Looking back on 2011

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At the start of this year, I publicly posted my resolutions for 2011. I thought now would be a good time to look back on those goals to see how I fared in meeting them.

Achieve a 3.8 GPA and remain on track towards graduation in 2013. I met the latter half of this goal. If I am able to obtain all the classes I need in the terms ahead, and continue school through this summer, I should be able to graduate by the end of spring 2013. It sounds far, but it is just over a year away. As for the GPA goal – there’s some work to do. Through the campaign this fall, my focus shifted off of school, and my grades could’ve been higher than they ended up being had that not occurred.

Be and feel healthier than ever. I’ve made progress on this resolution, but not to the extent that I’ve longer for. My habits of drinking primarily water and eating non-processed foods have been eroding slowly. While I was able to visit the gym on a routine schedule for over a month this spring, a summer injury put that exercise on hold indefinitely. While I could return now, the prospect of walking 15 minutes in the cold, and paying for a locker every visit, in addition to a pass – well, it’s not too appealing.

Meet new people and rekindle existing network. This goal was also thrown for a loop. While I certainly was able to make a greater effort to interact with family, and with some friends, I definitely did not reach out to build friendships at SFU or elsewhere. I have made some minor acquaintances, primarily through Twitter, as well as through my boyfriend’s network. That said, it was the surprise arrival of this new relationship that has become the rock in my social life and to which I have dedicated the most of my time this year. And if it is a question of some new class friends versus a strong relationship, I’m glad to have the latter.

Embrace all that SFU has to offer. This didn’t happen and I don’t think it will. My plate is already full enough and I don’t particularly enjoy the commute up the hill. The less time I spend on campus, the better.

Reflect more often. This, in a general sense, I’ve done quite well. Every third or fourth month, I’ve sat down and reviewed my life based on eight areas of wellbeing. This practice has helped me understand where I’ve met short term goals and where I need to re-align my energy. In addition, particular conversations with people throughout the year have truly helped me gain a better sense of myself and my priorities looking forward.

Obtain a part time job. I’m happy to say this one was achieved. I was able to secure a position with Stats Can during the Census, and although it was cut short due to my summer injury, I enjoyed the work and the pay cheque.

The future lives in Calgary, not Vancouver

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I first discovered the shift in 2007.

I had grown up picturing Calgary as a prairie boomtown filled with cowboys and oil barons. To my surprise, I was walking through a picturesque riverfront pathway filled with families, cyclists, and roller bladers. The scene could have been stolen right out of a Vancouver postcard.

During a short visit to the city along my way to see family in Regina, I fell in love. Prince’s Island took my breath away, with its luscious gardens, engineered bioswales, and beautiful pedestrian bridges. I was amazed that Calgary had a pedestrian-only street, Stephens Ave, a feat not even Vancouver could yet pull off. All around Downtown, there were slender, glass-lined towers rising. Down below, one of North America’s most successful Light Rail Transit systems, the C-Train, whisked commuters to and from the suburbs.

Coming from Vancouver, the poster child of new city urbanism, I thought we had built the perfect model. Yet here I was, flabbergasted that Calgary was not only using our model, but improving it.

Signs continued to emerge through the years. I heard that Calgary was attempting to build a stunning National Music Centre. I found out that Calgary was home to a pioneering arts incubator downtown, ArtCentral. I learned that local firm Bing Thom Architects was designing an expansion to the City’s orchestral theatre. The oil wealth of Calgary was flowing rapidly into American-style philanthropy for the arts, a source of cash flow many Vancouverites could only dream of.

It was the election of Mayor Naheed Nenshi that sealed the deal for me. In a country of middle-aged white Mayors, the fact that Calgary elected an intelligent, ethnic, young man whose professes to do politics in “full sentences” shocked the entire nation. Beneath our noses, Calgary had changed.

No more the backwaters of Canada, Calgary was a city that embraced urbanism, the arts, and progressive, pragmatic politics. If ever there was a Canadian city that fit my values, this appeared to be it.

Now that, in and of itself, is quite a feat, but it is not necessarily enough to move an entire life to another province. For that push, one need only look at the state of Vancouver.

