Stephen Harper's Impressive Math on CETA

While visiting  Britain and France this week, prime minister Stephen Harper pointed out that Canada and the European Union do approximately $8 billion worth of trade annually, and that the much -touted Canada -EU trade deal (CETA)  will expand this trade as much as 20%.  What could be better than that?

Well, excuse me if  I am not so easily impressed. As is increasingly the case in all so-called trade deals nowadays , market access  for Canadian beef and manufactures and services has to be purchased at the cost of things that having nothing to do with "free trade " as such.  In the case of CETA, that something else is higher drug prices. A group of large European  pharmaceutical companies, including Bayer, Sanofi-Aventis, Novartis, Hoffmann La-Roche and GlaxoSmithKline, have successfully lobbied to make  stronger protection of drug patents a key deal-breaker.

The best estimates of the impact of higher drug prices stemming from the CETA deal  range between $1 billion and $3 billion--the best guess is about $2 billion per annum.  Is it worth paying $2 billion per year in higher drug prices in order to have a greater overall volume of trade worth $1.6 billion?  Aren't trade agreements supposed to be better for consumers as well as for  drug companies?

 For puzzled citizens , some historical perspective may be helpful.  For about three decades, trade agreements were actually trade agreements.  The standard pattern--the social contract, as it were--was  that tariffs (import duties) were imposed on commodities in order to protect domestic producers (usually manufacturers) from foreign competition.  Five successive rounds of negotiations conducted under the auspices of the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) between 1947 and 1967 only involved about 60 countries, mostly in the developed capitalist world, but they did a great job of negotiating thousands of tariff reductions that had the effect of making products cheaper for consumers and forcing inefficient producers to become more competitive.  The basic deal was--consumers benefitted first, and foremost in a clear transparent fashion. Transition costs from inefficient industries going under would be offset by consumer gains and overall gains in employment and economic growth. 

But then  the trade agenda expanded , and the number of countries greatly expanded and then the process was slowed down, and then we began to see a proliferation of regional and bilateral trade deals that reflected the asymmetrical power relations of the parties and which contained provisions like the energy security provisions of NAFTA and stronger protection of  intellectual property rights, stronger protection of rights of capital, including even a right of those corporations to sue democratically elected governments if  social or environmental policies interfere with their business?

My question is: who are the real protectionists here? Am I to be criticized as a "protectionist" because I only want an agreement in which the earliest and clearest beneficiaries are ordinary consumers and the least advantaged among us?  Because I want a  CETA that either doesn't include pharmaceuticals or which does include pharmaceuticals but only if it has the effect of making drugs cheaper?   I say: the real protectionists are the ones who promote this corporate-driven agenda.

I'm all for increasing exports of Alberta beef, and it would be nice to create more wealth. But this is not an obviously great deal. We should follow the lead of the Ontario government and make the deletion of stronger drug patents a condition of our support for this highly questionable trade agreement.

N.D.P.= No Dix Please

I told you so, sort of. Okay, Okay, I was as gullible as everyone else in assuming the public media opinon polls would translate into an NDP victory on May 17.  But I did say this a year and a half ago, on January 28, 2012, on this blog: "[in the unlikely event that Dix's bubble bursts and the electoral chips fall in such a way as to sustain the Liberals for another term, don't worry: that could be a blessing in disguise."

I had at least three reasons for thinking so, spelled out in a dozen different blog postings and newspaper columns stretching back to late 2010.

1.     First, I argued against dumping Carole James in favour of Adrian Dix  in late 2010 and early 2011, because even though Dix's toughness and media-savviness counted in his favour, his record as Glen Clark's best friend , roommate and closest advisor did not--especially his roles in the fast ferry and casino application files.  The way he clinched the leadership race by drawing upon his Clark and Sihota connections to deliver a magic busload of invisible instant members from Surrey was a reminder of the same old Dix, and of his fundamental nature as a hard core political operative. As I put it back on March 20, 2011: "To paraphrase Clemenceau,[who once said that war was too important to be left to the generals] , democratic politics is too important to be left to the ultra-politicians."

2.  Win or lose, Dix would be hard to get rid of , because of his personality, his safe seat and the position of his support group within the party. That could block the path for a more attractive leader without close ties to the Clark government to come to the fore---such as Gregor Robertson.

3. On the  level  of policy, I had argued that the best policies came  from leaders who brought some form of excellence from outside of politics, and who could channel the deep roots the party has in both the labour and environmental movements.. not from  "someone like Geoff Meggs or Adrian Dix reading opinon polls." In other words, the  "purest political animal and most professional politician in the Legislature" would probably not make the best premier.   When Dix looked at (misleading) opinion polls early in the campaign, he made the mistake of cautiously sitting on the lead. And when he looked at polls late in the campaign, he tried to capture Green votes with his Kinder Morgan announcement--which was not a good policy and not made according to a good policy process (i.e. one that was widely consultative of both workers and party activists).


