the confusing, bad writing, ('as few as18 or less'?) this paragraph could give the impression that there will be fewer MLA's elected under STV when in fact the number of MLA's elected (79) will remain the same.

The next line is, "Voters would rank all candidates in that larger constituency by their personal preference" which is simply not true. Voters could rank just one candidate or they could rank as many as they want. There is little point for most voters in ranking more than a few candidates and it is highly likely that the number of voters who decide to rank *all* the candidates would be extremely small. I know I have no plans to.

At any rate, I invite anyone to spend some time here on my blog and try to learn more about STV, (hint: click on the 'What the heck is STV' link) and then go to the Know STV site and see which one helps you learn more about how STV works.

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All right, enough about how the Know STV folks don't really want you to know all that much about STV or electoral systems in general, let's take a more detailed look at their Q&A and correct some of the areas where it lacks a little in the 'fair and balanced' department.

First question: "What is the Single-Transferable Vote (STV) proposed by the Citizens Assembly as BC's new electoral system?"

I already talked about how they don't answer the question, but let's look at the question they did answer which is, "Which jurisdictions use STV and which ones use First Past the Post?"

Their answer, which is that first past the post is used in a lot more places than STV, is accurate but it misses an important aspect which is the trend. And the trend is that countries are abandoning our First Past the Post system in favour of more proportional systems. In New Zealand, they adopted the Mixed Member Proportional System. In Australia, we are seeing the gradual spread of STV (most recently adopted in the State of Victoria.

The European parliament has members elected from countries all across Europe. If you take a look at the linked map, you can see that while only 2 European countries use STV to elect their members, that is greater than the number (0) which use First Past the Post. Even England, the country which spread First Past the Post to so much of the world, no longer uses it for the European Parliament elections. Similarly, none of the recently set-up parliaments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland use First Past the Post (Scotland and Wales use MMP and Northern Ireland uses STV).

The fact that so many more countries use First Past the Post than STV is more of a historical artifact than a ringing endorsement of First Past the Post.


Q: "So how does our current First Past the Post electoral system work by comparison?"

A: "Under First Past the Post, each voter chooses one candidate to represent their constituency and the candidate who wins more votes than any other is elected.

Each FPTP constituency has one MLA who is personally accountable to those voters and the constituencies are much smaller both geographically and in terms of the number of voters in each one."

So after reading this answer would you get the impression that there is exactly the same number of voters per MLA under STV as there is under the current system? If not, then you've been misled. Another good question to ask voters might be how personally accountable they feel their MLA is currently. Especially when in many cases over half the voters voted against that MLA (which wouldn't be the case under STV). And when most of the people who did vote for the MLA were probably voting for the Party the MLA represented and if they wanted to support their party they only had one choice of who to vote for (unlike under STV).

OK, next question.

Q: "Isn't STV a lot more complicated than FPTP?"

AKA, 'How often does STV beat its wife?'

A: "Yes. One of FPTP's biggest advantages is the simplicity and ease of understanding it brings to all voters. In recent New Zealand local elections using STV for the first time 11% of all votes were disqualified, more than 14 times the number rejected in the previous election."

Of course, if they had done their homework, they may have run across this quote from the Citizen's Assembly website:

"Does changing the voting system lead to more spoiled ballots?
A change in voting system or ballot form does not have a large impact on spoiled ballots. For example, when elections for the parliament of Tasmania switched from First Past The Post (FPTP - our current electoral system) to STV (the recommended system) the rate of spoiled ballots was 1.2% in 1906 (under FPTP) and 2.9% in 1909 (under STV). Another example of this marginal impact is when the House of Representatives in Australia went from marking crosses on the ballot to listing numbers, the rate of spoiled ballots changed 1.2%.

You may have heard that New Zealand had a problem with counting STV votes in its Fall 2004 municipal elections. That was a problem with its computers, not with the STV system. The Assembly has designed BC-STV so the count can be done either by hand or by computer."

oops.

Anyway, the answer continues:

"Voters may also be faced with a very large ballot and dozens of candidates in larger ridings, making it hard to rank the candidates knowledgeably."

OK, imagine someone said this to you,

"Shoppers may be faced with a lot of different cereals making it hard to choose a cereal knowledgeably"

Let's face it, any trip to the store involves choosing between a multitude of various models of just about everything, and I think if people can manage this they can manage to pick out their favourite candidate (or someone from their favourite party) out of a long list. And if the success of big-box stores is any guide people prefer more choices not fewer. Shocking, I know.

The answer gets better,

"Voters will also be confused by a mathematical quota called the Weighted Inclusive Gregory System which determines how and where exactly their vote will be 'transferred' to, by having to rank a large number of candidates in each constituency and by the need to trust computers to get the results right."

You hear that voters, you *will* be confused (whether you like it or not!). Of course, if you let the 'know STV' folks get to you with their scary sounding mathematical formula I guess it's possible. But someone who really wanted you to 'know' STV might take this opportunity to explain just how your vote will be transferred (it's not that scary):

If the person you put #1 gets more votes than what they need to get elected, part of your vote gets transferred to your #2. How big a part? Well if your #1 got so many votes he/she only needed half of them to get elected, then they only get half your vote and the other half is transferred to #2. If they got so many votes they only needed 1/3 of their votes than they only get 1/3 of your vote and 2/3 is transferred to your #2 choice.

The other way your vote can get transferred is if nobody has enough votes to get elected, in which case they eliminate the poor sap who has the fewest #1 votes. If that poor sap was your #1 choice, then your vote (rather than being wasted like under the current system) is transferred to your #2 choice.

The same rules apply to your #2 choice as well so it's possible part or all of your vote could end up getting transferred to your #3 choice as well. (e.g. You vote for an independent with your #1, but they get eliminated and your vote is transferred to your #2 who is from the Green Party, but they get eliminated as well, so your vote is transferred to your #3 choice, and helps an NDP candidate edge out a Liberal candidate.)

OK, where was I, right, next question:

Q: "Will STV increase or reduce local representation and accountability?"

Before I get to the answer, I should mention the extensive section of (7!) links that the 'know STV' site has. One of these 7 lucky links is the "The Single Transferable Vote in practice", a report undertaken on behalf of the Scottish government (before they adopted STV for use in local elections).

