Everything I always wanted to know about SEX

According to a recently released study, Canada's teen birth rate has decreased 38 percent, while the teen abortion rate declined 35.7% The reasons? Teenage women are not more or less likely to have sex than they were 10 or 15 years ago. According to Alexander McKay, research coordinator at the Sex Information and Education Council of Canada, the reasons for the decline are (1) better access to contraception, (2) higher quality sex education (including the internet and planned parenthood clinics) and (3) "Canada's relaxed attitude toward toward adolescent sexual health  allows teens to be better educated on the subject."

Pro-Life activists should be happy. But I wonder if they really are.

I Have a strange Confession

It occurs to me that I may have been the first politician in the history of the B.C. Legislature to have advocated a Harmonized Sales Tax. Way back in 1980, I was in the Universities Model Parliament, and decided I would stump the government ministers by recommending the Value Added Tax. This naturally had them scrambling, since none of them had ever heard of the V.A.T., even though it was already commonly used in Europe.

Should I be ashamed?  Efficiency pays. Harmonization streamlines the administration of the tax, and  is more efficient than a straight sales tax, as it allows businesses to get credit for the tax they pay on inputs (as a deduction off the tax they collect). Exporters can reduce their prices by the amount of the tax they pay in imports that previously would have to be covered in the price. I would probably prefer a  broader tax (i.e. with fewer exemptions) at a lower rate and more targetted help for low-income consumers. But, in principle,
I am not opposed to the HST.

Consider this startling passage from the Mintz Report.  It suggests that 82% of the increase in capital stock  and 80% of the job creation resulting from proposed changes to BC's tax regime will result from sales tax harmonization--i.e. only 18% and 20% from corporate tax cuts.  Thus, if one is really concerned about the equity of shifting tax burdens onto ordinary consumers, I suggest ditching the corporate tax cuts, not the sales tax harmonization.

By 2018, when federal and B.C. corporate tax reductions and sales tax harmonization will be

fully implemented, British Columbia will have a tax regime that is more attractive to capital

than that of either Alberta or Ontario. While corporate tax reductions will have been helpful in

achieving this aim, the largest aid to British Columbia’s tax competitiveness will have been sales tax harmonization (emphasis added). With the elimination of the existing retail sales tax on capital inputs, British Columbia’s effective tax rate on new capital investments will decline by 9.1 percentage points, which will represent almost 60% of the drop in the cost of capital for businesses in British Columbia over the next four years.

By 2020, the combined effect of the corporate tax cuts and sales tax harmonization will be to

increase the capital stock by more than $14 billion, which is expected to translate into an

increase of 141,000 jobs. Sales tax harmonization alone will be responsible for an $11.5 billion

increase in the capital stock and an increase of 113,000 jobs by the end of the coming decade.

Campbell's Supply-Side Follies--and a Face-Saving Proposal

If there has been one serious flaw in the record of the Campbell government, it is that it will not give up on supply-side economics. From its very first move–the 2001 20% tax cut that was supposed to pay for itself, but which wound up creating the largest deficit in history–to the carbon tax (which benefits the affluent Vancouverite rather more than other groups)to the HST tax shift, they have refused to heed either public opinion or the economic evidence. They have been loyal to their core constituency, however: the business and professional elite fo Greater Vancouver, who by and large feel that their private gains have outweighed the public’s losses.

Now that the NDP is pulling ahead in the polls, and even former Finance minister Carole Taylor has had the good sense to distance herself from these large tax increases on ordinary consumers, it is time for the Campbell Liberals to consider how they might soften the regressive nature of their policies, while still hanging on to the conceptual virtues of both the HST and the carbon tax. I have two specific suggestions:

1. Lower the HST 1%-2%---with the lost revenue made up by corporate and personal income taxes.

2. Adopt the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives proposal to modify the incidence of the Carbon tax, viz. the low-income credit, at minimum, should be increased in line with carbon tax revenues, and ideally its share should be increased to half of revenues. The remaining half of carbon tax revenues should provide funds for other climate actions.

Even if the loss of revenue from reducing the HST (and the corresponding hike in income taxes) is too great to permit the adoption this prescription, one could always narrow some exemptions in order to lower the overall rate or broaden some other exemptions at the current rate, or target subsidies to the poor, etc.  My general point is, I think still valid: that there a number of ways of dealing with the equity issues raised by the HST and the Carbon tax, short of  abolishing these taxes altogether.

A Point of Clarification about the Olympic bursary

When I suggested that there should be a $200 million BC Olympic bursary, I wasn't just suggesting (in the middle of a deep recession) that an additional $200 million in taxes be raised for my favourite spending priority. This was also an argument about spending existing funding more effectively. The number of $200 million corresponds to my rough calculation about what it would take to bring the BC's average student debt load down to the national average. The kind of support--tied demand-side subsidies to students--was based on my analysis of the relative strengths and weaknesses of vouchers, grants to universities and tuition freezes as alternative policy instruments.

What if $50 million could be found in other existing government outlays, including existing universities funding? And if another $50 million could be found from the federal government? That would only leave $100 million of additional spending to found out of rising resource revenues and plugged tax loopholes. If $200 million will close the access gap for the 100,000 neediest full-time studentsover four years, then a mere $25 million will close half the gap for a single year.

Any takers?

Site C is the Big Test for Environmental Assessment Office

Way back on November 30, 2006 , I worried that the three coal-fired power plants being planned by the government would be subjected to one of the weakest environmental assessment procedures in the country. Fortunately, those coal-powered plants were cancelled en route to a newer and greener image for Gordon Campbell. But now that the Site C Dam project is being resurrected, we must again ask: is this EA process up to the job?