I love Metro Vancouver. It is my home and I feel so deeply connected with the land and the values carried forth here since time immemorial. Yet, for all the visions I’ve had of living the urban lifestyle I desire in the City of Vancouver, I sense it slipping further and further away.

I can’t afford to live downtown. Even with a good career, there are significant tradeoffs being made just to live amongst the Yaletown yuppies. If I ever wanted to raise a family, the walls would rise up even higher – who in the world can afford a house for nearly a million dollars?

It doesn’t help that Vancouver lacks any substantial economy. Yes, there’s the eco entrepreneurs and the small, but strong gaming and tech zone, and of course the Port and transport sector, but what much has changed since the CPR first chose the area as its western terminus? It is still a gateway economy, a place where goods, services, and people meet and move on. It’s not a place where people stay, where sustainable companies and lives are built. It is just an outpost.

Good jobs don’t come from hotels and tourism. Good jobs don’t come from the big box service industry. Even those good government jobs that used to exist are increasingly a rare and privileged position for the few lucky enough to get in.

Not only is the cost of living outrageous, and the lack of well paying jobs exacerbating the problem, but Vancouver seems to lack a key ingredient that makes cities work. Maybe it goes to the colonial roots of the City that pushed the haves to the west and the have nots to the east. The striking dichotomy between groups of people in Vancouver has more often than not led to a boisterous political scene, rather than a functional ability to work together to solve problems.

It can be seen in BC’s outstanding land claims issue. Or in the inability of Vancouver to deal with the homelessness crisis. Or the severe lack of support for arts and culture in the region. Or in the on-going saga of underfunded transit services. Or even in the severe lack of community and trust among residents.

This is a place where people come to turn on, tune in, and drop out.

Contrast it to Calgary, where its pioneer, cowboy ethic of hard work, entrepreneurship, and camaraderie has been reimagined to help the boomtown build a city that is conquering homelessness, funding arts and transit, creating new forms of civic engagement, and actually improving its citizens’ quality of life.

For me, the promise of Vancouver has failed its next generation. I think it’s time to give Calgary a chance to get it right. It seems to already be down the path to success.

I can’t wait to be part of its energy.

My renewed belief in the Liberals

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In previous posts, I had been an advocate of a Liberal-NDP merger. To me, the Liberals were clearly a centre-left party, and with Jack Layton pulling the NDP closer to the centre over his leadership, and gaining ground while the Liberals floundered, it seemed like a union was appropriate.

Following the 41st federal election, and the decimation of the Liberals, I contemplated seriously jumping ship and joining the New Democrat bandwagon. After all, they have the momentum, and if the Liberals can’t rebuild, seem poised to become the new home for progressives in the country.

However, after reading the first few chapters of Layton’s book, Speaking Out Louder, I’m convinced now more than ever about the need for the Liberal Party of Canada.

Layton makes frequent and abrasive attacks on corporations, trade, and the market. His arguments seem to stem from a belief that business equals greed, and therefore the government must adequately temper corporate power by essentially competing with it. He also held strong that trade agreements necessitate the loss of state sovereignty, a belief that felt oddly protectionist coming from a man with such a broad and interconnected view of the world. His calls for a much larger government, directly operating far more of our economy, had me thinking “socialist” for the first time ever.

I simply could not believe that Jack, the friendly politician who fought for working Canadians, could be so disconnected from the political and economic realities of history. My conclusion was that, although I share many of the same goals as Jack did, our means were quite different. This realization, I think, underlines the fundamental difference between the NDP and the Liberals: same goals, different means.

And so it is that I’ve changed my mind on a merger. Can the two parties cooperate together? Absolutely. That can manifest itself in many ways, although merger is not one of them. Canada needs a party that is socially progressive, and yet fiscally responsible in a way that understands the benefits of a mixed market economy. That arena can only be filled by the Liberals.

BC middle of the pack in education funding

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Last week, I pursued some independent comparison calculations of education budgets across the country. I began this exercise with two contradictory lines in my head: one, from the BCTF, that education in BC in underfunded, and two, from the government, that funding per-capita has never been higher. What I attempted to do was find the real truth behind the numbers.