Here's a quote from criticisms of how STV works in practice in Ireland:

"the heavy emphasis on constituency casework, faction-fighting between candidates from the same party, a focus on constituency, localist matters in election campaigns and parliamentary work, 'friends and neighbours' voting, are all seen as resulting - at least in large part - from the candidate-centred, preference voting of STV"

Yes, a frequent criticism of STV is that because candidates have to compete with members of their own party for seats, they focus too much on local issues and local representation at the expense of 'big-picture' thinking.

The Scottish report eventually concludes that it is hard to tell whether the intense focus on local issues is a function of the electoral system or just some quirk of the Irish in general (or possibly due to the fact that they only have national government with no provincial or local governments).

Anyway, what do the 'Know STV' folks say about STV and local representation?

"There will be less local representation and accountability because STV will mean much larger constituencies and MLAs will be representing far more people over a wider geographic area."

Once again, may I point out that the number of voters per MLA will be the same under STV as it is now. So MLA's will be representing the same number of people as before. It's just that instead of having (for example) 4 ridings each with it's own MLA, you would now have them combined into one riding with 4 MLA's. So maybe the MLA's will have to figure out how to divide up the riding between them - an insurmountable challenge? I doubt it. Personally I'd rather have four MLA's to potentially go to with a problem - including one that I voted for, vs. having only one choice and that being someone I voted against because I couldn't stand them, but that's just me.

They continue, "In large rural constituencies that contain a major town, it’s possible that all MLAs elected will come from that town because that’s where the most voters are, reducing accountability for other parts of the constituency."

Let me see if I can explain this. If an area was large enough to be a riding under the current system, then that means it has enough population to elect someone to represent them that is from their area - if that's what they want (and if they make the effort to get off the couch and go vote). This might be a good time to point out how under the current system parties can bring in candidates who don't even live in the riding at all (the recent election of John Tory in a by-election in Ontario is a good example of this) and people have no choice if they want to support their party. Under STV people could choose the representative from their party from their local area. Here's another quote from the Scottish report:

"Moreover studies of Irish voting patterns also indicate that candidates from a local area will receive more votes from that part of the constituency in which they live (Farrell 2001). Accordingly Irish political parties have developed sophisticated vote management and election strategies. These tend to involve ensuring that:
candidates are picked from different corners of the constituency and voters in each locale are actively encouraged to vary the ordering of their preferences so as to maximize the efficiency of the party vote. The basic idea is that the more equal the spread of first preferences across the different party candidates, the greater chance that more will be elected (Farrell 2001, p.146)."

But wait, Ireland and B.C. aren't the same, next question:

Q: "STV supporters say local representation is very good in Ireland under STV. What's the difference with BC?"

A: "BC and Ireland are quite different geographically, with BC many times larger. However Ireland's population is very close to BC's 4 million people and they have 166 representatives in their parliament, called the Dail, while in BC we have just 79 MLAs in the B.C. Legislature."

This is of course true, but it's just as true under our current system as it would be under STV. If we need more MLA's to represent us, we should have more MLA's. If we're short on MLA's that doesn't have much bearing on a comparison between two systems, both of which have the same number of MLA's.

They continue,

"Inevitably with huge ridings and few MLAs parts of BC would likely lose local representation. In some areas it is possible that no local candidate would be elected as an MLA, removing local representation completely."

'huge ridings and few MLAs?' Did I mention that there will be the same number of MLA's under STV, yeah I think I did.

Let's face it, this whole long list of concerns about local representation comes down to a worry that MLA's may be distributed slightly more unevenly around the province than they are now. Even though this will be left pretty much entirely in the hands of voters to decide for themselves. And there is no mention of how the fact that MLA's will have to worry about being defeated by members of their own party will force them to be more attentive to local needs. Or how the absence of safe Liberal or NDP seats like under the current system will mean that people will have to get elected based on their personal reputation for getting things done vs. which party they are running for.

OK, next question.

Q: "Does STV give proportional results? That is, if a party gets 10% of the popular vote in B.C. would it win 10% of the seats?

A: "No. STV supporters say it is more proportional than FPTP but there is no guarantee that seats won will correspond with popular vote. Proportional representation electoral systems such as List PR are designed to ensure such proportionality, not STV.

If a party got 10% of the vote under STV it would be unlikely to win a seat in any constituency in BC. Look again at the example of a constituency of 100,000 voters electing three members: the number of votes needed to win is 25,001, which means that a party would need at least 25% support to win one seat of the three."

Never mind for a moment that the Green party got 12% of the vote in the last election under First Past the Post, got 0 seats, and in all likelihood *would* have elected members under STV, instead how about we ask a different question:

Q: Is STV far more proportional than our current system and has this been clearly proven time after time in elections around the world and is the proportionality of STV much closer to being perfectly proportional than it is to matching our current system?

A: Yes. OK, let's move on.

Q: "Are MLAs elected with equal levels of support under STV?"

A: "No. Proponents say because STV it is more proportional "overall" if is a fairer system. But a candidate in a two-member riding in northern BC can get elected with 33% public support while a Vancouver or other large urban centre candidate can get elected with just 13% of the votes cast.

This means some MLAs have had to win far more support than others to be elected to the BC Legislature."

OK, Time for a math lesson. The candidate in the rural riding is getting a larger percentage of a riding with fewer voters. The candidate in the urban riding is getting a smaller percentage of votes in a riding with more voters. Can we see how these factors balance each other out so the two candidates need roughly the same number of total votes to get elected.

Now it's true that there is a slight difference. Say we assume 10,000 voters per riding then in a 2 member rural riding, a candidate would need 1/3 of 20,000 (10,000 each for the 2 members) votes = 6,700 votes to get elected. In a 7 member urban riding, a candidate would need, 1/8 of 70,000 = 8,750 votes. Of course a quick look at the last election results will show that the riding of Victoria-Hillside was won with 7,878 votes while the riding of Fort Langley Aldergrove was won with 16,527 votes. And this kind of disparity, far larger than the biggest possible difference under STV, is par for the course for First Past the Post (sorry about the mixed sporting metaphors).

