Brief to The Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs, for the study of the Subject Matter of Bill C-15

I sent in a brief to the committee for their study on March 25'th (PDF), but it was a bit too long so was asked to send in a more brief brief on April 12'th (PDF, via OurCommons.ca).

I'm merging the footnotes from the earlier version for this blog.

Introduction

This is my ( My name is Russell McOrmond. Full contact information is at http://www.flora.ca/#contact ) first submission to parliament on this area of policy as I previously focused on technology law. I wish to offer myself as an example of a privileged white male who for most of my life was unaware of Canada's record on human rights. I believed what I was told, and now wants what I was told to match Canada's actions.


European worldviews were embedded within the UN's conceptualisation of Human Rights as encoded in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I do not believe UDHR was ever universal, and consider UNDRIP a critical step in that direction.


I am aware of opposition to UNDRIP as adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2007, as well to Bill C-15 which is the current incarnation of a bill to affirm and update domestic law to reduce violations of the rights of Indigenous Peoples. I disagree with this opposition.

My transition

I was born in 1968 in Sudbury, Ontario, moved to Ottawa to attend university in 1987, and have lived here since. (I acknowledge I have lived on land of an Anishinaabeg nation my entire life, but have never been given the opportunity to be naturalized.)


In 1990 I heard about the "Oka Crisis". I believed if the Canadian governments sent in the police and military that the "protesters" must have done something wrong. Over the years I have learned to question these assumed "truths". I initiated self-directed anti-racism training starting in the summer of 2020. I better understand what happened during the 1990 Kanesatake Resistance, and recognize it as one of many high profile examples of Canada violating the human rights of Indigenous peoples.

(I wrote an article titled "Help stop overt racism and white supremacy in Canada!" that discusses additional examples https://mcormond.blogspot.com/2021/01/white-supremacy.html )

Criticism: Bill proceeding too quickly

The process that eventually led to UNDRIP started in 1923. This is when Deskaheh, Chief of the Iroquois League, representing the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, left Canada to go on a mission to Geneva (Switzerland). At that time the elder league of nations (Iroquois 6 nations in 1722, and a confederacy of 5 nations possibly since 1142) wanted to address the younger league of nations (formed at the Paris Peace Conference, 1919, which later became the United Nations) to have the younger league adequately recognize the elder.

To put this in context, this process started only 18 years after the Dominion of Canada unilaterally passed the "Alberta Act" and "Saskatchewan Act'' in 1905. This has been interpreted to impose a British governance system over areas of land which Canada had purchased an exclusive business patent for from the Hudson's Bay Company. These Acts were to split off sections from what the British had been calling the Northwest Territories.


In response to the attempt to get appropriate international recognition for the Iroquois league of nations, the British subsidiary called Canada sent in the RCMP to depose the centuries old participatory democratic Confederacy Council. Canada installed an "Indian Act" band council which is only responsible to the Canadian crown and not citizens. This is not a Representative Government, and the ongoing refusal of Canadian governments to recognize the Confederacy Council and not fold the band council is in my mind an obvious violation of UNDRIP Article 3.

We can skip to the 1940's when the UN was drafting the so-called "Universal Declaration of Human Rights" and how there was a refusal from western nations with their narrow focus on individuality to entertain the idea of protecting "peoples" rather than only "people". Grand Chief Littlechild recently discussed that process during a Town Hall on UNDRIP and C-15 hosted by Amnesty International Canada. ( https://youtu.be/IXh2--pBDdA?t=4435 . This skips to the specific section where J. Wilton "Willie" Littlechild discussed the process. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Littlechild )

In 1982 the UN established the Working Group on Indigenous Peoples, the same year the United Kingdom passed the Canada Act 1982. The Canada Act, among other things, finally meant that UK law was not automatically Canadian law. The UK population being twice that of Canada had always meant that UK citizens had more influence over Canadian law than anyone actually living on Turtle Island. While new UK laws wouldn't automatically be Canadian law, the BNA and Canada Acts had already imposed a system based on thousands of years of foreign British history onto Turtle Island.


I don't expect anyone was surprised which countries voted against the UNDRIP resolution in 2007, 84 years after the process began. It is the 4 British colonies where non-naturalised settlers greatly outnumber Indigenous peoples: Canada, Australia, New Zealand, United States (collectively known as CANZUS).