My initial calculations saw BC spend the lowest percentage of their provincial budget on education, relative to all the other provinces. Unfortunately, the number used in that calculation was not the right one. I had used the figure of $4.7 billion, taken from the BC Budget highlights PDF, a number that only accounted for school district operational grants. The full figure for the K-12 education budget is $5.9 billion. This mistake put BC well below other provinces.

The two posts were removed so as to halt the spread of false information. The fixed calculations are presented below.

The first chart looks at the percentage of each province’s budget goes towards education. The budgetary expenditures are taken from the 2011 budget estimates from each jurisdiction. Quebec is excluded due to budget reporting differences.

According to this statistic, BC is in the middle of the pack. It ranks fifth among nine provinces for the percentage of the budget committed to education. Ontario ranks first with 18.7%, a figure that correlates with that province’s government focus on all-day kindergarten, improved graduation rates, and improved post-secondary transition rates. The next three highest – Newfoundland and Labrador, Manitoba, and PEI – I would suspect amount to investments to transition into knowledge economies and halt the brain drain of their youth.

Next comes BC, ahead of Saskatchewan, New Brunswick, Alberta, and Nova Scotia. This ranking is perhaps surprising, considering the push being made in both New Brunswick and Alberta to update and reform their respective education systems for today’s needs. It appears as though money doesn’t factor into their plans. Therefore, on this marker, it could be argued we are spending the right amount on education, on par with other provinces.

The second chart compares each province’s 2011 education budget to the number of students for school year 2011-2012 as reported by each province’s Ministry of Education. The two numbers are used to calculate a per-capita figure for funding.

On per-capita funding, we drop from fifth to sixth among nine provinces. At the top is Newfoundland, again a figure I would attribute to a strategy to build an economic and knowledge core in the province. Manitoba ranks second, about a thousand dollars higher than third place Ontario. PEI is fourth, and New Brunswick edges out BC by about five hundred dollars. At $9085 per capita, the figure remains at the lower end of the comparisons, but is still significantly higher than last place Alberta, with only $7120 per capita.

These revised calculations force me to eat crow and take back what I had previously mused about re: boosting education funding. The statistics neither support nor deny the lines of either the teachers or the government. We’ve hardly fallen to last place, relative to other provinces, but nor are we top ranked in either category, leaving room for some improvement.

Ultimately, it depends on whether we are okay being in the middle of the pack in terms of funding. Some may argue we should strive to be first, showing a solid commitment to the future by making a bold investment in the area. Others may believe that as long as we’re not last, we’re doing just fine. Depending on the camp you’re in, you’ll pull a different conclusion from these stats.

From #elxn41 to #elxn42: What happens next?

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It was an historic evening. Canadians were clearly ready for change. Harper secured his long coveted majority, the NDP have formed Official Opposition, the Liberals were decimated to third place for the first time in history, the Bloc no longer have official party status, and Elizabeth May became the first Green elected to major public office in North America. After nearly a decade of political stalemates in Ottawa, the entire map has been re-drawn. Welcome to a new era in Canadian politics.

Harper and the Conservatives

Stephen Harper accomplished what so many of his predecessors could not. Not only did he unite the right, a fundamental precursor to any of his post-2004 achievements, he has also balanced the demands of his hard right supporters with a tepid and concerned Canadian populace for the past five years. By taking small, often unheard of, steps towards dismantling long held Canadian federal institutions, he has given his base tangible measures of progress without confirming the suspicions of the majority of progressive Canadians who long feared his ‘hidden agenda’.

With his strong, stable, national majority government, Harper now has four years with a next-to-unlimited reign on power in Ottawa. He can push through legislation with little to no debate and can pursue any number of policies his party has long pushed for. But he won’t. Harper’s long stated goal has been to decimate the Liberals and replace them as the natural governing party of Canada – an objective towards which he is closer than ever.

Maintaining progress on this marker will necessitate a continuation of the moderation of his party. Harper is not about to reopen the abortion or gay marriage debates, understanding that doing so would simply anger the majority of the Canadian populace. It is unlikely that he would close the CBC either (confirmed by James Moore following this post’s writing). Pursuing such radical policies would be the best way to energize the left, loose his soft supporters, and be booted out of 24 Sussex in 2015.

