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Joseph Ben-Ami

Joseph Ben-Ami

  posted on Monday, August 16, 2010
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Balancing workers’ rights and union privileges

Balancing workers’ rights and union privileges
Saturday, 14 August 2010

Canadian law with regard to unions and workers’ rights is sharply different from that of other western nations. Forcing workers to join a union as a condition of their employment is prohibited by law in most, and those individuals who exercise their right not to join a union are either exempted from paying union dues altogether, or they are entitled to a reduction in their dues in recognition of the fact that unions often spend money on activities from which they derive no benefit, or causes with which they disagree.

In contrast to this, Canada allows collective bargaining agreements to stipulate that workers must join a union as a condition of employment, and where there is a union, but workers are not forced to join as a condition of employment, they still must pay full union dues regardless of whether or not they become a member.

The power of unions in Canada to either compel workers to join against their wishes, or to collect dues from those they do not force – and cannot convince – to join, is more than just extraordinary. It is unique among non-government institutions.

It is also a recipe for abuse.

In June the Canadian Centre for Policy Studies released a discussion paper (click here) suggesting changes to Canada’s labour code that would protect the rights of workers under federal jurisdiction and significantly reduce this potential for abuse. These changes would allow unions to spend dues only on activities related to collective bargaining, or on programs that directly benefit workers and their families. They would also require unions to disclose their spending to the public annually. The paper called for similar changes to provincial laws.

The response from union big-wigs to these modest proposals was both swift and predictable. Ken Lewenza, president of the Canadian Auto Workers union, dismissed them outright, calling them “absurd” and a diversion from the real issues facing the Canadian economy, and telling reporters that “Unions are the most democratic institutions in the world.” Lewenza also told reporters that documents detailing union spending are already public, claiming that “anyone who wants it (sic) can see it” and that, in any event donations by unions to political parties are already banned in Canada.

Considering that they can make people join against their will, or collect dues from people who are not even members, the claim that unions are “the most democratic institutions in the world,” would seem a little exaggerated.

As is the claim that details of union spending are available to “anyone who wants it.” In fact, Section 110 of the Canada Labour Code only requires the disclosure of a limited amount of a unions’ financial information, and then only to union members who request it. The public – including workers who are not members of the union but still must pay full union dues – is not entitled to even this partial disclosure.

As for a ban on contributions to political parties, that only applies to federal political parties, not provincial (read NDP) parties. What’s more, the ban also does not apply to contributions to third-party advocacy groups that advance causes unrelated to the workplace that individual workers may not support. Even if unions are “the most democratic institutions in the world,” as Lewenza says – a dubious claim at best – the right not to be forced to contribute financially to causes and political parties that one does not support is an individual right that cannot be negated by a majority vote, especially if one is not even a member of the union and, therefore, cannot vote.

There is no denying that unions have, at times, played an important role in providing benefits to workers and protecting workers’ rights. Unfortunately, many of our laws and practices, originally intended to recognize that role and protect it, have eroded workers’ rights and opened the door to abuse, ironically at the hands of unions themselves.

Other countries recognize this and have modified their laws in an effort to restore a balance of power between union management and workers. It is time for Canada to do the same.


This column was co-written with Garnett Genuis and was first published in the Ottawa Citizen.

Nice line, eh

———

©2006-2007 Joesph Ben-Ami. 
Joseph C. Ben-Ami is President of the Canadian Centre for Policy Studies. He is the former Director of Government Relations and Diplomatic Affairs for the Jewish human rights organization, B’nai Brith Canada and is on the advisory board of Jews against anti-Christian Defamation.


Posted on 08/16/10 at 08:53 AM
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Joseph Ben-Ami

Joseph Ben-Ami

  posted on Thursday, June 10, 2010
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Enough already! My response to Marci McDonald

It has been several weeks since the book The Armageddon Factor was released, igniting a storm of controversy that author Marci McDonald says she neither intended, nor anticipated. Perhaps so, but one gets the feeling that she’s not entirely unhappy with the attention. What really bothers her, she says, is the invective that has been directed her way since the book’s publication. And now she’s fighting back…and she’s using me to do so.

In a column published by the Ottawa Citizen June 9, McDonald tells how I greeted her with a “massive bear hug” prior to appearing on a CTV panel together. The implication is clear: Marci McDonald remains a good friend of one of the two (according to the Toronto Star) official “spinmeisters” of Canada’s conservative movement, and a Jew at that – Joseph Ben-Ami.

Except - the above episode never happened. When McDonald and I greeted one another before our joint appearance on CTV’s Power Play, all we did was touch cheeks gently, as standard a greeting between a man and a woman as shaking hands is between two men. That she would portray such a common and innocuous gesture as a “massive bear hug” illustrates a disturbing willingness to adjust facts to fit her personal narrative. This would be fine if she were Dan Brown (author of The Da Vinci Code) but she’s not. She’s supposed to be a serious journalist and her book, a serious work of journalism.

It’s not the first time McDonald has misrepresented our relationship when promoting her book. In an interview with Harris MaCleod of The Hill Times she stated that she and I “talked endlessly” until a couple of weeks before her book’s publication, when I suddenly cut off communication. In fact - other than exchanging pleasantries when running into one another at various events - I probably spoke with McDonald four or five times in the six years that I’ve known her. What’s more, all but one of these conversations were interviews that she requested, and the one that wasn’t took place sometime last winter when she called to say her book would soon be published, and that I could expect a call from her publisher to verify facts.

I never heard from her or her publisher again.

There’s more. In the course of our debate on CTV, McDonald accused the government of Stephen Harper of eliminating taxpayer funding of left-wing advocacy groups while giving money to conservative groups.

Now, as it happens, this is something that I and my colleagues at the Canadian Centre for Policy Studies monitor pretty closely, so I know who is getting money and who isn’t, and no conservative advocacy group is. When I challenged her to name one that was, McDonald dodged the question by changing the subject. And when I refused to let her of the hook, our moderator ended the debate, saying that we were “out of time”.