Vaughn Palmer's column a week or so ago warning that Adrian Dix might not step down voluntarily as leader of the B.C. NDP was a reminder to me that we should not make the same mistake with him as he made with the Liberals, i.e. we should not let our collective foot off of his neck.
Here is an excerpt from that  Palmer column of  May 22, 2013:

"His dramatic reversal — opposing the pipeline 11 days after saying that as “a matter of principle” he would not take a stand until it was in the formal application stage — cost the party support in the north, Interior and even the Metro Vancouver suburbs.

The flip-flop substantiated the message in the Liberal attack ads, that the Dix-led NDP was the party of “no.” It set the stage for an effective follow up spot, the one that portrayed him as weather vane.

The Dix-authored change of position also blindsided his own party and candidates. “I heard it that day, like everyone else,” as co-chair of the party platform committee Carole James confided in a mid-campaign interview with Justine Hunter of the Globe and Mail.

Former leader of the party. Forced out in a bitter showdown in the fall of 2010. Still, she put aside ego, stuck with the party and helped Dix heal the wounds.

 For all that loyalty and dedication, she had to learn about “our position” (as Dix persists in describing his solo venture into policy-making on Kinder Morgan) through the news media, same as everyone else.

Nor was that the only measure of accountability that he ducked Wednesday. He made no mention whatsoever of an issue that dogged the party throughout his leadership, namely the memo-to-file that he fabricated during his time as chief of staff to the premier."

Read more:

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Vaughn+Palmer+count+Adrian+stepping+down+voluntarily/8421899/story.html#ixzz2V5QGhDi4 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

         

 

 

Voter Turnout in British Columbia

{P.S. Since I first wrote this blog two interesting facts have come to light:
 
1. High turnout in the  absentee and advance polls: According to Elections BC, the number of absentee ballots cast (180,000) this election is double that of 2009, and 380,741 votes were cast in advance polls at the 85 constituencies around B.C. --a jump of 28% over 2009, despite an overall drop in voter turnout.

2. Intensive polling by the Liberals was missing in the NDP campaign --The tweeting by Alison Redford and others about "what do pollsters know" misses the point that in fact it was better inside polling that won the day--"Without polling in key swing ridings -- while the BC Liberals were reportedly canvassing 25 seats every day -- and with province-wide public polling showing a substantial if expected narrowing of their lead, the BC NDP was flying blind."--Bill Tieleman, The Tyee.}



The two biggest trends in elections in recent years have been increasing volatility of the electorate and declining voter turnout.  The real lesson of the B.C. election for all future campaigns is how the BC Liberals, through a combination of aggressive negative advertising,  carefully targeted polling, and a bit of luck, were able to make those two trends work to their advantage rather than to their disadvantage.   (In her victory speech on election night, premier Clark even mentioned the good people "who don't normally think about politics" --perhaps revealing something about who she had successfully targeted in the campaign. Very sobering for enthusiasts of deliberative democracy!)


The numbers from BC are quite underwhelming: Greens fell by 4,000; Libs lost 28,000 votes, and the NDP fell by 48,000. Clearly, people who actually vote are dying off rapidly:
 

The Green Party:
 2001 197,231 votes
2005 161,849
2009 134,570
2013 130,471

At this rate, the Greens should disappear completely by 2037.

NDP:
2001 343,156 votes
2005 731,719
2009 691,564
2013 643,399

 

Thank you, Adrian , for an inspiring campaign.

 Liberals:
2001 916,888 votes
2005 807,118
2009 751,661
2013 723,618

Great campaign, Christy. But was it really that great?

 All in all, NDP have lost about 88,000 since their high water mark in 2005 and the Liberals are down almost 200,000 since theirs in 2001.

 

Voter turnouts  in the vicinity of 50% ; constant electioneering and increasing resort to personal attack ads that are effective in gaining a share of the vote but have a dampening effect on turnout because they turn people off. Does this sound like another country that I could mention?  Partly it is a reflection of the personalities and ideologies of our national leaders in recent years, but it may also be an unintended consequence of fixed election dates, just as the increased centralization of power in the prime minister's office and in the leader's office was an unintended consequence of having leaders chosen by party members instead of MPs and MLAs.  Maybe we should consider a return to the first principles of parliamentary government?

I have been reluctant to endorse mandatory voting as a substitute for real electoral reform (i.e. partial proportional representation or an alternative ballot). It has been said that not voting makes a statement. Nevertheless, the citizens of B.C. should get out and vote, and a mandatory voting law would now get my support.

Synopsis of BC Election Result: We Should Have Known

{The following has been submitted for publication in the Omineca Express and Anahim-Nimpo Messenger--MC}

I accept my share of humble pie for not predicting the re- election of the B.C. Liberals on May 17, 2013.  While I saw the narrowing gap in the polls as the day of decision approached, I told myself that polls  often narrow at that moment, and that the NDP should still be able to hang on to a 5% lead and with that receive a healthy majority of seats in the Legislature. But we should have known: the Conservative vote had collapsed, and the Green vote hadn’t—a sure fire sign that the Free Enterprise coalition was back together again, and when truly united they have never fallen.

