The Australian election

I haven’t had a chance yet to comment on the recent Australian election. It certainly was an abnormal election. The former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was dumped by his own party and new Prime Minister Julia Gillard called a new election. Rudd was dumped because his party had fallen behind the opposition in the polls. But in my view that decline in the polls could have been avoided had different courses of action been taken by the Rudd government. Firstly, the Rudd government should not have abandoned its climate change legislation. I realize it could not be passed in the Senate because of opposition obstructionism, but the legislation was very popular with the Australian public and abandoning it made the government’s popularity decline sharply. Instead the government, in my view, should have continued to push for the legislation. They could even have considered a double dissolution on the issue. In Australia, a double dissolution can occur when government legislation is rejected multiple times by the Senate. In the case of double dissolution, the entire Senate is up for election rather than the normal Senate half-election in which only half the members are up for election. After a double dissolution election, the Australian constitution allows for a joint sitting of both the House of Representatives and the Senate wherein a combined majority vote of both chambers can pass legislation that previously triggered the double dissolution. Labor certainly could have won such an election, in my opinion, if they had campaigned on the climate change bill and forgone their deeply unpopular mining tax (which also almost cost Labor government). Following an election victory for Labor in this scenario, there almost certainly would have been a combined majority for Labor in the two houses that could have passed the climate change legislation.
What is very strange about the climate change legislation is that the Green Party of Australia actually opposed the Rudd government’s climate change legislation on the basis that it did not go far enough and as a result the Greens voted against it in the Senate. This made the margin of defeat for the climate change bill quite wide. I believe this approach of opposing legislation because it does not go far enough is counterproductive. The nature of politics is compromise. In my view if you support something, you should always support legislation that meets that goal even if the legislation does not go as far as you want. Otherwise change will never be effected because people will be stuck voting against everything on the basis of it not going far enough and so nothing would pass and no progress would be made. To me it seems like a no-brainer that the Green Party of Australia ought to have supported the climate change legislation even though they didn’t think it had enough in it because something is always better than nothing.
Following the election, the Australian Senate composition does not change until July, but when it does change, ironically the Labor government will be in a better position in the Senate then they are in the House, in stark contrast to the government’s previous term when they were in a much better position in the House than in the Senate. Come July, Labor and the Greens will have a combined majority in the Senate. Given that the Green Party has given its support to the Labor minority government in both the House (through newly elected Green MP Adam Bandt) and in the Senate, the government will have a de facto majority in the Senate next July. Meanwhile in the House, Labor just barely holds on, being supported by the Green Party and 3 Independents for a very slim majority. Reinforcing the strangeness of the election is the fact that the two key independents giving Labor the majority are former members of the right-wing Australian National Party (one of the members of Australia’s centre-right coalition parliamentary group). Looking at the two members in question, however, makes their support for Labor less surprising. Both appear to have drifted away from the Nationals quite a bit in terms of policy. For example, both based their decision to back Labor in large part on the Labor government’s comprehensive program to build broadband internet to rural areas of Australia, a program that the National Party strongly opposes. Given that the opposition Coalition opposes the Labor government’s broadband program it appears that Labor’s support of the program and the Coalition’s opposition to it helped save the Labor government from defeat. Labor did manage to win the “two party vote” wherein under the Australian election system, vote preferences are distributed to the two main parties. They fell one seat below the Coalition, however. But to complicate matters, one of the newly elected National MPs from Western Australia declared that although he is a National MP, he was not part of the Coalition, effectively making the two main parliamentary groups tied for seats and giving Labor an opportunity to deny that the Coalition had won more seats than them. In the end, Labor won the election and I congratulate them for a well-earned victory and wish them luck as they govern as best they possibly can.

The rise of Rob Ford

I get why a very large number of Torontonians want Rob Ford to be their next mayor. There has been too much spending under David Miller. Under Miller, there has also been too much banning of things occurring such as the banning of certain types of shopping bags and the once-proposed ban on Tim Horton’s paper coffee cups. In addition, there have been too many fees added under Miller, such as the mandatory five cent bag fee. So I can see why Torontonians are irate and want massive change. I just don’t personally believe that Ford is the right person to clean up the mess. Ford has promised to scrap the Toronto land transfer fee and car registration fee. I never supported the land transfer fee and I would like to see it gone too, but how would Ford pay for its elimination? It would be unthinkable to do it by cutting services. Yes there is plenty of fat to cut but I would support the elimination of the land transfer tax and the car registration fee only after it is established they can be eliminated without cutting services. I’d also like to see the bag fee eliminated and I know Ford is the most likely candidate to do this but I’m wary of a Ford administration for a number of reasons. Firstly, Ford has trouble getting along with other politicians. This problem he has is well documented. As mayor your job is to be as collegial as possible with council and this could go by the wayside with Ford as Mayor. Secondly, I believe Ford’s strongly socially conservative views are incompatible with representing a city as diverse as Toronto. His stance on gay rights is quite out of step with modern Toronto and could become problem (in my humble opinion) if he is elected mayor. Also one of his most infamous comments concerns funding for the prevention of AIDS. As documented on city TV news (http://www.citytv.com/toronto/citynews/news/local/article/17952--councillor-rob-ford-under-fire-over-aids-comments), Ford said "If you are not doing needles and you are not gay, you wouldn't get AIDS probably, that's bottom line." Those infamous comments made no sense and it is a fact that worldwide there are millions (I am not exaggerating when I say millions) of people who suffer AIDS who are neither gay nor users of exchanged needles.