And then there was a recent column by Daphne Bramham of the Vancouver Sun that claims that I converted to Orthodox Judaism (whatever that means) and changed my name after divorcing my first wife. It’s beyond me why anyone would think that reporting details of my private life would be in the public interest, but to the degree that it is, the “facts” reported by Bramham are wrong from start to finish.

Bramham’s source? Marci McDonald.

In her Ottawa Citizen column, McDonald reminds us - with unbecoming triumph - that her critics were “only” able to find four factual errors in her entire book. Moreover, according to her, some of those critics didn’t even read the book.

Her first observation misses the point completely. The critics she identifies only chose to highlight the four errors in question because each were so egregious – and the truth so easily verifiable – that they fatally undermine the credibility of her whole work, which is intended to be interpretive (meaning she explains the implication of the “facts” she reports), rather than just documentary.

As for reading the book, I have to confess that I haven’t read it either, but even if I had, how could I possibly trust that the thousands of small “facts” she reports, most of which I could never hope to verify myself, are indeed true? Given the bizarre nature of her behaviour and statements after the book was published as they relate to me, I have to say that I can’t.

Besides, I’m still waiting to receive the copy she promised she would send me. No surprise there…but I digress.

The bottom line is this: Just because I prefer to be polite in my discourse, and civilized in my behaviour with Marci McDonald doesn’t mean that we’re good buddies. When it comes down to it, I’m squarely on the side of the critics.

Nice line, eh

———

©2006-2007 Joesph Ben-Ami. 
Joseph C. Ben-Ami is President of the Canadian Centre for Policy Studies. He is the former Director of Government Relations and Diplomatic Affairs for the Jewish human rights organization, B’nai Brith Canada and is on the advisory board of Jews against anti-Christian Defamation.


Posted on 06/10/10 at 03:46 PM
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Joseph Ben-Ami

Joseph Ben-Ami

  posted on Sunday, April 04, 2010
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Who’s really to blame for the Ann Coulter affair at University of Ottawa?

Now that the storm surrounding Ann Coulter’s visit to University of Ottawa has subsided, it’s worth while asking who is really to blame for the behaviour of those students who sought to prevent her from speaking. Most observers point an accusing finger at university VP Francois Houle, claiming that his letter to Ms. Coulter suggesting that she risked prosecution for promoting hatred was a green light for protesters. I think that’s too easy an explanation.

Not that I am defending M. Houle’s letter or his decision to send it. It’s just that I think that focusing attention too narrowly on it and events at University of Ottawa misses the point.

In the first place, Mr. Houle’s letter could not be fairly characterized as inflammatory in any sense of the term. On the contrary, its tone was polite, albeit dripping with condescension. This latter fact might rightly have infuriated its addressee (and her supporters), but incite the crowd? I think not. As for the assertion that the letter constituted a “veiled threat”, after reading it several times I can only say that if it did indeed contain a threat, it was so difficult to discern that it might as well have been hiding behind a burka, let alone a veil.

The real problem with M. Houle’s now infamous letter lies not in its supposed malevolent nature, but rather in its unfortunate, but nevertheless unimpeachable, accuracy. Everything that Mr. Houle wrote with regard to laws proscribing free speech in Canada was true; every cautionary note he struck, justified to the nth degree. He may have overstepped the boundaries of good taste in communicating this to Ms. Coulter, but his note could just as easily have been sent to a good friend intent on delivering a lecture on a controversial topic, rather than an ideological opponent.

The same thing can be said for the students protesting Ms. Coulter’s lecture that night. Unlike most pundits who have pronounced judgment against these activists, I was there, and not just in the safe confines of the lecture hall either. Having arrived at the campus somewhat later than planned, my wife and I had to push our way past the demonstrators to gain access to the event, giving us the opportunity to get up close and personal with some. What was striking about these students was not the violence of their actions or words, but rather how ostensibly mainstream their message was: “No More Hate Speech!”

Who can argue with that?

Certainly the protesters overstepped their own boundaries by moving beyond protest to actually preventing Ms. Coulter from speaking, but in doing so, were they not acting in the best tradition (I use the word loosely) of the new Canada, where feelings rule supreme and critical thinking is something we reserve for the other guy’s ideas, rather than our own?

The uncomfortable truth of this sorry affair is that there is blame to be laid, but it rests neither with student leaders, nor M. Houle, nor even with the feckless Alan Rock, President of University of Ottawa, whose reaction to the criticism of the institution he runs can be summarized in a single word – pathetic. It rests with laws that effectively criminalize dissenting opinions and the kangaroo courts known as human rights tribunals that prosecute the offenders.

But it doesn’t end there. It extends to our elected officials who recognize, not just the fundamental injustice of these laws and the extortionist industry they have spawned, but more importantly, the erosion of basic liberal democratic principles that they represent. Many politicians speak out in defence free speech and liberty, but thus far none have had the courage to initiate a legislative campaign to protect them. It’s the politicians – not Mr. Houle and his trifling opinions, or the students who stopped Ann Coulter from speaking – who are emerging as the real, if unwitting, villains in this saga, because they have the power to do something about it, but they refuse. Worse, we citizens are complicit for not demanding that they do.

It has been said that the law is a great teacher. If that’s so, then both Mr. Houle and the students at University of Ottawa have learned their lessons well.

Don’t like what they’ve been taught? The solution is simple – change the law.

Nice line, eh

———

©2006-2007 Joesph Ben-Ami. 
Joseph C. Ben-Ami is President of the Canadian Centre for Policy Studies. He is the former Director of Government Relations and Diplomatic Affairs for the Jewish human rights organization, B’nai Brith Canada and is on the advisory board of Jews against anti-Christian Defamation.


Posted on 04/04/10 at 10:49 AM
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Joseph Ben-Ami

Joseph Ben-Ami

  posted on Thursday, January 07, 2010
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Rethinking Senate Reform

The government’s decision to prorogue Parliament until early March in response to the Senate’s obstruction of its legislative agenda has once again thrust the subject of parliamentary reform back into the public consciousness. An elected Senate remains the most popular of possible reforms, but with the Conservative Party set to assume control of the upper chamber, perhaps the time is ripe to hit the pause button and ask: Is this the right direction to go?