Ironically, the huge lead that the NDP  had  long enjoyed had the effect of dissolving Conservative support while encouraging Greens to demand more—splitting the progressive vote.  Meanwhile, Clark herself—rightly criticized for being more comfortable with the media spotlight than she is with the nuances of policy or the details of administration---came into her own during the campaign. She stayed "on message", always equating the Liberals with a good economy, and the NDP with the “bad economy” of the 90's.

This myth-making was silly and intentionally misleading, at best.  The truth is that the economy on the whole was not made worse by the NDP in the 1990s: if it was difficult to compensate for the effects of  the Asian financial crisis, it was because of softwood lumber quotas which made it difficult to switch production  to the US market, and not because of anything the NDP did wrong. Conversely, the economy was not made much better by the Liberals since 2001: if B.C.  was able to compensate for the bottom falling out of the U.S. housing market in 2007-2008, it was because of the huge surge in demand from a very different Asian economy, and not because Gordon Campbell shifted the tax burden away from business and wealthy people with his carbon tax and HST.

So why couldn’t the NDP effectively fight back?  Dix must have been blinded, as we all were, by the poll numbers.  But he  also made a clear mistake. Once he had unequivocally rejected the planned Northern Gateway pipeline and had endorsed the implementation of Justice Cohen’s Report on fish farming, he should have stopped trying to satisfy the greens and endorsed both Kinder Morgan and the idea of gaining revenue from Liquified Natural Gas.  The best policies of the 1990s came from just such a balancing act between environmental and economic interests: think of the CORE process, the Land Use Plans, Forest Renewal and the Treaty Process.  (Yes, Virginia, there were some good policies in the 1990s.)  When Dix lost that balance, thereby lending credence to his opponent, he lost the election.

Nigel Wright, Adrian Dix are this Week's Unexpected Losers

Nigel Wright and Adrian Dix are both people that I have written about, in a generally critical vein. But neither of them are people who I expected to flame out spectacularly in the ways that they did during this past week.

Never heard of Nigel Wright? I first wrote about him in an article that I did for The Mark News back in September 2010. (An abridged version of that article also appeared here, on this blog. ) That he represents a conduit between Stephen Harper and Gerry Schwartz was, and is, of utmost significance. While some people may think that it is amazing that somebody this smart and successful would be so foolish as to write a $90,000 cheque to Mike Duffy, you have to remember that  he is wealthy for the same reason that Gerry Schwartz and Mitt Romney are--because of his role in a few successful leveraged buy-outs.  That $90,000 cheque was a classic private-sector solution to a public sector problem, and a classic illustration of why that doesn't always work.  (Besides,  was hired because of his connections as much as for his genius. )

As for Adrian Dix, I have frequently criticized him and strongly opposed his challenge for the leadership. Partly this was due to a personal preference on my part: I am suspicious of professional politicians and prefer people who have accomplished something else in life.  I saw his successes in Opposition as the flipside of a losing proposition: http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=13194839#editor/target=post;postID=1004746570863285659;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=6;src=postname

I also reasoned that Carole James would have nearly as good a chance to win in 2013, and that there would be a further downside to Dix, win or lose: that he could prevent moderate and progressive forces from coalescing behind Gregor Robertson in 2017:   http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=13194839#editor/target=post;postID=6251725563572598562;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=11;src=postname

Now, I am more optimistic that Dix can be convinced to clear the way when Robertson's term of office in the Vancouver mayor's chair ends in the fall of 2014.

Pipelines and Politics

If the election of the B.C. Liberals leads to a doubling of the Kinder Morgan line, and maybe even the building of the Northern gateway, and Andrew Weaver is leading the fight in the Legislature, that could swell the ranks of the Greens, thereby once again splitting the vote. Remember, THE LIBERAL PARTY ACTUALLY TOOK OUT ADS FOR JANE STERK, because they were banking on a  split vote there.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2013/05/10/bc-liberal-ad-green-party.

Four Factors explain Declining Reliability of Election Polls

(1)Growing voter volatility means, other things equal, there is a greater margin of error; (2)lower turnout means you have to determine whether voters surveyed intend to vote; and (3) changing technology means that land lines are either harder to access or less representative as a sample when they are reached.

It is (4) the fourth factor, explained in this article in the Vancouver Sun by Jooan Bryden, that is perhaps least well known or understood; that is the discrepancy between more sophisticated and fine-tuned survey techniques and more standardized methodologies that public opinion conducted for media organizations tend to believe in.  What fooled me in last Tuesday's election was that I had been reassured because I had heard that pollsters were doing online surveys that were confirming their other data; Tom Barrett's article  in The Tyee explains the difficulty with online polling , in terms of self-selection and representativeness. 

What is needed is some kind of methodology for integrating online, cell  and land line so that they compensate for each others' weaknesses. Easier said than done.  But more to the point, media and NDP will need to match the more well-heeled Liberal and Conservative campaigns  in conducting intensive, non standardized interviews and other methods. The simple fact is that, like weather forecasting,  standard polling is becoming less accurate rather than more so, due to very large structural factors that are difficult to fully comprehend and manage. But that doesn't mean that we should stop polling any more than it means that we should stop watching weather forecasts.