With that in mind, Harper’s acceptance speech last night reaffirms his strategy. In perhaps his most statesman speech to date, Harper not only personally congratulated all the other party leaders for their campaigns, but reached out to all Canadians, committing to govern even for those who did not elect him. While the speech did little to rouse his crowd of Calgarian Conservatives, it went a long way towards crafting the persona of a new Stephen Harper and a moderate, populist agenda for the next four years.

With support in all provinces across the country, Harper has systematically, with the help of the split on the left, stolen all the bastions of the former Liberal fortress. The stability of the new Conservative base should not be underestimated – this is not the tense coalition of the West and Quebec nationalists of the Mulroney days. The Conservatives not only have the West; they’ve gained a strong foot hold in Atlantic Canada, in parts of Quebec, in much of Ontario, and even broken through in metropolitan Canada – all components of Chretien’s former Liberal base.

For Harper, the strategy will be to secure and cement his new base. Not only will he need to govern moderately, he will need to reach out to the Atlantic, to Quebec, to Ontario, and to the Canada’s metropolitan trifecta. With their strong fundraising abilities, and solid ground campaign, I have little doubt that the Conservatives will play their hand successfully.

Jack Layton’s New Democrats

Jack Layton became the leader of the NDP in 2003 and has been employing a slow but steady strategy to rebuild and expand NDP support across the country. To that end, Layton has much to celebrate with this historic achievement, proving that hard work over time will reap rewards.

In that regard, Layton has spent much of the past decade pursuing a strategy similar to the Conservatives. He has slowly been moving his party towards the populist centre, targeting key demographics, and wooing long neglected regions.

As was often pointed out near the end of the election, despite concerns about socialist policies from bankers and economists, most of the NDP’s economic plan was concurrent to that of the Liberals and the Tories – there were no big tax increases for the rich, no grand plans for the re-distribution of wealth. The NDP focused on policies that captured the attention of a majority of average Canadians: securing more doctors and nurses, strengthening pensions, reduce carbon emissions, pursuing a peace-first foreign policy. Their shift to the centre is clearer than ever before.

Layton’s new base is vast, both demographically and geographically. Seniors, students, working families, new Canadians – this is a strong group of support pulling from nearly the entire spectrum of the Canadian population. With NDP breakthroughs in Quebec in 2007 and Alberta in 2008, Layton has been working hard to secure and expand that support. The beachhead that is Thomas Mulcair helped usher in the Orange Crush that swept through Quebec and spread to Atlantic Canada and Ontario. With seats in nearly every province, the NDP now too can call themselves a truly national force.

I suspect concerns about the widely inexperienced MPs from Quebec will prove to be the least of Layton’s worries as he has a much more challenging task ahead of him. The NDP are now in a tremendous position of influence – perhaps not in terms of specific achievements in legislation, but rather in a symbolic seat with the potential to be viewed as a government-in-waiting. Layton has performed consistently as one of the most effective checks against Harper’s minority governments – I have no doubt he’ll be up for the job of Leader of the Opposition. What I am concerned about is whether Layton and the NDP will be able to make the jump from simply an opposition to a government-in-waiting.

It will require a new form of leadership from Layton. The NDP have always focused on their leader’s likeability, a strategy that has left him with an unidentifiable team. In their new role as critics of major portfolios, expect relatively unknown NPD MPs to emerge and present themselves to the Canadian public. Moving from a leader-strong to a strong-team strategy will be essential to create that government-in-waiting aura and prove that the NDP is more than just Jack Layton.

With four years until the next election, the NDP will have plenty of time to focus on their ground game to secure the gains made in this election and improve their organizational strength in ridings across the country. With public political funding on the verge of its death, building a strong fundraising machine composed of grassroots supporters will be essential to compete at a sufficient level with the Conservatives in 2015.

If they bring together a strong team for the air war, as well as a strong team for the ground war, the winds of change should remain solidly behind their sails. Outside of their own performance on the Hill, there are only two variables that could throw them off course: losing the support of notoriously fickle Quebecers or a resurgence in the Liberal Party.

However, if they are able to survive the next four years maintaining the goodwill of Quebec while facing a weak or perhaps even non-existant Liberal Party, the NDP will likely become the tent of progressives in Canada, allowing them to minimize vote splits on the left, pick up many of the 34 Liberal seats, and strongly contest a number of Conservative ridings as well. If it all plays out according to plan, and the NDP expands their growing support in BC, the Prairies, and especially Ontario, the numbers may just fall in their favour in 2015. ‘Prime Minister Jack Layton’ is no longer quite the joke it used to be.