These colonies are where the human rights violations against Indigenous peoples have been the greatest over a longer period of time. I put this area of policy into an important context with the following percentages of Indigenous populations remaining in regions currently under active colonialism. Colonialism almost inevitably leads to genocide. ( Dr. Kim TallBear indicates we should use the UN definition of genocide, and recognize Indigenous Peoples "Very Clearly" are suffering genocide.  https://www.facebook.com/407570359384477/videos/2226217140832714 )

Uyghuristan (Xinjiang, means 'new frontier' in Mandarin)	43.6%
Canada	5%
Australia	3%
New Zealand	17%
United States	2%

Given the Government of Canada was created 154 years ago, and for more than half that time this policy has been discussed, nobody can claim that this policy was "rushed".

Criticism: Canada can't be trusted to honour UNDRIP

I understand this criticism, but still disagree. Canada has been violating human rights since it was created by an act of the British Parliament in 1867. Passing Bill C-15 alone will not stop this ongoing violation.

Concurrent with debating Bill C-15, Canada is engaged in further violations of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. This includes basic Article 3 right of self determination with Canada trying to restrict Jordan's Principle eligibility to a "status" criteria that is determined by Canada and not Indigenous peoples. I consider what is happening near Caledonia with "1492 Land Back Lane" to include violations by Canada and Ontario of several UNDRIP articles. This document could never be considered a "brief" if I tried to list all the violations of human rights by various levels of Canadian governments that I am aware of.

The hardest concept to understand with anti-racism is the difference between individual race based prejudices and the systems of racism ( The author that allowed me to best understand the difference was Ibram X. Kendi, primarily through his book Stamped from the Beginning. https://www.ibramxkendi.com/stamped-from-the-beginning ). Systemic racism isn't a system which contains racist individuals, but is a system which is itself racist. These are systems where "not racist" individuals will still carry out racist acts simply by obeying the law or following normal procedures or practices.



I don't think of Canada as a place, as this place had names long before Europeans visited.

I don't think of Canada as a group of people. At no time in the past did the inhabitants of this land come together and decide to be called Canada or to form the Government of Canada. A small group of white males in a white minority region of the world decided to ask the foreign British government to pass a law. That law created a subsidiary of the British government, created to be part of the British Empire.

What this means is that Canada is a system, and any attempt to make that system less racist must be focused on that system. Whether specific individuals can or cannot be trusted is entirely separate from the system. Far too many people are focused on individual people in indicating that those people cannot be trusted -- individuals following a system and believing they are individually "not racist". This regularly leads to the logical fallacy known as the Association fallacy (Guilt or honour by association, an ad hominem fallacy).


This bill needs to finally receive Royal Assent, after many incarnations being tabled since 2008 ( I discuss the dates within "How I analyse and why I support Bill C-15, the UNDRIP related bill" https://mcormond.blogspot.com/2021/01/c15-undrip-analysis.html ). This last 12 years is sufficient time for debating the exact wording of the bill. Anyone who has been paying attention to this issue at any level has had time to provide input.

Receiving Royal Assent is not a "Mission Accomplished" moment for Justin Trudeau or the Government of Canada. It is a critical but early step in recognizing the truth about Canada, and work that must happen long before we can start reconciliation. Truth comes before reconciliation, and it quickly became obvious to me while studying this area of policy that Canada and most Canadians have not yet come to grips with truth.

Criticism: Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) is too vague

Similar concepts to "Free, Prior and Informed" exist in contact law (mutual consent, contractual capacity, etc). You can't hold a gun to their head or force someone to sign, can't change the terms after agreement, or lie to one of the parties about the contents of an agreement (translations, etc).

What this really comes down to is that some people believe it is legitimate to debate whether there should be a need for consent for activities which are otherwise considered a violation of human rights.


I know of no other human rights that are so callously debated. Nobody would be asking if a "right to life" represented a "veto" for those who wanted to murder (especially for profit).


Is it a "veto" to disallow slavery or torture? What about narrow western notions of property in UN UDHR article 17 (western notions of property being exclusivity without responsibility)?

The context I have heard this debated most often is from individuals or politicians representing industries which wish to continue to violate human rights for profit. I find it disgusting that this conversation persists in the Canadian government, parliament and media.

Criticism: Indigenous Peoples should be consulted on C-15 and have FPIC

UNDRIP was primarily authored by Indigenous peoples, and wasn't authored by Canada. Bill C-15 itself regulates Canada, future Canadian governments, and not Indigenous peoples ( I offer a more extended version in https://mcormond.blogspot.com/2021/02/undrip-regulates-canada.html  ). This criticism is largely an example of the Association fallacy.