I also strongly disagree with Ford’s idea of eliminating streetcars. It makes no sense and is not environmentally friendly no matter how “clean” the buses are that replace the streetcars. As far as Ford’s plan to cut City Council in half, how does it make any sense to have fewer councilors in Toronto than there are MPs representing the city?

I’d personally prefer George Smitherman to be mayor. He is almost as aggressive as Ford of course. However, his policies on the whole make more sense in my opinion and I like that he does not support mayoral candidate Rocco Rossi’s idea of reviving the Spadina Expressway by making it a tunnel. In my opinion reviving the Spadina Expressway even as a tunnel is a really bad and undesirable idea. After all it was opposed because of all the houses that would demolished and I don’t believe Rossi’s claim that to build his tunnel no houses would need to be demolished. I also oppose Rossi’s tunnel idea because it could quickly turn into a debacle like the Big Dig in Boston.

In Markham where I live the mayoral race is far less heated. Two people are running against incumbent Mayor Frank Scarpitti. Both ran against Scarpitti in the 2006 election as well. One of them is Partap Dua. He ran as an independent in the 2006 Canadian federal election in the riding of Markham—Unionville. He ran as an unofficial candidate for a new, unregistered, left-leaning party. Later that year Dua placed second in the 2006 Markham mayoral election. Also running is Stephen Kotyck. His plan is to cut waste and pare the Town of Markham down to essential services. But I strongly disagree with one of his proposals to cut “waste”. He considers having two transit systems in York Region, YRT and VIVA, to be wasteful. He proposes merging the two systems. I strongly disagree with this. Viva works very well as I have learned from riding it many times. Having two transit systems is not wasteful. Now, despite his suggestion of merging the two transit systems, YRT/VIVA is a Regional issue rather than a Town issue and if Kotyck were elected Mayor he would have to convince the entire York Regional Council to agree to his proposal, which is not likely given VIVA’s popularity. I personally am supporting Frank Scarpitti for re-election because I think he has done an excellent job as Mayor over the past 4 years.

New Brunswick election

For me personally the election in New Brunswick is kind of depressing. It was a massive Tory landslide. The Liberals were wiped out in Fredericton and Saint John. The very forceful strength for the Tories in Northern Francophone New Brunswick continues even without Bernard Lord as leader. Of course it is important to remember that this result does not show an embrace for the right as it would in many other provinces, or other countries. The New Brunswick PCs have always been a moderate brand of Conservatives who never have had specifically right-wing policies. There was very little right wing in the Tory platform and the Tories actually were to the left of the Liberals on the issue of tax cuts. That being said, the Liberals did run to the left of the Tories in some respects, notably in that it was the Liberals who promised a prescription drug government program. Nevertheless the New Brunswick Tory leadership continues to be Reddish Tory so one should not likely expect a hard right shift in governance in New Brunswick. This lack of polarization in New Brunswick (which is in contrast to the polarization we have seen in Ontario especially during the Harris years) could explain why the New Brunswick Tories in 1999 and 2010 have been able to sweep the province to an extent that former Ontario premier Mike Harris never could.

The landslide was so strong that Larry Kennedy, the Victoria-Tobique Liberal MLA who survived the 1999 Lord landslide was defeated in this election. Granted, that part of the province has shifted to the right federally since the 1999 provincial election. One bright spot from the Liberals perspective was that Liberal Chris Collins was re-elected in Moncton East – former Tory Premier Bernard Lord’s old riding. He won it by less than 200 votes but it was still major trend bucking. It makes some sense that he won it – he was the only incumbent Liberal running for re-election in a riding with the word Moncton in it, and Moncton is more Liberal than Fredericton or Saint John. Collins was originally a New Democrat, running for the NDP in the 1987 New Brunswick election. Needless to say he was defeated in this election because the New Brunswick Liberals won every single seat in the legislature. In 2003 he was inspired to run against Bernard Lord in his own riding when he found that the government and his local MLA, Mr. Lord, were not giving him enough government services to treat his son Sean for cancer. His son was being treated in Halifax and the government was not paying for the trips to visit his son in the hospital. In the 2003 election Collins lost to Lord by only 10% of the vote. Collins was elected to Moncton City Council in 2004. When the 2006 election came, Collins couldn’t run against Lord because he was travelling with his son outside the country at the time. However Lord resigned his seat when he lost the premiership and Collins easily won a March 2007 by-election. Unfortunately his son Sean passed away from cancer in July 2007 at the age of 13. After this tragedy, Collins was appointed to the provincial cabinet and was Minister for Local Government at the time of the 2010 election. He gets to be in opposition with 12 other members as the Liberals lick their severe wounds.