Before proceeding, let me point out that I am no fan of our Senate as it is presently constituted. Originally intended to be a forum for “sober second thought”, today it is little more than a taxpayer-funded sanctuary for patronage appointees who, because they do not have to answer to voters, are able to turn their privileged status to partisan advantage with impunity.

The question is: will an elected Senate eliminate, or even mitigate, this abuse? I’m not so sure.

The good news is that, constitutionally speaking, an elected Senate is actually an easy thing to achieve. As it stands now, Senators are appointed by the Crown on the advice of the Prime Minister. There is nothing in the Constitution that prohibits the PM from advising the appointment of only those who are elected from within the province they are to represent, nor is there anything to prevent provinces from holding such elections. If a few provinces were to follow Alberta’s lead and hold Senate elections, and if the Prime Minister were to recommend to the Crown the appointment of only those who were elected, not only would the rest of the provinces quickly fall into line, it would become virtually impossible for future governments to recommend the appointment of anyone not elected. Ensuring that senators must stand for re-election is a bigger challenge since, according to the Constitution, their appointment lasts until they reach the age of 75, but even here there are things that can be done without an amendment. To the purist, this may seem an odd way to change a constitution. In reality though, many of our most cherished parliamentary practices and prerogatives came into being in precisely the same manner.

Unfortunately, when it comes to Senate reform, there’s bad news too.

To begin with, the goal of reform, originally, was to provide a legitimate means whereby provinces could check the virtually unrestricted powers of a federal government controlled by a single political party with a majority of seats in the House of Commons. To do this, however, the distribution of seats in the Senate would need to be changed from the current model which provides equal representation of regions to one that provides equal representation among provinces. This would require a full-fledged constitutional amendment eliminating Ontario and Quebec’s superiority in seat allocation, an unlikely prospect and one for which no credible plan has ever been presented.

What’s more, even if the above obstacle were to be overcome, there is absolutely no justification for the belief that a party with a majority of seats in the House of Commons would not enjoy a similar majority in an elected Senate. It’s possible that different parties would control different chambers under such a system, but this will almost certainly prove to be the exception rather than the rule. Far from restraining the power of the federal government – and let’s not beat around the bush, we’re really talking about restraining the power of the Prime Minister here – in the absence of any other reform, an elected Senate would only end up enhancing that power.

It’s worth remembering that the institution of Parliament came into being many hundreds of years ago, not as an instrument of governance, but as a check on the executive power of the Crown. In principle, the migration of that executive power from the Crown to the people’s democratically elected representatives was a welcome development. Insofar as the representative body that assumed executive authority was the very institution responsible for its restraint, however, the development was, in practice, profoundly regressive.

Defenders of the Westminster System, as the above arrangement is known, will argue, not without reason, that the responsibility to hold the government accountable rests with MPs collectively, including so-called “backbench” MPs who are members of the governing party, but who are not, strictly speaking, part of the government because they are not part of the Cabinet.

But therein lies the problem. Because the Prime Minister and almost his entire Cabinet are also members of the House of Commons, backbench MPs who belong to the governing party, i.e. the party holding the largest number of seats – often a majority – in the House, are forced to play two incompatible roles: on the one hand supporting the government of which they are a part; on the other hand, holding the same government accountable as representatives of their constituents. Once again, not only will electing senators not rectify this central issue, it will exacerbate it.

So what’s to be done?

In the first place, let’s stop talking about senate reform and start talking about comprehensive parliamentary reform. By all means, let’s elect our senators and, if a way can be found, let’s amend the Constitution to give provinces, rather than regions, an equal number of seats in that chamber.

More importantly though, let’s restore Parliament’s historic role as the people’s watchdog over the government by severing the office of Prime Minister and its executive functions from it altogether and creating a new, separate, and popularly elected office to fill that role. Under such a system, Cabinet would still be made up of ministers appointed by the Crown on the advice of the Prime Minister, but they would no longer be selected from among those elected to either the House of Commons or the Senate. Elections would be held at fixed intervals, providing MPs and Senators with greater latitude in representing what they believe to be the best interests of their constituents and the country, especially those who are members of the governing party.

A truly independent Parliament would establish independent committees comprised of members at least as interested in the subject they are deliberating as they are in promoting or opposing the executive’s – or the party’s – objectives. A comprehensive program of reform would also include operational changes to the rules of Parliament to ensure that individual MPs and Senators have the independence necessary to effectively discharge their duties, and the resources at their disposal to do so too.

If all this sounds too radical, remember it is no more so than the reforms that have, from time to time, taken place throughout the history of Parliament. Furthermore, with the exception of re-allocating Senate seats, each of these reforms could be adopted without a formal constitutional amendment. And as I mentioned earlier, many of our present-day political institutions and practices came into being in the same manner.

These thoughts are not meant to be either authoritative, or the final word on the subject. They are meant to help revive the public debate about parliamentary reform in this country, and to caution against mindlessly climbing up onto the band-wagon of senate reform as the miracle cure for all of our constitutional ills – real or imagined.

Nice line, eh

———

©2006-2007 Joesph Ben-Ami. 
Joseph C. Ben-Ami is President of the Canadian Centre for Policy Studies. He is the former Director of Government Relations and Diplomatic Affairs for the Jewish human rights organization, B’nai Brith Canada and is on the advisory board of Jews against anti-Christian Defamation.


Posted on 01/07/10 at 11:04 AM
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Joseph Ben-Ami

Joseph Ben-Ami

  posted on Monday, September 14, 2009
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What the…? Tories resurrect Court Challenges Program

For more than a year now, prominent conservatives have been warning – some publicly – about the drift of the Harper Tories away from conservative principles. Party apologists, chief among them the Prime Minister himself, have responded to the criticism by citing the need for “pragmatism”, given the government’s minority status. Their argument has merit, but how does it explain the decision to reinstate the Court Challenges Program successfully terminated in 2006? The answer is – it doesn’t.