I believe this relates to the confusion about what Canada is (a system), where there is a belief that if the Government of Canada (parliamentarians) tables a bill that it must be in the interests of Canada (the system).


Canada markets itself domestically and internationally as a leader in protecting and promoting human rights. Canada rejecting international human rights norms would cause people to recognise this as a myth. Canada really doesn't have a choice if it wants to avoid sanctions against it for being a perennial violator of human rights. While Canada and the USA have Magnitsky legislation, the lack of understanding of what CANZUS countries are doing will likely surprise some when similar legislation in other countries is finally used to sanction Canada.

It makes perfect sense for Indigenous peoples globally to be critical of Canada for delaying affirmation and the process to correct the large body of "domestic" laws which encourage/induce human rights violations. It makes no sense to oppose the bill once it is understood that C-15 is not something the Canadian government wants to do, but is something that due to international pressure Canada must do.

Bill C-15 does not "implement" UNDRIP, the way most people understand the word "implement".

The bill affirms UNDRIP applies in Canada. This is an additional clarification of the status-quo, given UNDRIP should be understood to already apply once it was officially adopted by Canada in May 2016. Embarrassingly, Canada was the last of the 4 original CANZUS objector countries to finally adopt UNDRIP. (Australia 2009, New Zealand 2010, United States 2011)


Secondly, the bill creates a process to amend laws which is "in consultation and cooperation with Indigenous peoples". It is not in passing C-15 where FPIC might be violated, but with a dishonorable government carrying out the process in a way that gets this aspect wrong. This isn't a logical reason to oppose C-15 as this is not where the problem exists, but a reason to be aware that passing of C-15 is the beginning and not the end of a process.



Every time a government representative claims that C-15 "implements'' UNDRIP "in accordance with the Canadian Constitution" they are generating opposition and making it harder to move forward.


Canada is in violation of human rights prior to the passage of C-15, and will still be in violation after. Passing C-15 is about a process, and is not a magic wand that will immediately stop Canada from violating human rights.


Several government representatives discussing UNDRIP in context of Section 35 of the Canadian Constitution speak in a way that suggests the reverse of the non-derogation clause in Bill C-15. That clause is clearly intended to be read that C-15 can not be interpreted in a way to reduce any rights affirmed by Section 35, while UNDRIP is clearly intended to articulate new rights beyond Section 35. Language used by government representatives are being interpreted to mean that UNDRIP is subservient to Section 35 - that the only UNDRIP rights that remain when "domesticated" are those already confirmed by past Section 35 interpretations.

The constant use of the "implement" language, as well as confusion around the relationship between UNDRIP and Section 35, has caused many Indigenous peoples to oppose Bill C-15 due to the mixed messages the government is sending. I'm not sure if generating confusion and opposition is a deliberate action on the part of the government, or part of the ongoing mishandling of this area of policy.

Criticism: Provinces, municipalities, or business sectors should be consulted on C-15 and have FPIC

No.



Trade and other sanctions for ongoing human rights violations will be against Canada. Internal jurisdictional issues may be important to Canada, but are irrelevant at an international level.


This is true in the context of UNDRIP as well as the nation-to-nation relationships between Canada and First Nations. UNDRIP, as well as Section 35 of the Canadian Constitution, must always be understood to be at the national level, above the provincial level and beyond internal Canadian jurisdictional debates.

Provinces are creatures of the Government of Canada and/or Britain and should not have a say in whether they will honour internationational human rights instruments. Municipalities are provincial corporations, and as with any other corporation should simply honour international human rights norms or be held fully accountable for any non-compliance. Each level of government should be launching their own process to modify their own laws and procedures to come into compliance with international human rights, and not in any way slow down the federal process.


Businesses which have been profiting off violating human rights should be brought into compliance, or possibly folded as a consequence of continuing for-profit violations of human rights. They should be treated as organized crime. I noticed the witness list and am not sure how organisations such as the "Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers" could have anything fruitful to add to this human rights discussion.

I support several NDP candidates and members of parliaments, but not the party.

I will be attending the online event to acclaim Leah Gazan as the Winnipeg Centre NDP candidate for the next federal election. Since I am yet again offering support for a member of parliament who is in the NDP caucus, I felt it worth discussing my current thoughts  on the NDP.

 

Who I've met...

When I first became political in the 1990's I was partisan, and an active volunteer for the Green Party of Ontario and Canada. I had no interest in meeting or talking with politicians, because -- well -- they all needed to go because they were all bad (and none of them were Green, so that went without saying).