I'm not even really sure what this question is getting at, but if MLA's getting elected with an equal number of voters actually is important, than we should point out that STV is far superior to our current system once again in this area.

Are you starting to notice a pattern yet? When the Know-STV folks feel that First-Past-the-Post has an advantage, they go for a direct comparison of the two systems. But when they think ('know') that STV is superior, they compare STV to some ideal standard like perfect proportionality or MLA's being elected with exactly the same number of votes each. Also note how rarely they are willing to take on a direct comparison - what does that tell you?

OK, next question.

Q: "Does STV allow independent candidates to win seats?"

A: "Not necessarily. Malta has used STV since 1921 but since 1950 not a single independent candidate has been elected. Any candidate requires significant funding to win election and with STV the constituencies will be much bigger, forcing candidates to raise even more money. In a seven-member constituency as proposed for Vancouver, major parties will likely spend $1 million or more in that constituency campaign alone — an amount no independent candidate could possibly raise."

First off, this answer is simply factually inaccurate. Yes, STV *necessarily* *allows* independent candidates to win seats. Even our old First Past the Post system *allows* independents to win seats. More substantively, the Know-STV folks yet again seem to be confused about STV. A 7 member constituency would indeed be much bigger, but there are 7 seats, so an independent only needs to get 1/7 of the votes (technically 1/8th since only 7 people can get more than 1/8 of a total). The parties aren't going to spend any more money *per MLA* than they do right now and an independent won't have to either.

Let me explain why STV is better for independents, something which pretty much everybody (even most STV opponents acknowledge) but which the 'Know-STV' people apparently don't want you to, you know, know.

Under the old system, the only way for an independent candidate to get elected is to win a plurality (get more votes than anyone else) in a specific riding. Under STV, an independent candidate who gets that many votes in one riding will still (with a very high probability) get elected. But in addition, an independent candidate can get a smaller level of support, spread over a wider area. For example, an independent candidate who gets an average of 15% support across one of the big Vancouver ridings would be able to get elected under STV, but would have been shut out under the old system (much like the Green Party was in the last election).

Furthermore, under the old system, many people don't vote for independents because they know the independent has no chance of being elected so they are wasting their vote (or worse by not strategically voting for their favourite party, they may help that party's opponent to get elected). But under STV, voters can vote for an independent knowing that if that candidate gets eliminated, then their vote will be transferred to their second choice, so they don't have to worry about wasted votes and strategic votes.

Next question.

Q: "Would smaller third parties be elected under an STV system?"

A: "Not necessarily. In Malta, which has had STV since 1921, there are only two parties with elected officials. In recent elections the largest third party has won less than 2% of the vote and no seats. In Ireland small parties have won seats but so have smaller parties in BC under First Past The Post, as recently as in 1996."

OK, this is getting tiresome. How about:

Q: Are smaller parties far more likely to be elected under STV than under our current system? A: Yes.

Seriously, if these folks really want you to make an informed choice why are they trying to deny even facts which are blindingly obvious to anyone who takes some time to think about how the two systems work (not to mention clearly documented by almost 100 years of electoral history). First Past the Post is so hostile to small parties that political scientists have formed a 'law', (Duvergers Law) which postulates that First Past the Post naturally leads to a two-party system.

It's simple, STV is more proportional so you need a smaller percentage of the vote to get elected plus it eliminates strategic voting - thus more small parties can be elected and this has been shown pretty clearly in practice. It's true that in Malta small parties don't get elected - because people don't vote for them - and this is a problem because?? OK, moving on.

Q: "Are women elected in larger numbers under STV?"

A: "No. In Malta women make up just 9.2% of the country's legislators, with only 6 women elected out of 65 representatives. In Ireland just 13.3% of elected officials are women."

I've already discuss this at length here, so I won't belabour it any further, but I'll just ask one more time, why, if the 'Know-STV' people want you to truly know STV, would they fail to mention that in the STV-using jurisdiction most similar to Canada (Australia), more women are elected than in B.C. Wouldn't that information be helpful to someone trying to make an informed decision?

Q: "Does STV mean an end to so-called 'wasted votes'"

All right, I'm just warning you, the 'Know-STV' folks really jumped the shark on this one, so this may get lengthy.

A: "If no vote were to be 'wasted' that would mean every voter's candidate of choice would have to win election - it's not possible or sensible."

Actually, it is entirely sensible and possible - in fact that's what proportional representation means. According to the Citizen's Assembly site:

"STV virtually eliminates 'wasted' votes. For example, in a three seat riding, even if a voter's #1 preferred candidate is not elected, there is a good chance her ballot will help her #2 and #3 preferred candidates win a seat. About 16% of ballots don't contribute to electing a candidate."

So STV doesn't eliminate wasted votes entirely like a pure proportional system would, but it reduces the % of wasted votes (from around 40-50% in a typical First Past the Post election) down to 16% - which is pretty good since it means one in four voters who would have someone in the legislature that they voted for under STV where they would have had noone under First-Past-the-Post.

They continue: "Elections are to select which candidate in each constituency has the most support"
Actually that's a definition of the First-Past-the-Post system not 'elections', but it's instructive to see that the Know-STV people think that the First-Past-the-Post method is equivalent to 'elections'.

"...and then which parties across the province have enough support from elected members to form a government.

STV supporters say that by ranking your choice of candidates, the odds are one of your choices will win a seat. But that's a little like saying if you bet on every horse in a horserace, one of your picks will be a winner."

Actually, it's not like that at all. Voters are expressing a preference between who they want to help win the race vs. who they want to lose, not trying to profit from every possible outcome - that's why the ranking is crucial. If you really want an analogy, it's more like saying that if your friends vote down your choice of a pizza with anchovies, egg and corn, you can still have a say in the decision between the vegetarian option and the pepperoni pizza rather than being shut out of the crucial decision because you wanted to be able to express your true preference first.

"And because of the complicated transfer system, you will never know where your vote actually went in electing the MLAs for your constituency."

Wrong again. If your first choice didn't get elected, it's a good bet that your vote got transferred to your second choice, unless the person you voted for was the last one to get eliminated. If your person was the last to get eliminated then your vote didn't get transferred at all. That's tough but console yourself by remembering that if we still used FPTP your vote would *never* get transferred.