Supporters of the Language Rights Support Program, as the new initiative will be known, say that it will be nothing like its predecessor, promising that it will be restricted to cases involving minority language rights only. Funds will not be made available to other minority groups, they say.

When I read this, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Clearly these guys don’t know how the game is played.

First, a bit of history.

The original Court Challenges Program was established in 1978 to provide funding for minority language cases based on sections 93 and 133 of the Constitution Act of 1867, and later, cases based on the language rights provisions of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Like the new Language Rights Support Program, the original Court Challenges Program was never intended to provide support for cases involving the rights of other minority groups either. So why was its mandate expanded to include these cases? Simply put, it just made sense. There was never a logical reason for the government to fund the constitutional challenges of one minority group, but not others, and once the Charter was adopted in 1982, the practice of favouring one group over another quite likely became legally untenable too.

That argument is no less valid in 2009 than it was then. Of course, a future Conservative government could resist the inevitable pressure to broaden the mandate of the new Language Rights Support Program, but that would only provoke the sort of messy political confrontation that the Tories have been trying to avoid in an effort to prove their pragmatist credentials. Given the relatively small amount of money involved, I suspect that they’ll prefer to turn a blind eye to the problem rather than risk precipitating such a confrontation. History will simply repeat itself.

Even if the government succeeds in preventing an expansion of the new program’s mandate, that doesn’t mean that left-wing activists won’t be able to use it to advance their social agenda. How long before someone makes the case that Francophones in a particular Ontario community are discriminated against because there is no abortion clinic dedicated to serving them in their own language? This isn’t so far-fetched – the Ontario government was forced to keep an entire French language hospital open in Ottawa not long ago despite the fact that there was a fully bilingual hospital just a few miles away.

What about taxpayer-funded community programming for gay Francophone teenagers where “numbers warrant”? Or more women’s shelters? The possibilities are endless. Eventually, someone will bring a case like this to the independent committee overseeing the program, and the committee will agree to take the case on forcing the government to either intervene, or relent.

Again, given the small amount of money involved and the pitfalls of a confrontation, I predict that the government will prefer that latter course of action.

What really bothers me about the Language Rights Support Program is not that it is so susceptible to abuse though; it’s that it completely undoes one of the few big conservative policy successes this government has had since coming to office in 2006 – the cancellation of the Court Challenges Program. In one fell swoop, the Tories have rendered meaningless the considerable effort expended at that time by their friends in support of that policy decision.

Why? Can it be that someone has made a calculation that this will help win an election, maybe even a majority? It’s hard to believe.

As the country braces for yet another election – our fourth in five years – I’m asking myself, as a principled conservative, if the Harper Tories are still worth supporting. Until this past week, the two answers that kept coming back to me in response were: a) the liberals would be much worse, and b) the Tories would be much better if they had a majority. The sudden and, in my view, gratuitous creation of the Language Rights Support Program has badly shaken my confidence in either of these answers.

To the untrained eye, all this may seem like a small thing, but it’s the small things that point to bigger, more serious problems.

The question is – are there any trained eyes left in the federal Conservative Party with any influence who even care?

Nice line, eh

———

©2006-2007 Joesph Ben-Ami. 
Joseph C. Ben-Ami is President of the Canadian Centre for Policy Studies. He is the former Director of Government Relations and Diplomatic Affairs for the Jewish human rights organization, B’nai Brith Canada and is on the advisory board of Jews against anti-Christian Defamation.


Posted on 09/14/09 at 07:10 AM
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Joseph Ben-Ami

Joseph Ben-Ami

  posted on Friday, July 31, 2009
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U.S. Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats barking up the wrong tree on health care

Critics of U.S. President Barack Obama’s desired health care reforms – including so-called “Blue Dog Democrats” – claim that his plan is just too expensive to implement, and according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, they may be right. Still, the Blue Dogs, like their Republican colleagues, are barking up the wrong tree. The principle flaw with the Administration’s plan isn’t its cost, but its emphasis on a government insurance program as a means of keeping those costs down.

It’s widely believed that principle reason why millions of Americans currently do not have insurance is because they can’t afford its high cost. A government-run insurance plan, it’s argued, would not only provide these people with an affordable insurance option, it would also result in reduced premiums for everyone since private insurers would have to lower their rates or risk losing customers to the cheaper government plan.

On the surface, the strategy seems sound enough – private insurers would indeed trim waste, and then profit, in an effort to lower their premiums and retain their customers. Eventually, however, there would be no more waste or profit left to cut. What do private insurers do then? How would they compete with a government program that relies on taxpayer subsidies rather than efficiency to keep its own rates low?

What’s more, many American businesses and individuals would switch their current private insurance to government insurance because the latter would be less expensive. This would exert upward pressure on private insurers’ premiums as they struggle to maintain a pool of funds large enough to pay claims from.

Under such conditions it would be virtually impossible for private insurers to stay in business. Some would adjust to the new market by changing the products they sell, but most would abandon the market altogether, leaving the government with a de facto monopoly on health care insurance.

By paying claims, at least in part, out of general revenues or through taxpayer-backed borrowing, a government insurance plan would shield health care consumers from the cost of their consumption – that’s the whole idea behind it. But it’s precisely this link between health care consumers and the cost of their consumption that regulates the growth in demand for health care services. By eliminating that restraining force, government-run insurance would precipitate an explosion in demand and related costs at the very moment taxpayers are assuming liability to pay those costs.

Supporters of government insurance believe they have the answer to this dilemma. They propose the creation of a special regulatory council made up of health care experts to monitor the system and impose some sort of discipline. As of yet, the exact powers this council would have, have not been defined, but it doesn’t take an advanced degree in public administration to know that the only way it would be able to achieve its goal would be to establish strict limits on what services a government insurance plan would pay for, and how much it would pay for them.