BC’s Environmental Assessment Act was rewritten in 2002, replacing one of the country’s most progressive provincial EA laws with one of the weakest laws. Strong provisions that were eliminated included a purpose section emphasizing sustainability, requirements to examine cumulative effects, the need to detail alternatives, and innovative public participation requirements, including a mandatory role for First Nations. All of these functions are now being performed more ‘flexibly’ and ‘efficiently’ by a more ‘streamlined’ Environmental Assessment Office.

Perhaps the high profile of this project will help to ensure that the SiteC assessment will be conducted properly. But it will require vigilance and strong public pressure every step of the way.

NDP Should Play a Leading Role in Debating Healthcare Reform

When the Liberal Party of Canada recently held a "thinkfest", I wasn't exactly blown away by the experts. Dont get me wrong; philosopher Daniel Weinstock, former Bank of Canada governor David Dodge, former University of British Columbia president Martha Piper and former foreign affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy are all very bright people and important leading citizens of our country. It's just that the big topic of conversation turned out to be the cost of health care, and none of these people is really an expert on health care.

The NDP spends so much of its time and energy fighting defensive rearguard battles that it could do itself a lot of good--and a bit of good for its image--if it held its own thinkfest directly confronting the question of what to do about a health care system in which costs will be rising twice as fast as the rest of the economy for the next couple of decades. It could assemble a more expert and more diverse group of speakers than the Liberals just did: How about Roy Romanow debating Janice MacKinnon on the sustainability of single payer health care? Dr. Bob Evans of UBC and health futurist Jeffrey Bauer on the potential of 'reform from within' public health care? Yale political Scientist Theodore Marmor on comparative perspectives and Dr. Marcia Angell of Harvard on healthcare reform from the perspective of the medical profession in the United States?

David Dodge? Lloyd Axworthy? Give me a break!!

My BC-STV Post-Mortem: Half a Loaf Would have been better than No Loaf--and it would have been better than a Whole Loaf, too.

It is important for both proponents and opponents of BC-STV to recognize that the near-win in 2005 and the decisive loss in 2009 were influenced by party politics and the (un)popularity of governments. BC-STV supporters in 2005 got a bump because there was still a lot of lingering distaste for the Liberals; in 2009 they got a thump as Liberal supporters came to appreciate how the existing electoral system seemed to give their party a firmer grasp on power.

I have finally taken a look at Fred Cutler's data and the debate about it at The Tyee: http://thetyee.ca/Views/2009/07/08/WhoKilledSTV/ and it is difficult to argue with a statistic as stark as this: Over 60% of Green and NDP voters supporting STV in both elections, while only 20% of Liberals supporting it in 2009 (down 30% from 2005!).

To be sure, however, the more recent result was also due to the fading of memories about absurd election results in 2001; to the ease with which opponents of BC-STV could make fun of the vote-counting method; and to the size of ballots and constituencies.

I have long felt that the Citizens'Assembly should have been more cognizant of the constraints placed upon it by the Legislature (largely at the behest of the BC Liberal caucus)--namely, the 60% threshold and the 79 seat limit. Specifically, both of those factors indicated that reaching for anything close to pure proportionality would be a mistake. The perfect is often the enemy of the good, and in this case huge interior ridings and long urban ballots proved to be a turn-off for many people who were otherwise interested in electoral reform (remember, Cutler's finding was that, in general, interest in electoral reform went slightly up between 2005 and 2009.)

I think David Schreck may have been right when he said "They (the Citizens Assembly and electoral reformers) lost the opportunity of a lifetime in 2005 by recommending BC-STV rather than some more acceptable form of proportional representation." But 'more acceptable' need only have been a more moderate form of STV--what I have called "STV lite".

Had I been on the Assembly, I likely woud have tried to persuade my colleagues to keep single member constituencies in 10 or 11 of the largest northern ridings, albeit with a preferential ballot--in other words, AV for the North; 3-member constituencies in the large urban and suburban areas; and dual ridings up island and in the interior. (my preferred distribution under 79 seats in 2005 would have been: 10x1 seats for the North; 12X2 seats for the interior and small cities; and 15 X 3-member constituencies in Greater Vancouver and Greater Victoria). This would have significantly improved proportionality, but it would still not have been proportional representation--It could be called either 'semi-proportional' or 'semi-majoritarian'. And it would have had several significant advantages:

• It would have made Green Party and other third party votes count, without too much risk of giving people who are "green" (in more ways than one) the balance of power in the Legislature. For example, in my home riding of the Cariboo there would have been fierce competition for the second preferences of Green voters---and every reason for Green voters to get out on election day. It would have been the same story in many BC ridings.
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• It would have shaken up the safe ridings, like those of Linda Reid, Adrian Dix, Jenny Kwan, and Colin Hansen, transforming them into competitive multi-party contests.
• It would have given voters constituencies that correspond more closely to their common sense notions of their regional communites, rather than to artificial political boundaries--districts like "Cariboo", "Richmond", "Kootenay".
• It would have been a brave political party that ran a slate of three candidates of all the same colour and gender. To do so would have invited a hemorraghing of second and third preferences. As a result, there would have been a more representative legislature.
• It would have expanded voter choice without the unpalatable consequence of geographically huge ridings or unfathomably long ballots--or the unsavoury aspect of MMP, which is a party list in which candidates are competing for favour of party members, not the preferences of the citizenry as whole.

Having such a semi-proportional option might still not have satisfied partisan Liberals who had come to love First Past the Post, for obvious reasons; or those who had strenuously objected to STV or preferential voting in any form. But it would have removed the two most objectionable features of BC-STV, namely the huge ridings in the interior and the long ballots in the cities.

And that might just have sold, in 2005 if not in 2009.