Now, if your first choice did get elected, either they were the last one elected in your riding (in which case they got all of your vote and none was transferred) or they weren't the last one elected and they got part of your vote (enough to get elected) and the rest was transferred to your next choice. You can check the result to see how many votes your candidate got compared to how many they needed. The same calculation as before applies. If your candidate got twice as many votes as they needed then they got half your vote and half was transferred to your #2.

So the truth is, if you care to know, it will be easy enough to track where your vote went. It takes a bit more effort than under the current system where - unless you voted for the person who won - you might as well have put your ballot in the trash can as in the voting box, for all the effect it had on the election.

"Under First Past The Post, your vote goes to one candidate and is counted clearly. Regardless of your choice, that's not a wasted vote."

Seriously, why are they even bothering with this nonsense? If my vote had 0 impact on who get elected, it's a wasted vote, end of story. True, you could argue that no vote is wasted because it's important on principle to vote, but the 'know-stv' folks know as well as you and I do that that isn't what we're talking about when we talk about wasted votes. Sheesh.

Q: "What would happen to nominating meetings under an STV system?"

A: "Because STV combines the smaller single member constituencies of our current system into large multi-member constituencies, the likelihood is that special interest groups would dominate the nomination process of political parties even more than today."

Umm, why is that exactly - I'm not following. Wouldn't bigger ridings make it harder for special interests to dominate a nomination meeting. Isn't that logical - the smaller something is, the easier it is for a special interest to dominate it? I'm just asking.

OK, almost finished, I promise:

Q: "What is the short version of what's wrong with STV? Why should I vote no?"

A: "STV is complicated, confusing, prone to errors and delay, it reduces local accountability, increases the size of ridings, allows MLAs to avoid direct accountability for their decisions, increases party control and allows special interests to dominate party nominations."

So here's the big finish. STV is too complicated and confusing (translation BC voters aren't as smart as voters in Malta and Ireland and Tasmania who have been using STV since before the invention of commercial air travel, the automobile or television.)

It's prone to errors and delay (translation: Elections BC is incompetent and can't manage elections as well as the Irish or the Maltans)

It reduces local accountability (never mind that one of the most common criticisms of STV is that it makes MLA's focus too much on local concerns)

It increases the size of ridings (but not the number of voters per MLA - if this is such a big concern we could always just add more MLA's anyway)

It allows MLA's to avoid direct accountability for their decisions (how exactly? - and don't you think that MLA's are more accountable when voters know they can dump the MLA without voting for a different party?)

It increases party control (Actually, no. How much control parties want to have over their MLA's is up to the parties. - If anything, MLA's who go against the party have a better chance of surviving as independents under STV than they would under the old system).

and it allows special interests to dominate nomination meetings (not that there is any evidence of this ever happening anywhere, but the 'know STV' crew have decided that it's true so there you go. Personally I think logic suggests that larger meetings will be less corrupt but that's just me.)

So that's it. It's quite a long list of questions, but somehow they missed the obvious ones. Which system is more proportional? Which system doesn't require strategic voting? What % of Citizen's Assembly members thought STV was superior to First Past the Post? What happened in the two referendums where Irish voters were asked if they wanted to switch away from STV? Which system gives voters more choice? Yeah, I wonder why they didn't ask any of those questions.

Maybe because they didn't want you to 'know' the answers.

Time to Pack it In

After reading Norman Spector's latest comments on STV in the Vancouver Sun, I have come to the conclusion that it is (past) time for him to depart from the column writing business.

Let's start with the outright lie with which he concludes his column, saying that STV is "a voting system used by only one Commonwealth country"

The Sun should really publish a correction on this one, since clearly Australia and New Zealand are members of the Commonwealth and equally clearly both use STV for some elections (not to mention Scotland and Northern Ireland). I'm not sure why Spector feels that, on top of his pathetically transparent attempt to exclude Ireland (which uses STV) from discussion, he needs to lie outright as well.

But that's far from the only laughable part of this column. Now when you read the following line, "Proponents of STV claim that only politicians and political hacks favour the existing system", what do you expect is coming next?

I think you'd expect to be given an example of someone who favours the existing system, but isn't a politician or a political hack. But no, here's what comes next, "As I look at prominent names in the debate, however, I see the Bob Williams faction of the NDP -- represented by former cabinet minister Andrew Petter -- supporting STV. I see Moe Sihota -- representing the less ideological Dave Barrett wing -- opposing it. And I see a similar radical/moderate split on the right."

So you see, it isn't just politicians and political hacks who support the existing system, Moe Sihota, representing the less ideological Dave Barrett wing of the NDP, supports it too. And it's the same on the right!

It gets better. Spector's main point seems to be that, under STV, the Liberals wouldn't have decided to spend more money in the budget in the hopes of getting elected. He posits that, "STV would fragment our two big-tent, centrist parties and force politicians to compete for votes on the ends of the political spectrum." and that, "B.C. politics are not polarized. It's our society that's polarized -- along multiple fault lines. In fact, our political system is one of the few institutions that keep it all together." So you've got the argument right, having more than two parties would cause polarization - I don't agree, but at least it's a coherent point.

But further down, Norman backs his point up by saying that we don't want to become like Malta (which uses STV), since Malta is, "a country that's infamous for polarized politics." The thing is, Malta is also famous as the only jurisdiction which uses STV and which still has a two-party structure. So the infamously polarized Malta has a two party system, just like we do now, and Spector is basically contradicting his argument that a two-party system is the recipe for non-polarization.

There's more. Spector also claims that, "To date, proponents of the new voting system have been unwilling or unable to explain clearly where my vote and your votes would go after we mark our ballots."

Now the unwilling part is absurd. It is the Yes side which has a strong interest in explaining the STV system as well and as clearly as possible and a visit to any Yes-vote supporting site will reveal a strong emphasis on doing exactly that. For Yes supporters, ignorance (like Spector's) is our enemy.