I ended up meeting Hon. Mauril Bélanger because of a mutual friend, not because he was a politician. In 1997 when I moved to the Ottawa Vanier, I wrote him a letter and we started to engage in conversations.  In 1998 I joined the federal Progressive Conservative party to vote for David Orchard.

And thus began my transition from being focused on political parties to noticing that the individual people matter far more than the colour of the team jersey they happen to be wearing.

Wearing the NDP team jersey,  I met Hon. Bill Blaikie in 2002, Brian Masse in 2004, Charlie Angus in 2005 (and many times since), Judy Wasylycia-Leis in 2005, Peggy Nash (few moments at 2006 all candidates debate), Peter Stoffer (over the phone) in 2007, and Kennedy Stewart in 2012.
 

This year I've had a few virtual conversations with past MP Romeo Saganash and current MP Leah Gazan.  I look forward to a post-COVID time when sitting down and meeting in person becomes a reality.

What about the NDP bothers me...

In the before-times, prior to 2020, I had concerns that I couldn't articulate well. The biggest change for me personally in 2020 wasn't COVID-19 but my self-initiated anti-racism training.

I offered some thoughts on the NDP during the 2019 election.

This included a video that talked about the thing that has pushed me away from the NDP the most over the past 30 years, and that is the number of times that someone judged me for as being a "them" rather than part of an "us" because I saw specific issues from a different vantage point. The notion that there is a single objective "truth" about being a good person, and everything else is just wrong (and those people are bad), was thrown at me quite regularly.

I've learned some interesting things about objectivity during my anti-racism training.

Labour movement

In my younger years I was concerned with two areas of policy: technology law, and environmentalism.  In both of these areas I constantly came up against a specific barrier.  What about jobs?

I was constantly told my anti-car and anti-Big Tech (Apple, Microsoft -- this is long before the new players existed) was anti-job and anti-union. While I always recognized that an environmentally sustainable and technologically decentralized economy would actually generate more and better jobs, I took all of this as evidence of why I must strongly be anti-union.

I see unions as a response to Big Employer, and my solution to that problem has been to decentralize.  It continues to feel nonsensical to me that many of the "only buy from union shops" rhetoric, especially in technology, ends up promoting Big Employer to the detriment of their employees.

During my decade involved in Copyright policy there were many organizations that called themselves "unions" (Writers Union, Professional Writers Association, etc) who were fighting in strong support of the very "technological protection measures" which has created new and given more power to the Big Tech companies that have finally shown up on the radar of politicians.  We had been trying to warn them starting back in the 1990's, and these "unions" fought vigorously to ensure that Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook and Microsoft would have as much control over our lives as they do today.


I continue to be proud that I have avoided ever having a union job my entire career. I have been offered jobs at union shops a few times in the last 30 years, but I turned them down and did different works.

Worldviews embedded in environmental policy

This is part of the "what about jobs" question, which I always felt was a distraction given I felt funding retraining was a trivially obvious answer.

With my anti-racism training, I've asked a different question: eco-capitalism, eco-socialism, and decolonization?

Built into western worldviews, which were built upon Abrahamic religious law, is the notion that Human beings are most important (or only) thing in the world. The idea that while nature is not dependent on us, but we are on nature, never occurs to people who ask "what about jobs". To me we must have a good relation with "Mother Nature" first, and that it is everything else that is up for debate.

I've had many friends that are devoted NDP supporters over the years, and I pretty much tune out of the conversation when the "what about jobs" conversation is brought up during a conversation about our relationship with Mother Nature.

Equity, Diversity & Inclusion

This is the policy area where I've regularly been declared bad person.
 

I don't believe you deserve to drive a car or have cheap energy simply because you are poor. This is a systemic problem, given poverty is a policy choice that governments make.  Suggesting that we must subsidize pollution as a matter of "equity" turned me off from left-wing thinking very early in the 1990's.

I don't believe that we should continue to or increase subsidies to global energy in order that what Europe called "third world" countries can become as "prosperous" as self-numbered First World countries.  I've always questioned the legitimacy of this alleged prosperity, which appears to have largely been extracted through borrowing from the future and stealing from other lands.  I've noticed this rhetoric being used in Climate Change debates by the energy sector, and I've watched far too many on the left allowing their ideology to push them into contortions. 