There’s a word for this – Rationing.

Of course, consumers would still be able to opt out of the government plan, or they would be able to obtain private supplemental insurance to cover those things the government plan would not, but few would since there wouldn’t be many private insurers left selling such coverage, and the premiums would be exorbitant. The de facto government monopoly in health insurance would quickly become a de facto nationalization of the health care industry as a whole, even if the government doesn’t actually own the hospitals or directly employ the doctors and nurses.

That is essentially the system in place in Canada today, where most doctors and nurses in aren’t government employees – they’re private contractors who bill the government for the services they provide to patients.

In Ontario, like other provinces, fees are set by the government – in consultation with doctors – in order to keep overall costs to the system down. The total amount that individual doctors can bill the government plan each year is also capped to keep them from “cheating” the system by setting up a volume practice; that is, encouraging, and then charging for, “unnecessary” appointments by patients. It seems not to have occurred to the “experts” that the number of “unnecessary” appointments may have more to do with patients not having to pay for their visits than it does with doctors’ greed. In any event, an unintended (and bizarre) by-product of this cap is that new patients are regularly turned away by doctors who have “too many” already.

To make matters worse, because doctors’ and nurses’ education in Canada is heavily subsidized by taxpayers, government gets to decide – in consultation with experts – how many will be trained each year. The number of students that medical schools can accept each year depends on the amount of money available in the budget for training, not the actual demand.

Is it any wonder that there’s a shortage of doctors and nurses in Canada?

Most Canadian cities have fewer MRI machines than many individual American hospitals, and according to a report released last year by the Cancer Advocacy Coalition of Canada, Ontario – the country’s wealthiest and most populous province – boasted a grand total of just nine PET scanners for the whole province, and some of these were sitting idle because hospitals couldn’t hire the technicians to run them without exceeding the limits placed on their spending. This is the real legacy of government-run health insurance in Canada, and it’s what awaits Americans too if they travel down the same path.

Are there good things about the Canadian system? Of course there are. For starters, everyone is insured with no limit on coverage, an important factor that should not be ignored. But there’s a trade-off: chronic shortages of personnel and equipment mean that timely treatment for anything other than a sudden and catastrophic illness or injury is generally unavailable in Canada. The result is that Canadians with serious chronic illnesses either languish on waiting lists for treatment, or they obtain treatment in… you guessed it – America, and pay for the treatment themselves.

None of this is to say that there aren’t significant problems with health care in the U.S. that ought to be addressed, particularly when it comes to insurance issues. The notion that a government-run insurance plan can be relied upon to resolve any of these issues is dangerously misguided though. At best, government insurance would sink American health care into a pool of mediocrity; at worse, it would deny or delay life-saving treatment to those who need it.

This isn’t fear-mongering – it’s a daily reality for many of us in Canada that Americans must be made aware of before it’s too late.

Nice line, eh

———

©2006-2007 Joesph Ben-Ami. 
Joseph C. Ben-Ami is President of the Canadian Centre for Policy Studies. He is the former Director of Government Relations and Diplomatic Affairs for the Jewish human rights organization, B’nai Brith Canada and is on the advisory board of Jews against anti-Christian Defamation.


Posted on 07/31/09 at 10:03 AM
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Joseph Ben-Ami

Joseph Ben-Ami

  posted on Friday, July 17, 2009
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A ‘shocking’ subsidy plan from the McGuinty Government

We’ve all heard the stories about people who live in subsidized housing somehow or other being able to afford the big screen TVs or the latest model cars and SUVs. The practice is infrequent enough to justify calling it rare, but it does happen, and when it does, taxpayers are rightfully indignant that their generosity should be so blatantly abused. What does it say when the abuser isn’t an individual though, but a whole government?

This week, Ontario’s Liberal government announced plans to offer a rebate of up to $10,000.00 to everyone who replaces their gasoline fueled vehicle with one that runs on electricity. The goal, according to the government, is for 5 percent of all cars in Ontario to be electric-powered by the year 2020.

On the surface at least, the plan looks good. It will help kick-start an ailing auto industry, create jobs and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Scratch below the surface though, and it quickly becomes clear just how bad the whole idea really is.

To start with, Ontario taxpayers can’t afford to fund such a gold-plated subsidy. Since taking office in 2003, the McGuinty Liberals have already increased government spending in the range of 40%. In doing so they have transformed Ontario’s economy from the engine that drives Canada’s prosperity to that of a so-called “have not” province seeking handouts from other regions of the country.

Ontario’s deficit is now approaching $20 billion on spending of somewhere around $100 billion in the current fiscal year. To put that into perspective, consider that the budget crisis threatening to force the State of California into bankruptcy was triggered by a shortfall of $21 billion on spending of a little over $111 billion – numbers similar to those of Ontario, except that California has a population more than three times that of Ontario. In short, there’s simply no money left in Ontario to pay for this program – the cupboard is bare. Who will have to fund it if it goes ahead then?

Taxpayers from other provinces, that’s who.

Is that fair?

Good for the environment? Think again. The electricity that will be needed to power the plug-in cars will have to be produced somehow. Yes, I know, electrical consumption in Ontario is down significantly, but that’s mainly due to the recession, not conservation. When the economy begins to recover, consumption will begin to grow again too. Throw in the new demands of a large number of electric cars and the need for increased generating capacity becomes acute. That means more fossil-fuel burning generators or more nuclear power – windmills and solar panels just won’t do the trick.

What about helping the auto industry?

Let’s get something straight once and for all: the auto industry is not in crisis. GM and Chrysler may be, but all of the other manufacturers – and there are several – seem to be riding out the storm just fine. True, fewer cars are being sold right now, but they are still being sold. Had GM or Chrysler been forced to close their doors, other manufacturers would have picked up their market share. The government didn’t save the auto industry by acquiring an ownership stake in GM; it saved GM.

And that’s the point. The government won’t be helping the auto industry with its proposed subsidy for plug-in cars; it’ll be helping the one company willing to mass produce the product – GM. This is exactly the sort of policy rigging one can expect when government assumes an ownership stake in what should be a private company.