As for the unable part, I doubt that Spector has conducted a poll, so one of two things must be true:

Either a) Spector has failed to understand how the vote counting will work - which makes the fact that he has written a number of columns criticizing the impact of the new system seem a little premature to say the least or

b) Spector understands it himself, but he is concerned for the little people in B.C. who don't have his intelligence to figure out this complicated system (which the Irish have been using since before WWII).

There's other nutty stuff as well, such as insinuating that STV will lead to a ban on abortion in one paragraph and then calling STV supporters an 'unholy alliance' (he seems to miss the irony) only a couple of paragraphs later.


Aside from all this, if Spector is going to comment on electoral reform, shouldn't he at least make a token effort to address all the flaws such as the lack of fairness and lack of power for voters which have driven us to consider dropping our current system? Or does he feel that if he keeps repeating his lie that 'only one country in the Commonwealth uses STV' like a mantra, then that is argument enough?

You put it all together and what you get is one of the most poorly written columns I've ever read, and one which the editors of the Sun should be embarrassed to have printed in their paper.

The Bad, the Ugly and the Whatever Comes Next After Ugly

The National Post had a big headline the other day which read, 15 years of stagnation: TD blames debt and taxes as take-home pay flatlines and was based on a study done by TD Economics.

Personally, I recommend that, any time you see a newspaper article which makes reference to some study, you either go read the study¹ and then read the article, or just skip the article because, from what I've seen so far, you're likely to get a pretty distorted view if you rely on one of the media's 'study interpretation' pieces for information.²

So let's look at the study first and then the Post interpretation afterwards.

The TD study, titled, "IN SEARCH OF WELL-BEING
Are Canadians slipping down the economic ladder?" tries to address the question of whether Canadian standards of living are improving or not.

I wasn't two paragraphs in before it became clear that in the author's minds, well-being = standard of living = after-tax income, but we'll save the whole issue of whether you can measure your well-being by the size of your pay cheque for another day.

The heart of the report is that while GDP per capita has gone up 25.5% since 1989, after-tax income per capita has only gone up 9.3% over that stretch. Furthermore, since a greater percentage of the population is working now than in 1989, the gain in after-tax income per worker is only 3.6%.

First off, the choice of dates is a little suspect since 1989 was right at the end of a long boom and right before the start of a recession. When calculating % changes over time, the choice of starting and ending points can make a huge difference so it's important to choose your dates impartially (i.e. for economic analysis the start and end points should be at the same point in the economic cycle).

Secondly, I'm not sure it makes sense to use the 3.6% figure. Obviously the people who have a job now but didn't in 1989 have made a huge gain in their after tax income so why should we ignore them when determining if Canadians have made progress in their after-tax income over the last 15 years?

The study argues that more jobs isn't progress because it means less leisure time, but obviously nobody forced any of these extra people to take a job - they had a choice between leisure time and working and they chose to work.

Anyway, the next question is what about the difference between 25.5% growth in GDP/capita and 9.3% growth in after-tax income. Since GDP is a measure of total income for the country, any growth that didn't go to people would have to either go to corporations or to the government³. While the study notes this, it doesn't say anything further about the change in corporate income over this period - which seems pretty odd. Maybe corporations caused some of this gap and maybe they didn't, but if figuring out the source of the gap is the point of your study, wouldn't you want to look into it?

Disregarding the (potential) corporate factor, the study says that the difference is due to increased taxes. Of course, as the study notes, increased taxes won't reduce your standard of living, it just means that some of your income is being spent by the government you elected instead of by you. The tax money spent on the military increases my standard of living by keeping me safe, taxes given to education increase my standard of living by allowing me to get an education, tax money given to health care - well, you get the picture.

As the study points out, most of the tax increases were due to bracket creep (tax brackets not keeping up with inflation) and increased CPP premiums. For some reason, while the study says,

"Up until the mid-1980s, the federal government fully indexed tax brackets, but then opted for a looser interpretation from 1986 to 2000 applying indexation only to the portion of inflation that was above 3 percent,"

they don't explicitly point out that the brackets were fully indexed again in 2000 so this is no longer really an issue.

Also, while the study points out that, "CPP premiums were hiked from 3.6 per cent in 1986 to 9.9 per cent by 2003", they fail to mention that 9.9 was designed to be a long term steady-state rate, with automatic stabilizers built in to keep it from going higher⁴ - so CPP increases should no longer be a problem going forward either.

Then the study pulls out their least convincing line:

"Normally a rise in the tax burden would not automatically be associated with reduced economic well being if it were used to finance more current services or to invest in the future. But this is not the case here. The rise in the tax burden is the price society is now paying for past government deficits and policy shortcomings. Between 1975 and 1996, the consolidated government (federal, provincial and municipal) consistently ran deficits, swelling to as much as 8 per cent of GDP in 1992 and 1993. In that two-decade span, Canadians enjoyed $0.90 to $0.97 in program spending (total spending minus interest on public debt) for every dollar of revenue that was put into government coffers. Not so anymore. Only $0.76 to $0.84 of every dollar goes to program spending, with the rest of the money going towards interest costs and relatively modest payments against the accumulated debt."

[emphasis added on the dates to point out that this problem has been fixed too]

How they decided that paying off your debts and paying the interest on them so as not to declare bankruptcy doesn't contribute to your economic well being I don't know. Personally, I spent the latter half of last year saving money to pay off a debt I owed from my school days. I paid it off over Christmas and I definitely feel that my economic well-being has improved by not owing that money any more. And if there's one thing that I would take as a sign of economic non well-being, it would be declaring bankruptcy cause I didn't make my interest payments.

Still, their point that past (pre-current Liberal) governments screwed us over (albeit they were forced to deal with a severe economic dislocation due to the oil crisis) and that debt repayment should remain a priority is well taken.

After this, the study, assuming it has proved its point switches gears to ask what we can do about this problem. Here's their proposed solution: In order to make more money, Canadians need to earn more money (this is known in economic circles as increasing productivity).

In order to help us earn more money the government should:

1) Spend more money on things like education and infrastructure, which help us earn more.
2) Cut taxes to create more incentives for us to earn more
3) Keep reducing the debt.

Ah yes, spend more⁵, tax less and pay down the debt - why didn't I think of that? - and no, this study was not written by Dalton McGuinty.