It wasn't until recently that I have started to form a way to articulate my problem with Canadian style "Diversity and Inclusion".  My first attempt was in: European multiculturalism vs Indigenization as Inclusion, Reconcilliation and Decolonization.

I currently see Canadian style multiculturalism, introduced by P.E. Trudeau, as part of the ongoing erasure of Indigenous peoples.  Culture is defined very narrowly (clothing, fashion, music, dance, and food), while everything else is part of the systems of Canada (government, law, etc).

Canada has two official languages, both foreign. Canada seeks to fund policies to "protect" both English and French which are already protected in England and France, even though there are many domestic languages that need support. I consider the "Official Languages Act" to be part of colonialism and Indigenous erasure, not something progressives should be supporting.

Canada is not a democracy, but a British subsidiary.  Canada is part of a larger system with thousands of years of foreign history, including the adoption of  Christian law.

Within this specific context, diversity and inclusion become successful tools of assimilation into the foreign British (or otherwise European) systems.



In Canada's left the Canadian version of multiculturalism (indigenous erasure) has been extended to multi-religion. This has become a critical problem for the last two NDP leaders who campaigned against Quebec laicity, and thus all the NDP nominated candidates in Quebec.

Many Canadians are focused on the skin colour of the majority of muslims, and consider their opposition to laicity as a form of "I'm not racist".  My focus is on trying to get the Christian cross out of Canadian governments which many consider to be the primary symbol of genocide against Indigenous Peoples on Turtle Island.  I've wanted Christianity and all other formal (and now I understand foreign) religions out of government for a long time, and the more I learn about Canada the stronger I feel about that.

In all my years of meeting election candidates and elected members of parliament, by far the most social conservative I met was Monia Mazigh, who the federal NDP nominated as candidate for the 2004 federal election. So many ideas that should offend any remotely socially liberal person are given a free pass as long as they are wrapped in the excuse of religion (especially Abrahamic religions, given Canada was created as a Christian country).


I'm not suggesting that something called "Equity, Diversity & Inclusion" can't be a goal within a different system, but that as they are articulated in Canada they are seriously problematic.

Why Leah Gazan?

I've been watching her speeches in the house, and many other interviews.  While she will sometimes speak to the language that NDP supporters will want to hear, she hasn't yet used the types of language that turns me off.  I don't know much about the Lakota people, but the little I know suggests worldviews that avoid the problems I've had with the Canadian left.

She is also very passionate, and I've not yet seen signs that she is bowing to pressure to conform to the current executive of the NDP.  If anything, the fact that people are calling her the Canadian AOC, and suggesting she might become a future leader of the party, suggests some very interesting possibilities.

Why I like what I hear from Leah is only based on my success criteria.  Yours may be different, and even if you disagree with me doesn't mean you'll disagree with Leah.  It is possible for one person to be complex and thoughtful enough to be able to help move politics forward in a way that people who have very different political views can still agree with.

Importance of GOSSIP and David Graham (MP for Laurentides—Labelle)

(Photo from recent GOSLING gathering copied from tweet by Mike Gifford.  Mike is sitting beside MP David Graham in the top-right, and I'm sitting beside John Hall on the bottom-right)


In May of 2002 I was one of the co-founders of what became known as GOSLING (Getting Open Source Logic INto Governments).  While many participants were focused on how the government creates/distributes and uses FLOSS (Free/Libre and Open Source Software), my primary concern was in how the government regulated software.

Starting in the summer of 2001 when the government launched the consultations towards that copyright section 92 report until copyright bill C-11 passed in 2012, I spent a considerable amount of time talking to parliamentarians, attending all committee meetings studying the bill, and giving public talks on copyright focused on the regulation of software and hardware.

During that time I fairly regularly had people come up to me and ask if they could financially support me, or if I would ever consider running for office so that they would have a representative in parliament.

Having members of our community in parliament would be towards GOSSIP (Getting Open Source and Standards Into Parliament).


We currently have a situation far better than me trying to get elected, which is someone from the FLOSS technology community who is fluently bilingual, a much better public speaker, and has  an intimate understanding of parliamentary process from prior experience: David Graham (follow him on Twitter)

Shortly after his election he was written about on SlashDot, referencing a video of him talking tech in committee.  With OpenParliament.ca it is possible to subscribe to get an email notice whenever he speaks in parliament, and I've been following his house and committee participation closely over the years.

If you were wondering why the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology report on copyright was so much better than what we've seen in other committees (Industry or Heritage, including in previous years), you only need to notice David's name as an active participant in that study.