No wonder manufacturers like Toyota are crying foul. It’s the ultimate conflict of interest. Toyota has been a model corporate citizen since setting up shop in Cambridge Ontario in 1986. Now, if the McGuinty government has its way, it will be forced to pay higher taxes in order to subsidize its competition. Of course, the government could re-establish a level playing field by either expanding the subsidy to include something that other manufacturers are producing or creating new subsidies altogether, but both of these solutions require even more spending and, inevitably, higher taxes.

What about creating jobs? It might, although the US $40,000 price tag is pretty steep for a car that is, for all intents and purposes, only for local, urban use, even with a $10,000 rebate. The only problem is that GM is planning to produce the cars in Detroit only, not Ontario.

There is a way that government can boost new car sales, create jobs here at home and strengthen the auto industry as a whole, all without increasing spending, buying shares or picking winners and losers. It could cut the sales tax on new car purchases, and reduce taxes, fees and red tape at the manufacturing stage that artificially drive the cost of production up. On a car that retails at US $40,000 plus tax, I’ll bet you could find $10,000 in savings right there. We’d soon learn if there really is a market for them.

Don’t expect that kind of common-sense approach from this bunch though. For them, the very idea of leaving economic decisions to individual consumers is repugnant. Picking winners and losers isn’t just the byproduct of their economic policy; it’s the goal, and they don’t much care whose money they spend – or how much – to achieve it.


Editor’s note:
ALSO SEE:  “The state paying people 1/4 the price of a new car “will take the edge off” according to CBC anchor”

Nice line, eh

———

©2006-2007 Joesph Ben-Ami. 
Joseph C. Ben-Ami is President of the Canadian Centre for Policy Studies. He is the former Director of Government Relations and Diplomatic Affairs for the Jewish human rights organization, B’nai Brith Canada and is on the advisory board of Jews against anti-Christian Defamation.


Posted on 07/17/09 at 01:05 PM
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Joseph Ben-Ami

Joseph Ben-Ami

  posted on Friday, July 10, 2009
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When it comes to public finance, nothing should be a “no-brainer”

The controversy surrounding the Harper government’s decision to give $400K to Toronto’s Gay Pride Festival continues to grow. In his July 9th column in the National Post, Don Martin calls the decision a “no-brainer”, reporting as fact the claims that the event leaves a $100-million “economic footprint”, creates 650 jobs and generates $18-million in tax revenue. Mr. Martin is right of course; the grant – and others like it – was indeed a “no-brainer”. That’s precisely the problem.

Let’s start with the claim that the Festival generates $100-million “economic footprint”. This is an estimate of the gross economic activity surrounding the event. What’s important, however, is not its gross impact, but its net impact, that is, the aggregate of all commercial activity connected to the event minus the aggregate of commercial activity that would have occurred in the same time-frame had the event not been held.

The reason why net impact is important is easy to understand when you think about it.

Let’s say I live in a Toronto suburb and decide to travel downtown to take in the Pride Parade. While there, I might buy a hotdog and drink at a small restaurant along the parade route. That would count as part of the $100-million footprint. In the absence of the Pride Parade, however, I would still have to eat. I might find myself grabbing a hotdog in the same place, or I might eat at a restaurant in a different location closer to where I live. I might also buy groceries at my local supermarket and just eat at home.

The same thing goes for those who visit from outside Toronto for the Festival. The money these visitors pump into the city’s economy counts as part of the aforementioned $100-million, but who can say that they would refuse to visit if there were no Festival? And even if they did stay away, does that mean that they no longer take vacation? Perhaps they will spend their holiday and entertainment dollars elsewhere in Ontario or Canada.

The point is this: economic activity would not just grind to a halt if the Gay Pride Festival wasn’t held. Consumers will still consume; they may spend their money on other products and activities elsewhere, but they will still spend their money, generating the same tax revenue. The net benefit of the Festival, then, is much smaller than the $100-million being bantered about.

What’s more, any net benefit – however small it is – to Toronto’s business community is a net loss to other communities in competition with that city for the same tourism dollars. Not only is the resort operator in the Lake-of-the-Woods region of north-western Ontario losing potential customers, he’s paying to lose them as well!

But the real issue here isn’t the overall economic impact of the Festival; it’s the specific impact of the $400K federal grant. Given that the Festival has operated for years and will certainly continue to do so in the future without it, the impact of the grant, and therefore the net benefit to taxpayers – even those who live in Toronto – is virtually zero.

This brings us to the issue of whether or not federal taxpayers should be subsidizing any cultural festival. It’s a good question.

Fiscal conservatives rightly criticize the use of tax dollars to subsidize businesses and stimulate economic activity, but when it comes to so-called cultural events, they tend to give the government a pass. This is difficult to understand since the same principles apply to the cultural industry as any other. The Calgary Stampede may be great for that city’s economy (although I question how big the benefit is for the same reasons I question the claims surrounding Toronto Gay Pride Festival), but its net impact for taxpayers in the rest of the country is also zero. Whether it’s Gay Pride in Toronto, the Stampede in Calgary, or Quebec City’s winter Carnivale, using federal tax dollars to support such events means forcing someone elsewhere in the country in the tourist industry to subsidize their competition.

If local citizens and businesses want to pay the higher taxes necessary for their local government to support cultural festivals that attract tourists to their region, that’s fine, but when the provincial and federal governments force taxpayers from other regions to support the very same events, it becomes a problem, especially when those taxpayers are doing so at the expense of their own economic well being. In that case, a little less “no-brainer” attitude on the part of politicians and bureaucrats and a little more critical analysis would be a good thing.

Nice line, eh

———

©2006-2007 Joesph Ben-Ami. 
Joseph C. Ben-Ami is President of the Canadian Centre for Policy Studies. He is the former Director of Government Relations and Diplomatic Affairs for the Jewish human rights organization, B’nai Brith Canada and is on the advisory board of Jews against anti-Christian Defamation.