By carefully choosing what to emphasize or downplay, the study presents a narrative that high taxes are preventing Canadians from improving our standard of living.

But what it actually tells you if you read between the lines, is that previous governments put us in a hole by creating deficits, underfunding the pension plan and allowing bracket creep. Luckily, the federal Liberal party has solved all of these problems since it took office. Unfortunately, solving these problems involves paying for our past mistakes so we don't feel like we're doing as well as we are because some of our increased income is going towards reducing our debt and refinancing our pension plan.

In conclusion, the study figures that, given that we are now on the right track, it makes sense to continue the balanced Liberal approach of paying down the debt and using the money freed up for a mixture of tax cuts and spending targetted towards productivity improvements.

It's kind of sad that, rather than trying to show Canadians how their financial situation really is improving even if it doesn't seem like it, the article reinforces the inaccurate perception among people that high taxes are keeping them from making any progress.

As a final comment, note that the study never answers the question in their title, "Are Canadians slipping down the Economic Ladder?" - maybe because the authors realize (deep down) that the answer is no (with one exception which I'll mention further down).

OK, enough about the study itself, what about the Post article.

They start off by saying that, "The report urges the federal government to cut taxes and redirect spending toward policies that would boost productivity and incomes."

Of course, you've read the study so you know it is really recommending more spending towards policies that would boost productivity, lower taxes and debt reduction.

Next, the Post ignores the 9.3% average gain/capita and only mentions the 3.6% gain/worker.

With their eye for idiocy, they catch the study's weakest point,

"Canadians have been getting less bang for their taxpayer buck as more of their taxes have been directed toward paying off the national debt rather than funding programs."

I'm not really sure what their point is here - that we shouldn't pay down the debt? That building it up in the first place was a bad idea? That having to pay the interest is annoying?

A little further down, they bring in some new information, namely that,

"A survey of 1,283 Canadians between Dec. 6 and 8 last year found their optimism about the economy was at a 12-year high, but only 23% said their own financial situation was improving.
The survey, by Pollara Inc., showed 34% felt they have been falling behind financially, while 42% felt they have only been holding their own, and their incomes treading water. Coincidentally, the numbers had not changed much over the past 15 years, according to Pollara."

Of course, a relevant thing to mention here would be that, for most Canadians, their income isn't rising as fast as the average income. This is because a disproportionate share of income gains are going to the top 10% of income earners⁶. So a lot of the people surveyed are right that their situation hasn't improved, but it's not because of high taxes, it's because most of the gains from economic growth are being captured by a small segment of the population. Cuts to progressive income taxes would actually make this problem worse - not better. The Post doesn't mention this.

And of course, people are unlikely to factor their improved position with regard to the debt or the CPP into their assessment of their own financial situation (even though it will benefit them down the road).

One surprising thing a little later in the article is when the Post mentions that Don Drummond, one of the study's co-authors, was actually, "assistant and associate deputy minister of finance under Paul Martin", which makes his downplaying (in the study) of what must have been some of his own accomplishments kind of puzzling.

Anyway, the Post then goes on to quote in full just about every word the study has to say relating to how taxes have gone up over the years. Then they quote Drummond as saying,

"I thought there was an implicit contract from government that the tax burden was high because we had to pay for those excesses and they were going to quickly bring down that debt burden," he said. "But... since about 1997, they decided to use a lot of the proceeds from the high tax load to ramp up spending."

It's a nice story, but not a true one⁷. The truth is that the government both allowed taxes to continue rising and drastically reduced spending in order to balance the budget. Once the budget was balanced, there have been both tax cuts (minor tax cuts in 1998 and 1999, a significant tax cut in 2000 and numerous further, smaller tax cuts since then) and increased spending. And when you look into it, the only tax which was increased significantly in the last 10 years is the CPP contributions which have no impact on the deficit/debt at all.

The Post points out that, "Federal program spending has been rising at about 7% annually in recent years, way above the 2% inflation rate". But notice how they don't compare it to what it was in 1989 or the total change since the Liberals took power or give us any growth rates on that figure (I would but I don't know what they are) - pretty low though I'd expect). According to this chart from the federal budget (scroll about halfway down): total government program spending (all levels of government) is now somewhere around 35% of GDP, down from over 40% in 1992.

To give them credit, the Post really does save the best for last, ending their article with a quote from Jack Mintz, who "is professor of taxation at the University of Toronto's Joseph L. Rotman School of Management and president of the C.D. Howe Institute, an economics think-tank", but who isn't connected to the study in any way. According to the Post,

"Mr. Mintz suggested a cut in business investment taxes, the third-highest among the world's 20 major industrialized economies, behind only China and Germany."

Yes, that's the Post's solution to stagnating wages for average Canadians - cut taxes for business. Hard to believe. You have to like how they snuck that in, even in an article which was about a study which didn't mention business taxes once⁸.

So there you have it, some economists wrote a study which demonstrated the wisdom and intelligence of the economic management of the Liberal party in correcting some of the mistakes of the past and which showed how people's income gains were showing up more in the improved financial situation of the government and the CPP rather than in their after-tax income.

Then the study authors twisted their own work to downplay any policy changes undertaken by the current government, to exaggerate their suggestion that high taxes were restraining income growth and to promote the exact same policies being undertaken by the government right now as if they were a recommendation for a change in course.

The National Post skewed things even further by taking out what balance and context the study contained and by throwing in random quotes not connected to the study at all, leaving us with the impression that across the board tax cuts are the only solution to our economic 'stagnation'. Meanwhile, the best course clearly seems to be continuing the balanced approach of spending, debt repayment and tax cuts which the Liberals are already doing.

Times like this always make me wonder how much of this is incompetence / ideological blindness and how much is an ends-justifies-the-means deal where people know what they are saying is misleading and likely to make people support policies which aren't in their own interests, but they do it anyway because they feel it serves some higher ethical purpose (e.g. lower taxes). Either way it's a pretty irresponsible game to be playing, if you ask me.

-----

¹ For some reason the Post doesn't give the link to the study, even in the online version of the story. I can't imagine someone Blogging a post of that length about a study and not providing a link to it, especially given that the entire study is available online.