For the partisans who support other parties, please note that I'm not endorsing any particular party.  The backward-facing report from Heritage committee is just as much a Liberal party report as the report from Industry as the party makeup of the committees are the same.  My experience has been in this area of policy that there are greater differences between the views of people on Heritage committee and those on Industry committee than between the political parties.

I am strongly endorsing David Graham, and hope that other non-partisans like myself or partisans from the FLOSS community will endorse and help ensure David is re-elected in the October federal election.  Even if you don't live in his riding there are other ways to help.

Please consider donating (Ensure riding is set to Laurentides—Labelle) before and during the election campaign.

Why I joined the CPC to vote for Michael Chong

I have to admit that when I first heard that Michael Chong was running for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) I thought: Oh, cute - a progressive conservative is running -- they'll squash him like a bug.

I had an opportunity to hear Mr. Chong in person on Wednesday February 22 at an event hosted at the offices of OpenConcept (a business owned by long-time friend Michael Gifford).  There was about 30 guests there, and Mr. Chong's meet-and-greeting very quickly turned into a Q&A session.

Most of what I heard I really liked.  Enough to decide to become a member of the party in order to vote in the leadership election in May (March 28 is the final date to become a member if you want to have your say).  I also made a $350 campaign contribution to Mr. Chong.

I'll highlight three areas of policy he spoke about, the first being from that bulk of ideas I agreed with, then one area I am mostly with him but with some reservations, and one area I disagreed.  Two are key elements of his platform: Economic Opportunity, Environmental Opportunity, and Democratic Opportunity.

Green Tax Policy

Mr. Chong is a GreenPAC endorsed candidate, and I was grinning from ear-to-ear when he was talking about his proposal for a revenue neutral shift from income taxes to a carbon tax (one much higher than proposed by the Liberals).  He even used the phrase "taxing things which are bad rather than things which are good", a phrase that has been used by the Green Tax Shift movement for decades.  (The shortform "Tax bads, not goods" confuses people as they think of the wrong meaning of "goods").

I have been a large supporter of the Green Tax Shift since I heard about it in the early 1990's.  Then I was a member of the Green Party, and remember one election where we were setting up a campaign office for the region (we didn't have the funding to have per-district offices).  This was a rental of a building where the previous  tenant was "H&R Block Income Tax".  I wanted us to put up a sign that said "Abolish" over the "H&R Block" part of the sign, but was opposed by some in the party which had more traditional lefty views on these issues (one of the first signs I might have been in the wrong party).


The question came up about why the carbon tax shouldn't be put into general revenue and used to increase fiscal capacity, reduce deficits/debt, etc.   His answer was that he wanted those other issues to be separate, and that this should be a revenue neutral shift so that the average taxpayer wouldn't be opposed to the tax (the average person wouldn't feel a tax increase, while those who pollute more than average would be paying more than those of us who pollute lower than average would be paying less).


The benefits of this policy are greater than he had time to discuss.  When tax-shifting you are taking something that is out of your hands and putting it into your control.  If you want to do something to reduce your taxes you can make better choices for your energy usage and other activities which are carbon emitters.  It becomes both carrot and stick, which is far more efficient than a stick-only approach that will meet with large political opposition from a wide variety of citizens.

Mr. Chong discussed how income tax is an inefficient tax, and that its introduction was only a temporary measure to help pay for Canada's involvement in World War 1.  While the last surviving war veteran from WW1 died in 2010, income tax is unfortunately still here.  To be clear, I'm not personally against taxes or government, but I think taxing income is the wrong way to go.

Electoral Reform

The question came up about where he stood on electoral reform.  He said that most of the proposals to replace our current voting system had some seats granted to political parties, and that we needed to reform political parties first before considering these types of changes.

I understand where he is coming from, but am disappointed with fellow Canadians that this is the answer.  He is correct in that nearly all the proposals that have come from the most vocal activist groups are party functioning, granting "top up" seats based on implied or explicit support for political parties.

A different direction could be taken, which is to take the party-focused features (Like optimizing for Gallagher Index style proportionality) off the table.  Ranked ballots in single and/or multi-member districts without top-up seats or above-the-line voting doesn't privilege party affiliation.  Moving from single-member districts to multi-member districts enables competition between candidates from the same party within a multi-member district, further diminishing the influence of political parties.