The leaderless Liberals

Following what was then called a crushing defeat in the 2008 election, bringing the Liberals down from 103 seats to 77, the knives were drawn for then-leader Stephane Dion. Party insiders blamed his weak communication skills, his Green Shift carbon tax plan, and his non-agression pact with Elizabeth May for the depressing results. Quickly given the boot, the Liberals were once again thrown into a leadership race, one that proved short-lived as contestants dropped out to make way for Michael Ignatieff who was quickly installed as leader.

Three years later and Ignatieff, the man who was to be the Liberal messiah, has produced an even worse result than Dion, maintaing less than half his party’s seats with a total of 34. He lost his own riding, as did a number of high profile Liberal MPs, including Gerard Kennedy, Joe Volpe, Ken Dryden, Martha Hall-Findlay, Ujjal Dosanjh, and Mark Holland. Any big names that remain are sparse: Bob Rae, Scott Brison, Justin Trudeau, Ralph Goodale, David McGuinty, and yes, Stephane Dion.

It is quite obvious that this result has been a long time coming. The Liberals have been on the decline since the end of the Chretien era and the loss of Quebec. Others trace it back to when Trudeau left office. In any event, the Liberals have been decaying for years, perhaps even decades, due to some serious fundamental issues at the core of the party. It’s not only Conservatives and New Democrats that have lamented long held Liberal arrogance, reflected by their evangelical belief in being the ‘natural governing party’, as if it was a title befitting only them. This arrogance has been even more apparent in the leadership races since Chretien left office. The Liberals have consistently acted as though the right leader, the right face, would bring Canadians back into the big red tent. The reality, as they’ve now discovered, is so far removed from their bubble-like narrow perception.

The Liberals have been so obsessed with finding a quick fix leader to solve all their problems that they’ve neglected any serious efforts at building their party’s organizational abilities or constituencies. Without Quebec and the West, the Liberal base fundamentally relied on Ontario for most of its seats. With this election, the Liberal fortress has been broken by both the Conservatives and the NDP, leaving them with nothing but a scattering of MPs, 34 blips on a much larger electoral map of Canada.

Michael Ignatieff ran a decent campaign, there’s no doubt about that. He was actively praised by the media for a strong first week, along with a platform that seemingly reaffirmed long held Liberal values and policies. However, it was his less than stellar performance in the debates, along with a message on democracy that most Canadians had no apparent connection to, that allowed the NDP to fill the gap. While Ignatieff misstepped, Layton came out as the big winner in both the English and French debates, setting in action a series of events that led to the so-called ‘Orange Crush’.

On election night, Ignatieff took responsibility for his party’s defeat and committed to remaining on as leader so long as his “democratic” party would have him. Twelve hours later he stepped down. That the party did so should be of no surprise, considering its history of internal struggles for the past decade.

The question on everyone’s mind is where do the Liberals go from here?

It is clear that despite their electoral ruins in this Parliament, the Liberal brand is strong and remains close to many Canadians’ sentiments, for better or for worse. The Liberals carry will them a solid connection to many of Canada’s federal institutions, having shaped the country for most of its history. That strength carries on and is undoubtedly its strongest asset in any rebuilding of the party. But should the Liberals re-group or should they cut their losses and pursue a merger with the NDP?

Openly advocated for by former NDP leader Ed Broadbent, former NDP Premier Roy Romanow, and former Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chretien, a Liberal-NDP merger is based on the fundamental reality that 60% of Canadians do not support the Harper Conservatives. In essence, so long as the NDP and Liberals split the majority of that centre-left vote, they are allowing the Conservatives to come up the middle and win far more seats than the popular vote warrants. The centre-right vote faced the same dilemma in the 90′s, with the Reform party and Progressive Conservatives vote splitting securing Chretien’s strong majorities.

Saying the two parties should simply merge is of course simplistic. It assumes that Liberal and NDP votes are interchangeable, which they aren’t entirely. It also neglects the histories of each party, the unique cultures of each party, and the people who have invested much partisan time and energy into their own party. If a merger were pursued, it wouldn’t be an easy road.