Posted on 07/10/09 at 12:48 PM
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Joseph Ben-Ami

Joseph Ben-Ami

  posted on Wednesday, June 24, 2009
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$400,000 to Toronto Gay Pride a stimulant too far

Last week’s announcement of a $400,000 grant to Toronto’s Gay Pride Week is the latest indication of how detached the Harper Conservatives have become from their key supporters and how incoherent their evolving electoral strategy is as a result. That the government has not triggered a grassroots revolt by now is remarkable, a testament to the discipline of party members more than their loyalty. A few more announcements like this, however, and it won’t be able to count on that either.

Anyone who has attended Gay Pride Week knows that it has nothing whatsoever to do with being gay and everything to do with being as lewd and offensive as possible. It’s Marti Gras run amok. Public nudity is de rigueur at a gay pride parade, as are simulated sex acts of all kind, and some not so simulated. I’m not gay, but I suspect that such shockingly bawdy behaviour is embarrassing to many who are.

But this isn’t about Gay Pride Week and its climactic parade through the streets of downtown Toronto – it’s about what the Harper Conservatives stand for… if anything.

A few months ago the Prime Minister himself gave a keynote address to grassroots conservatives attending a major conference in Ottawa in which he extolled the importance of faith, family and community to the country in general and his government in particular. One wonders how he can reconcile those words with the decision of his Secretary of State for Small Business and Tourism to authorize this grant. After all, there isn’t much faith, family or community in evidence in the weeklong event – unless you count Toronto’s BDSM community that is. (For those of you who don’t know what BDSM stands for – trust me, you probably don’t really want to.)

Even from a purely electoral point of view, the grant makes no sense. It’s been said that the only things certain in life are death and taxes. I’m pretty confident that you can add to that list that fact that nobody – I repeat, nobody – will vote conservative simply because the Harper government suddenly decided to celebrate and promote a radical version of gay “culture”. On the contrary, if anything the conservatives will lose votes, and not just amongst social conservatives either. Fiscal conservatives, already unnerved by the growing debt and ballooning deficit, are sure to be turned off by this grant as well, especially since it is being justified, in part, as part of the government’s economic stimulus package.

But it is among social conservatives that the government risks hemorrhaging its most critical support. These are mainly sensible, middle-class Canadians who agree with Pierre Trudeau’s observation that the state has no place in the bedrooms of the nation, but who also believe – not unreasonably – that what goes on in the bedrooms of the nation has no business playing a central role in the affairs of state. This is the backbone of the Conservative Party, not the naked marchers of Toronto’s Gay Pride Parade who take particular pleasure in displaying their genital piercings, or their spectators who revel in the display.

How the Harper Conservatives think they can secure a majority in the near future – or ever – without their support mystifies me. Yet they seem to be intent on trying. From income splitting to protecting unborn victims of crime, this government has ignored, obstructed or jettisoned virtually every prudent policy initiative that social conservatives have championed, all the while bending over backwards to appease its political and ideological opponents. It reminds me of something Margret Thatcher wrote about Ted Heath, her predecessor as leader of Britain’s Conservative Party: “He was always talking about reaching out to win over the support of people from other parties, but he had no willingness to listen to the Conservative Party.”

Under Thatcher’s leadership it should be noted, conservatives formed three successive majority governments in Great Britain.

Now more than ever, Canada needs sensible conservative government; unfortunately we’re not getting it from the Conservative Party. Instead what we’re getting is a patchwork of confused and often contradictory policies aimed at preserving power for its own sake rather than as a means for putting the country on the right track. The time has come, therefore, for rank and file members of the party to let their leaders and elected representatives know that they’re mad as hell and they’re not going to take it any more.

An additional $400,000 in federal debt to fund Toronto’s Gay Pride Week is just a stimulant too far.


Editor’s note — Also see:
“Talk about ‘stimulus’:  Gay group in Toronto gets extra 400,000 taxpayer bucks from Conservatives”

Nice line, eh

———

©2006-2007 Joesph Ben-Ami. 
Joseph C. Ben-Ami is President of the Canadian Centre for Policy Studies. He is the former Director of Government Relations and Diplomatic Affairs for the Jewish human rights organization, B’nai Brith Canada and is on the advisory board of Jews against anti-Christian Defamation.


Posted on 06/24/09 at 08:40 AM
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Joseph Ben-Ami

Joseph Ben-Ami

  posted on Monday, November 24, 2008
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Oh brave new world that has such people in it

I was going to accuse Queen’s University of treating its students as though they were all mildly retarded (the term used by the American Association on Mental Retardation until 2006) but I decided not to risk offending anyone. Instead, I will merely observe that the school must think its students all suffer from a disorder characterized by below average cognitive functioning and deficits in two or more adaptive behaviors such as living skills, communication skills or social skills. Put another way, Queen’s University must think its students are all stupid. How else do you explain its new “intergroup dialogue program”?

For those who don’t know, the “intergroup dialogue program” is part of a broader initiative by the university to “foster diversity and encourage students to think about their beliefs”. What could be more benign?

To accomplish these objectives, however, the school will be deploying “student facilitators” whose job it will be, in part, to monitor private conversations on campus and to jump in when they hear someone using terms that could be interpreted as homophobic, sexist, or otherwise bigoted. These facilitators will also be responsible for initiating “spontaneous” conversations about issues and organizing discussion groups and other activities for the same purpose.

So far, critics have focused their attention almost exclusively on the possibility that the reactive aspect of the program – intervening in private conversations – might impinge upon the freedom of speech or freedom of expression of students, a not unreasonable fear. I’m more worried about the proactive aspects of the project – the so-called “spontaneous” conversations and discussion groups on issues that the program envisions.