Unfortunately I can't fault Mr Chong for his views. If we went forward with a referendum today (maybe a ranked ballot, like was used in PEI and is being used to decide the Conservative Party leader), it is quite likely that some party-privileging system would be brought in and the excessive control over MPs by the party and party leader would only become worse.

We not only need to do as Mr. Chong suggests and reform parties, as well as both the upper and lower houses, we need to help educate fellow Canadians about the features of different voting systems and the risks associated with some of these features.

Merging government departments and agencies

This is one of those areas of policy that a few attendees had a problem with.

Mr Chong acknowledged that government shouldn't be treated like the private sector, and that the PM should not be thought of like the CEO.

He then proceeded to use private sector examples to explain why merging government departments would be a good idea.

There are many differences between the public and private sector, and this is one of those areas where the differences need to be recognized.   In a company, the company will work best when everyone is moving in the same direction.  If some branch thought the company was moving the wrong direction they could split off and form their own company that could compete or cooperate with the original company.

Governments don't work that way.  There are different departments with bureaucracies that have competing mindsets, and that is a good thing.  There is a monopoly on governance, and some branch that thinks another branch is heading the wrong direction can't split off and form their own government.  They need to hash it out within the structure of government, with there being debate between government departments that is not unlike the debate that happens between MPs in parliament.

While I believe there are efficiencies to be had in government, I believe merging dissimilar departments or even branches is harmful.  I still believe it is wrong for consumer affairs to have been added to Industry Canada (Now Innovation, Science and Economic Development) as that creates a conflict of interest within the department that would have been easier to negotiate if it were different departments (and thus different management structure trying to bring forward policy initiatives).

My political context

When I became politically active in the early 1990's I was introduced to the Green Party by someone who was familiar with the center-right German Greens. The Greens resonated more with me when the NDP was doing well (and lefties headed to the NDP), but I felt out-of-place whenever the NDP was doing poorly (and more lefties came to the Green Party).

I joined the Progressive Conservative party in 1998 because I was excited about the leadership campaign.  What David Orchard was saying resonated with me, and the party as a whole was more appealing the more the aspects of the conservative movement that didn't resonate with me moved to the Reform party.  I was called a tourist by Joe Clark during the campaign, and after that race which Joe Clark won I didn't really feel welcome.  Even though Joan Russow was leader, and her ideas didn't resonate with me at all, I returned to the Green Party as I believed at the time I had to be involved in a party to be involved in politics.

Starting in 2002 I started to meet more sitting MPs, and the more MPs I met the less partisan I became.  There were days when I would walk out of the office of an NDP MP and into the office of a Conservative MP, and it did not seem politically jarring at all.

I currently don't consider myself partisan, and find that there are candidates and MPs from every party who I share many ideas with, and well as MPs from each party which I don't share many ideas with.   I have found that political affiliation is a poor indicator of an MPs views on the issues that concern me the most.


While I still believe I'm politically center-right, I don't think I will ever feel at home exclusively with any party.  I suspect instead I'll want to become more involved with the individuals within the parties that I support.

Even from listening to Mr Chong for a very short amount of time on Wednesday evening I believe he is one of those individuals I can support -- and will be supporting as he runs for leadership of one of the two parties whose leader is most likely to become the next Prime Minister.

Whether or not Mr Chong wins, a good sized showing will demonstrate that there is support for the type of conservatism that he represents!  Whoever becomes the next CPC leader will need to listen more closely to these views.

Imagining an #EngagedInER conversation between Russell McOrmond (1997 #PR ) and Russell McOrmond (2017 #STV )

I can imagine a conversation between Russell McOrmond (1997) and Russell McOrmond (2017), and how that would go.

Both of these individuals feel they have a good grasp of the problems with First Past the Post, and both feel they have properly analyzed the obvious solution to the obvious failure.

These two individuals would likely hate each other :-)

RM1997 would think RM2017 was arrogant for constantly bringing up the fact that he was 20 years senior, and in that last 20 years had:

• met many sitting MPs
• had long conversations with some sitting MPs - in constituency and parliamentary offices, as well as in the Government Lobby (that part of center block behind the curtains on the government side), the parliamentary restaurant, as well as private pubs and private homes. I've even been invited by sitting MPs to help represent Canada in front of policy delegations from other countries.
• attended many federal committee hearings (more than I care to count), and have been a witness in multiple committees
• had joined a different federal party and voted in that parties leadership race.

RM2017 would be suggesting that systems based on ranked ballots in multi-member districts are the only systems which solve both the plurality problem (what non-partisans focused on the individual people rather than only the parties care about) and the proportionality problem (what partisans, especially those who support small parties, care about). He would be mentioning that the last 20 years of experience is why he believes the people matter more than the parties.