That said, the votes do seem to line up, but only in an optimistic scenario. The Vancouver Sun crunched the numbers, showing that if all the Liberal and NDP votes went to a ‘Liberal Democrat’ party, it would easily beat the Conservatives and secure a strong majority. But, if just 25% of the Liberals moved over to the Conservatives, the Tories would retain their majority.

As an EKOS poll notes, while 53% of Liberals would choose the NDP as their second choice, 13% would choose Conservative, and another 17% said they had no second choice. In other words, the Liberals are still very much a centrist party, leaving a strong handful of supporters without any venue for their vote, while a merger would push their centre-right supporters towards the Tories.

For the time being, the Liberals have four solid years to re-group and figure out their next steps. Although Justin Trudeau remains a popular contender to fill the leadership shoes, it remains obvious that he is not yet prepared for the role. An interim leader seems to be the most appropriate solution, perhaps in place for two years and responsible to engage in a dialogue with card carrying Liberals, and indeed all Canadians, on the party and its future role in the country. The real question is whether or not there is still a role for a centrist party in Canada.

If the answer is yes, then the Liberals must be in it for the long haul. Rebuilding the party from its current state will not take a year or two. It could well take at least a decade of solid work redefining its policies, re-engaging its members, and building a new base across the country. Assuming the new right-left dynamic takes hold in Ottawa, the Liberals will be spending several elections on this process.

The one factor that could help them out is an NDP implosion. If the New Democrats are not able to perform successfully in Opposition, they could find themselves booted back to fringe status in no time flat, leaving the Liberals to fill the void. The next couple months will be a trying time as Liberals attempt to judge Layton and his team’s long term performance potential in Opposition benches.

For those who remain committed to the Liberal brand, expected them to push for one final election before pursuing any form of merger. For those who want to take down Harper, rather than face consistent defeat themselves, expect the push for a merger to begin soon. For the latter group though, they may not see a receptive NDP for a year or two, until it becomes more clear as to whether or not the New Democrats will be able to stand on their own two feet in 2015 successfully. As much as this is now in the hands of a few committed Liberals, the ball is also very much in Jack Layton’s court.

Elizabeth May and the Greens

As the first Green elected to major public office in North America, Elizabeth May, by all means, made history on May 2nd. Not only did she decisively defeat a Conservative cabinet minister, she also helped attract a voter turnout of 75%, the highest in the country.

Early musings are questioning her ability to speak out as she remains simply one member in a House controlled by Harper. For May though, her success was necessary for the Greens to have a future. Having run unsuccessfully in London, Ontario and Nova Scotia, this third attempt would’ve been her last as leader had she failed, and would likely have meant the death of the Green party as all momentum would be lost. Fortunately for her, that scenario did not come to pass.

Her achievement did have a tradeoff though. May sacrificed a national campaign to win her seat, dedicating most of the party’s finances and resources in her riding. The result was a severe decline in national support for the Greens, although that is likely to have less of a financial effect now that Harper has committed to repeal the per-vote public subsidy that gave the party over a million dollars in 2008.

Now that they’ve secured their historic seat, the focus will be on building May’s profile as a Parliamentarian and a neglected party leader. With her party’s brand, and her seat’s strategic location off the coast of British Columbia, May will likely find herself as a national defender of Canada’s environment if she opts to pursue the role. Look for early demands to prevent oil tankers on the Pacific Coast and a moratorium on fish farms. To do the role effectively though, she cannot remain locked up in the halls of Parliament and will have to perform like the most popular of newscasters, reporting at the scene of the action and engaging people on the ground.

May will also have to balance profile building with party building. Without the per-voter subsidy, it will be crucial for the Greens to develop a stable fundraising base from which they can rely on. Future success will also require them to focus on a handful of ridings that they have a serious chance at winning, and following May’s model, targeting them strategically with strong candidates over the course of several years. At the risk of losing the Greens broadest support – young people – to the NDP, May should also focus strongly on building the Young Greens brand with much more vigour.

Nothing less than excellent performance on all these markers will be required if the Greens hope to remain relevant to the public discourse. Today though is a moment of rejoice for a long fought breakthrough for the youngest party on Parliament Hill.