Archive for the ‘Governance Debates’ Category
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Provincial spending cuts will take people from bad to worse
Ontario already has Canada’s lowest per-person program spending, including the lowest per-person investment in health care. There’s a reason school repairs are backlogged and hallway medicine has made a comeback. Now a 15 per cent cut threatens to take people from bad to worse. Already, Ford has cut $330 million a year from mental health and $100 million from school repairs… Working-class people are already struggling with low wages, no benefits and unaffordable everyday life.
Tags: budget, economy, featured, ideology, poverty, privatization, standard of living, tax
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Why can’t liberalism be populist, too?
Populism begins from popular suspicion of political, economic and other elites. At its best, however, and from its origins, liberalism too has cultivated such suspicion. The great early liberal thinkers – Spinoza, Locke, Montesquieu, Adam Smith, the authors of the Federalist Papers – mercilessly skewered the elites of their day, along with human pretensions generally… After all, Liberals, too, are supposed to be concerned with fair treatment for the little guy.
Tags: economy, featured, globalization, immigration, participation
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Time for the Liberals and the NDP to unite
The distinctions between the two parties — one traditionally centrist, the other social democratic — have diminished at both the provincial and federal levels in recent years. Both the provincial Liberal and NDP platforms in the 2018 election included increases in the minimum wage and minimum vacation time, pharmacare and dental benefits (though delivered in different ways), added protections for renters, and a continuance of cap-and-trade. The two platforms weren’t identical, but they were certainly similar in many respects, especially when compared to the PC platform.
Tags: ideology
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Doug Ford can’t apply the notwithstanding clause retroactively to impede democracy
In the light of his impatience in regard to changing the rules for the municipal election – and even to the time it takes to appeal judgments he dislikes – we can expect more retroactive overrides. These actions will, in effect, pre-empt the role of the judiciary designated by the Constitution to be impartial arbiters of the constitutional validity of legislation… The Charter expressly guarantees fundamental rights so that we can live our lives within a rights-protecting constitutional democracy dedicated to the rule of law.
Tags: budget, jurisdiction, rights
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Doug Ford, no power grab is worth undermining Canada’s solid foundation
Governments are required to act in accordance with the law and, in particular, our Constitution. Even when you don’t agree with the law… Politicians are not any more legitimate in our democracy than judges. The judiciary acts as an independent check on government authority because it is unelected, not in spite of it. That is how we, as a democratic country, have decided to govern ourselves. Moreover, the judiciary has a particular function in protecting the minority from the majority that elected representatives cannot, by nature, be counted on to carry out.
Tags: featured, ideology, jurisdiction, participation, rights, standard of living
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Ford government should clearly explain rationale for invoking notwithstanding clause
Whatever one thinks of the use of the notwithstanding clause, few scholars would advocate for government-by-notwithstanding-clause. Such an approach would seriously undermine constitutional rights protections. Any use of the notwithstanding clause should be preceded by serious, reasoned deliberation, both within the executive and in the legislature. The Ford government should clearly explain its rationale for seeking to invoke the clause.
Tags: budget, featured, ideology, jurisdiction, participation, rights, standard of living
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Doug Ford is trampling on the rights of all Ontarians
For the past 36 years, ever since the Charter of Rights and Freedoms was entrenched in Canada’s Constitution, Ontario premiers of all political persuasions managed to govern while respecting our fundamental rights… none… found it necessary to brush aside basic Charter freedoms and invoke the Constitution’s nuclear option, the “notwithstanding” clause, to exercise their will.
Tags: ideology, jurisdiction, rights
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Ford majority exposes democratic crisis
The Ontario election is yet another symptom of a democratic dilemma facing Canada. A minority of voters elect the government. The leaders then claim a mandate to make changes not widely supported by the majority. When voters are left to wonder whether their vote really matters, they lose confidence. When voters lose confidence, many just don’t show up at the polls… A ranked or preferential ballot might be the easiest way to address both the federal and provincial representative dilemma.
Tags: featured, ideology, jurisdiction, participation, rights
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Courts are catching up to Ford’s ‘unlawful’ ways
Smart governments focus on wise legislation, not wild litigation. Let us count the legal battles looming over the Tories after two months in office: … the premier’s impulsive meddling in the middle of Toronto’s municipal elections… the government’s arbitrary rollback of the updated sexual education curriculum… a minimum income program prematurely cancelled… cancellation of Ontario’s cap and trade program… Rolling back renewable energy laws… recklessly endangering lives by suspending emergency prevention sites
Tags: featured, ideology, participation, poverty, privatization, rights
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It’s time to take consultations with First Nations seriously
Justice Eleanor Dawson wrote: “Meaningful consultation is not intended simply to allow Indigenous peoples ‘to blow off steam’ before the Crown proceeds to do what it always intended to do. Consultation is meaningless when it excludes from the outset any form of accommodation.” … In sum, consultation needs to be done when Indigenous rights are affected by a development. Consultation must include the possibility of accommodation. Each affected First Nation is entitled to its own consultations, particular to their own circumstances.
Tags: economy, featured, ideology, Indigenous, participation, rights
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