² This goes doubletriple for the National Post. In fact you're probably better off not reading the Post at all. So am I of course, but sometimes I feel compelled to either mock them or dispel some of their lies.

³At least I can't think of anywhere else it could go - if I missed something let me know.

⁴See my post on Social Security / CPP here or see this report.

⁵ The authors may argue that they proposed redirecting spending, not increasing it, but since the only thing they proposed in terms of cutting was reducing the growth in spending on health (which is already underfunded, and politically impossible to cut spending on at the moment), I didn't take their spending 'redirecting' rhetoric too seriously.

⁶ From Statscan's daily newsletter, for May 13, 2003,

"Incomes of families in the bottom half of the income distribution showed little or no improvement through the 1990s. However, the 10% of families with the highest incomes experienced substantial gains."

⁷ The Federal Annual Financial Report, while obviously choosing their graphs to suit their message, nonetheless is a pretty good read for figuring out how Federal finances have changed over the last 15 years.

⁸ Not to mention that the Federal government is still phasing in the corporate tax cuts (reduction in tax rate from 28% to 21%) they brought in for the 2000 budget or that they announced a plan in the last budget to phase out the Federal capital tax on business as well.

A good summary (from a pro-government point of view) of changes in taxation since 2000, can be found here.

About 2/3 of the way down they talk about the international context around corporate tax rates. Personally I wouldn't put too much stock in their talk about the U.S. rate of 40% since the U.S. tax code has so many holes, I doubt many American firms pay anywhere near that amount on average, but the rest is pretty good reading.

Another reason to support STV...

...is the truly weak arguments that No supporters make when they try to argue their case.

For today's lesson, let's take Norman Spector's column in the globe from Monday:

Here's how it starts:

"Single transferable nonsense
10 January 2005
The Globe and Mail
A13

The proposal that British Columbia adopt the single transferable vote (STV) in provincial elections is such a dumb idea, one hardly knows where to begin."

He's already said it's dumb AND nonsense and he hasn't even begun yet - sounds like a balanced piece coming up. He continues...

"Have I mentioned that STV supporters are asking us to try on for size the voting system used by only one of the Commonwealth's 53 countries? Now, it's possible that 400,000 Maltese know something the other 1.8 billion inheritors of British political traditions haven't yet grasped, but I wonder."

It turns out that the place to begin was with misleading statistics, bordering on outright lies. Last time I checked, Northern Ireland was part of the commonwealth, as are Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory (of course Norman might argue that sub-national jurisdictions don't count as a valid comparison because we are talking about B.C., which is a - oh, never mind.)

At the national level, Australia uses a form of STV for its Senate. Not to mention the fact that while Ireland (which has used STV since 1922) isn't part of the Commonwealth, to say that they haven't had a chance to be exposed to the great British system of government and all its wonders might be a bit misleading.

He then continues a bit further down (Note: I'm not going to quote every single line in his piece, every now and then I've skipped a few, you should probably start by reading his piece, in its entirety)...

"Proponents of this Rube Goldberg voting system say it's as simple as 1-2-3, but they're unable to explain how STV would work in practice."

Another random insult to raise the tone, and another misleading statement bordering on a lie. A visit to the Citizens Assembly will give anyone a pretty clear idea of how STV would work.

"STV advocates contend that only one country uses the system because it transfers power from politicians and parties to the people. I smell other interests at play."

Actually, only Norman talks about only one country using the system, because as we have noted, he is the only one who has randomly decided to pretend that all the jurisdictions besides Malta which use STV don't exist.

Norman's going to go on to explain how he thinks that it is just fringe elements who want STV because it would help them get elected, but if you ask me, the reason STV isn't more widespread is because it is a more complicated electoral system than first-past-the-post. And that's pretty much how everything in the world works, things start simple, but over time you learn the limitations of the way you do things and you decide to make things better, which generally means making them more complex as well. It's like the history of organized sport (with the gradual addition of fouls, lines, referees, offside rules etc.), organized religion, politics, pretty much everything. Of course if nobody is willing to improve their system until everybody else already has, well, you can see how progress might be a little slow.

"Like all proportional voting systems, STV produces minority governments"

This is true - do you know why? Because one party almost never gets over half the votes. Shocking, isn't it. Unlike first past the post which skews the vote results to artificially create a majority, proportional systems simply reflect the actual vote, and people usually vote for a minority.

"The second largest group of voters are disenfranchised, while fringe groups are empowered. And they multiply. In British Columbia's fruitful climate, that's a recipe for disaster."

God forbid the second largest group of voters are disenfranchised. That's what ALWAYS happened under a majority government - the kind that first past the post almost always produces. And does he even remember the 1996 election, when under first past the post, it was the largest group of voters who were disenfranchised?

As for fringe groups, to get a seat under STV, a party likely needs to get at least 15% if not 20-25% of the total vote in any one riding. Just how fringe is a group that gets that level of support. And what disaster does Spector foresee if a fringe-group like the Green Party (which got 12% of the vote in the last election) gets a few seats? That they might end up in a coalition and have a chance to push for part of their agenda to be implemented? What a disaster.

The rest of the article is pretty much a personal attack on Nick Loenen which attempts to show that since he supports STV and he is opposed to Abortion, STV is an inferior system to First Past the Post (I'm not making this up, that takes up about half the article).

I like it when he says that,

"he [Loenen] and other proponents of STV are proposing to destroy the finest political system in the world, British parliamentary democracy."

Before arbitrarily deciding that British parliamentary democracy is the finest political system in the world, Spector might want to compare the results over the last 40 years of two neighbours, England and Ireland - a comparison in which we see that Ireland (under STV) has emerged from hundreds of years of British oppression to exceed England in just about any measure of societal progress (including economic growth) while England has continued to struggle despite possessing the system which Spector likes so much.

Ireland's success is no proof of anything of course, but it suggests to me that B.C. isn't headed for disaster by 'destroying the finest political system in the world'.

Anyway, here's the big finish:

"Of proposals like Mr. Loenen's, leftie activist Judy Rebick has said, “This may be the only issue where you can have a left-right alliance.” Need I say any more?"