RM1997 would be telling RM2017 that none of that nonsense mattered, and that all that mattered is that the only party that could ever represent RM1997 in parliament needed a change to the system in order to represent him. Who cares who the MPs are, normal people don't talk to MPs :-)

You can see where this is going :-)

While I have 20 years more experience , I recognize that it would be rather presumptuous of me to think that I didn't have anything more to learn. I have the fact I learned so much in the last 20 years as proof that there is always more to come.

I can't learn from RM1997 as I already know everything he knows. There are so many people in this debate wanting to educate me on those same things, believing the only way I could possibly disagree with them is because I don't know these things. And I've been blocked on Twitter by a few of these people, upset that they can't change my mind by repeating words used by RM1997.

(re-posted from  Disqus)

MP Meetings: David Graham and David Lametti

I've met a few dozen federal MPs so far, and given how important technology law is to me I am always wanting to be introduced to and meet with more.  This is why I was so happy when I heard that a very technology savvy MP was going to be joining us for a GOSLING gathering on April 15th this year.

This was David Graham (Laurentides — Labelle) about the only Canadian MP I've heard being spoken of highly on SlashDot as this is a person already well known in the Linux and FLOSS community.  As technology literacy of politicians is a huge problem (it is what allowed most discussions around the "paracopyright" part of Canada's Copyright law to sound more like a scene from Harry Potter than actual science and technology), I was so happy to be meeting someone who would understand these issues.


When I went to introduce myself, David asked me what I was doing.  Demonstrating what makes him a good politician he explained that he knew me well, and reminded me of the various times we had already met in the past (on a variety of different policies, and even in a social context of when my sister-in-law worked for the Liberal party).  Having a good memory for people is an important part of being a politician, and it is great to see someone who both has the technical know-how as well as those important social skills.

This was something new for me -- meeting with a sitting MP that I met before they were an MP, and that was already actively working on some of the areas of policy that most concern me.

David and his staff invited me to an informal gathering for April 18 to meet with visitors from Sweden's Digitalization Commission. who were in town for a conference. David wouldn't be able to be there himself, but there would be another MP, staff from both MPs offices, as well as Canadian representatives from other parts of the public and private sector.

I was again pleasantly surprised to realize that I had already met Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade David Lametti (LaSalle—Émard—Verdun). He had written chapters for In the Public Interest: The Future of Canadian Copyright Law and From "Radical Extremism" to "Balanced Copyright" : Canadian Copyright and the Digital Agenda, and I attended the book launch for (and owned copies of) both books.  Mr. Lametti was already familiar with my particular stance on Paracopyright law.


Both David's are part of a Digital Caucus made up of Liberal MPs and staff.  I hope to meet with them and other caucus members in the future.  There are so many issues to be discussed: while Paracopyright is the issue that dragged me to being so involved with federal politics, the issue this summer is online voting (which if implemented in our current level of digital literacy would become an unaccountable proxy voting system where software vendors would decide the outcome of elections).

Mauril Bélanger was my reminder of the importance of public service

I spent the morning being reminded of the importance of public service.  I first met Mauril Bélanger in 1996 the context of the Defence Fund for the Montreal Rally (Rally during the Quebec referendum of 1995), and SOS Montfort. When I moved into his riding in 1997 I wrote him a letter.

This was a point of transition in my life.  I wasn't involved in politics until the early 1990's, and at first all I saw in government was corruption.  I was very much at what I now call my "smash the state" phase where I felt the whole lot of current politicians needed to go.   Mauril was someone who gave me a different impression, of someone who even from within government was visibly trying to do the right thing.  While he knew I didn't vote for him or his party, he still listened to me and offered feedback and help. This continued each time we met, where he was always extremely friendly and gave helpful advise on how to move forward on those ares of policy that concerned me the most.

It was with his encouragement and advise that I stepped up in the summer of 2001 and the decade that followed to help defend technology property rights from changes to "copyright" law being proposed.  I have met in person with a couple dozen sitting MPs, hope to meet with more in the future, and this was all largely due to my experience with Mauril.

While I moved to Ottawa-South in 2003, this didn't change how he would greet me the remaining times we spoke with each other.  He wasn't just an MP for the people who voted for him in his riding, but an MP for everyone.  He was a public servant in the most true sense, and I know anyone who knew him will miss him.