Do you see how after demonizing Loenen for half the article, he now attributes the entire STV decision to him, as if the whole Citizen's Assembly thing had never happened? And of course, all that Judy Rebick's comment means is that electoral reform isn't really a left-right issue, which of course I agree with. For example, I, a centrist, am firmly in favour, as I suspect noted conservative Andrew Coyne would be, as are any number of left wing voices.

So does Spector need to say more? I would say yes. He needs to talk about what the purpose of an electoral system is, he needs to talk about the problems with strategic voting, he needs to address the ethical problems with designing an electoral system to achieve policy objectives (strong government, marginalization of non mainstream voices) instead of simply reflecting the votes cast, and most of all he needs to address the failings of the current system which have led us to this referendum.

What About Logic? - One Stop Shopping For Bad Arguments Against Banning Trans-Fats

I've already talked about the trans-fat ban over on the e-group but today's column (subscription required) by Lysiane Gagnon was so irritating that I had to devote an entire post to it.

She starts with a multi-paragraph ode to Tenderflake, and then says:

Practically all parliamentarians blindly followed the NDP into this new crusade, as if the house was on fire and we were all about to die from an overdose of trans fats.

1) Did the people who voted against the ban 'blindly oppose it' - or does the word 'blindly' only apply to people with the wrong opinion?

2) Crusade? - hyperbole anyone? Actually, crusade is one of those shorthand words columnists seem to use when they want to convey an impression without backing it up with an argument. I'll be sure to include an entry for it when I compile my Canadian columnist dictionary (someday, someday).

3) Presumably, if they thought the house was on fire, they wouldn't have voted to set up a committee to study the issue for a year to come up with a sensible way to implement a ban (OK, they're politicians, they might indeed do that if the house was on fire, but I still think it's a misleading impression of the action they took here).

Next up:

But, hey, let's calm down. A pie for eight persons requires two tablespoons of shortening. This makes a quarter of a tablespoon a person — not enough, certainly, to end up in a cardiac ward!

And I suppose if a typical Canadian's average lifetime exposure to trans-fat was to eat an eighth of a pie, this might possibly be relevant. Joking aside, the reason for the ban is that scientists figure thousands of Canadians have ended up in the cardiac ward due to trans-fat consumption.

On a roll, she continues with my favourite bit:

The same, actually, could be said of any food, even of supposedly healthy food. Taken in excess, anything can be bad for your health, even milk, yogurt, lentils, fibre, tomatoes and olive oil. On Friday, this newspaper's health page even warned us that drinking too much water could be terrible for our kidneys. A healthy diet is made up of a little bit of everything — including, yes, an occasional bowl of oily chips or a handful of fat-laden cookies. The only rule lies in a single word: moderation.

I'm no health expert, but presumably Dr. Walter Willett (from the Harvard School of Public Health) is. He's quoted in an article on the CTV website as saying: ""trans fats have no place in a healthy diet."

Look, it's simple, if something is good for you, it still needs to be taken in moderation. This DOES NOT apply if something is just plain bad for you.

She goes on:

Why was Parliament in such a hurry to pass a motion calling for a full ban of processed trans fats from food sold in Canada within a year? Even though the food industry has started to move in this direction, it hasn't yet developed acceptable substitutes to ensure texture and shelf life of pre-packaged food (only people who don't cook and don't shop think these are unimportant considerations).

Is it maybe just possible that food isn't meant to last for a year?

What is certain is that consumers will absorb the cost of the research. This may be why no other country except Denmark resorted to such a radical solution — not even France, which is at the forefront of the battle against genetically modified organisms and where people are highly sensitive about the quality of their food.

Or maybe it's because we are only starting to realize the true impact of trans-fat and Canada is ahead of the curve for once. Or maybe it's because the food lobby is stronger in other countries. And to be honest, if my government decided to leave something harmful in my food supply because otherwise I'd have to absorb the increased cost of accelerating research which was being done anyway, I wouldn't be all that impressed. Bring on the research costs - if a Mars bar is still worth it to me, I'll buy it, if not, I'll buy something else.

The French have adopted the sensible solution of requiring clear labelling, so consumers know what they are buying. Are Canadians so dumb they couldn't learn to decipher labels and make an informed choice?

This is a straw man, the problem is not being informed (it's easy to pick out trans-fat in an ingredient list already), the problem is having a choice. A label won't help if all your choices contain the same ingredient in the same quantity (as they do now). And it won't help at restaurants, when visiting friends or pretty much any time you eat something you didn't shop for yourself.

After a bit of rambling we get to the big finale:

"And what about logic? In Canada, tobacco products are freely sold, even though they are noxious and a major cause of cancers. Alcohol is also freely sold, even though it can lead to countless diseases. And now Parliament intends to decriminalize the use of pot, which can be harmful to teenagers. The country's leaders, meanwhile, are all worked up about Oreo cookies. This is more than illogical — it's ridiculous!!"

OK, it's a bit late now, but what about logic? Is there a logical distinction to be made between tobacco/alcohol/pot and trans-fat?

The short answer is yes. Tobacco/alcohol/pot are all stand-alone products which people consume knowing the risks involved because the benefits of the harmful substance outweigh the risk (in their opinion). Everybody can make their own choice to consume or not consume these products without it affecting anything other than their consumption of that specific product. And because people want these benefits, banning these items will lead to a black market.

Now consider lead. Nobody ever went out to consume lead saying, I know this lead is going to kill me but I just like it too much so it's worth it to me. People wanted to paint a wall so they went out and bought paint, or they wanted to drive a car so they went and bought gas.

Lead is now banned (in most cases) but tobacco/alcohol/pot are not.

Which one is trans-fat more like. A stand-alone product you consume because it offers benefits to you which outweigh the risks? Or an ingredient in another product which you use for a purpose unrelated to the effect of the harmful substance.

More to the point, will banning trans-fat lead to the development of a black market because people are willing to pay so much extra for products with a longer shelf life?

Banning trans-fat isn't a crusade, it hasn't been rushed into, it's not illogical and it's definitely not ridiculous with two exclamation points - it's just a sensible idea that will make life a little better and a little healthier for the people of Canada.