Clearly, something of this nature must have a set of standards to determine whether or not a conversation is offensive enough to warrant an “intervention” by facilitators. What are those standards, and how will they be applied to the “spontaneous” conversations and discussion groups the facilitators are also mandated to initiate, particularly if these conversations and discussions deal with controversial subject matter? The war in Iraq, abortion, the gay agenda, radical feminism – it’s not hard to imagine a list of topics where feelings run high and where dissent is rarely tolerated these days, let alone respected, especially on university campuses. Will facilitators create an environment where dissent is welcome, or will they use their quasi-authoritative positions to try and convince the dissenters of their sins and persuade them to return to the warm and friendly embrace of neo-orthodox opinion? I for one am not optimistic.

The explanation offered by representatives of Queen’s University that this program encourages diversity and independent thinking simply makes no sense. By challenging and effectively suppressing non-conformist behaviour and opinion, it seeks to induce uniformity of thought and expression, otherwise there would be no purpose in intervening in private conversations in the first place.

Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of examples of stupid and offensive ideas out there, and I’m all for confronting those who express those ideas, but any confrontation ought to be spontaneous and it ought to be limited to truly private individuals rather than agents of the state posing as private individuals. That is what I object to, and what Queen’s students should be outraged by. Don’t think that the experiment will end with interrupted conversations either. Eventually someone will resist the counsel of a “student facilitator” by telling them to take a hike, probably in words that will themselves be offensive. What will happen then? Will the “student facilitator” simply respect the right of his interlocutor to have a different opinion and desist, or will the “offender” be subject to further investigation and sanction, perhaps even expulsion?

The “intergroup dialogue program” instituted by Queen’s University, and more particularly the ease with which it and other initiatives like it are accepted these days – even defended – is symptomatic of a deeply anti-intellectual and undemocratic malaise infecting Canadian society. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, we are becoming a police state, where passions rule and reasoned debate is disdained; where thoughts are crimes and common sense is dismissed as the petty prejudice of the ignorant or naïve. The danger in this is not the intent, which is more often than not worthy, but the habituation to being told what and what not to say, think and do that sets in, and the construction of an apparatus of power to enforce those rules. No-one should suppose that democratic procedure can be an effective check on such arbitrary power. As Friedrich Hayek pointed out in his classic essay The Road to Serfdom “It’s not the source, but the limitation of power which prevents it from being arbitrary.”

Indeed, the exercise of arbitrary power – confirmed by democratic process – is more insidious and more difficult to restrain precisely because it’s garbed in the robes of democracy.

Students at Queen’s University are not children – they’re adults who can control their own private conversations without the benevolent hand of an omnipresent, omniscient, and inevitably omnipotent thought police. They would be doing themselves and the rest of us a great favour by saying so quickly, before expressing objection to the policy is added to the list of offensive speech.

Nice line, eh

———

©2006-2007 Joesph Ben-Ami. 
Joseph C. Ben-Ami is President of the Canadian Centre for Policy Studies. He is the former Director of Government Relations and Diplomatic Affairs for the Jewish human rights organization, B’nai Brith Canada and is on the advisory board of Jews against anti-Christian Defamation.


Posted on 11/24/08 at 07:58 AM
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Joseph Ben-Ami

Joseph Ben-Ami

  posted on Saturday, October 11, 2008
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A feckless Conservative Party? Principled conservatives have only themselves to blame

It has been said that the only things certain in life are death and taxes, but in Canada, there’s one more thing you can count on, and that’s conservatives – both fiscal and social – accusing the Conservative Party of “abandoning” its principles and “deserting” its core constituents. It’s no great surprise then that a handful of prominent Canadian conservatives are now doing just that.

There is no question that the Harper government’s record, from a narrowly conservative perspective, has been unspectacular, something for which conservatives are completely justified in holding them accountable. The critics are wrong, however, to blame the politicians alone for this unsatisfying performance.

The primary role of politicians is to get elected and stay elected. Sure, the purpose of getting elected is to implement a particular policy agenda, but that’s true only to the extent that it’s possible. To achieve anything in the way of policy, politicians must often perform the delicate and unpleasant task of balancing principle with popularity, pursuing only those policy objectives that are acceptable to the largest number of people at any given time, and setting aside those that are not.

To be successful, politicians must be adept at mediating multiple conflicting interests. Pragmatism, flexibility, and the ability to compromise – within reasonable limits, of course – are vital qualities to have in politics, especially in a country as large and as diverse as Canada.

On the other hand, these very same qualities render politicians singularly unsuited to be the exclusive, or even the main, source of conservative ideas and defenders of conservative principles. That role can only be filled by an independent conservative movement.

Freed from the inherent constraints of electoral politics, those individuals and organizations that comprise an independent conservative movement are able to develop and promote policy alternatives in a way that no political party can. By explaining conservative principles to the public and highlighting their benefits, these individuals and organizations expand the envelope of what’s possible for a conservative party to achieve in office, while reducing the scope of what non-conservative parties can impose.

Unfortunately, such a movement doesn’t really exist in Canada. The reason for this isn’t the desertion of conservative principles by its elected adherents though, but the lack of vision and committed leadership among conservatives outside of the political arena.

There’s no doubt that conservatives in Canada are sincere in their desire for change, but they aren’t very serious about promoting it. Support for independent conservative organizations in this country is tepid at best. As a consequence, most of these organizations are forced to operate as little more than volunteer clubs rather than the professional institutions they ought to be. Mediocrity is the rule, rather than the exception, and the results show.

For their part, the heads of many these organizations seem only too eager to surrender leadership of the conservative movement to the politicians, a convenient – if subconscious – way of evading any blame for its weak condition. Those who do fancy themselves leaders more often than not lack the knowledge and skill to competently represent their followers. Time and again their amateur interventions undermine their objectives and discredit the movement as a whole.

Compounding this is the attitude of at least some prominent conservatives that conservative organizations should act as surrogates of the Conservative Party when that party is in office, promoting its needs rather than challenging its thinking.

Given all this, is it any wonder that a Conservative government would settle into policy fecklessness, while principled conservatives feel bitter and abandoned?

The frustration of conservatives in Canada is understandable. The answer, however, is not to punish the Conservative Party for compromising its principles in order to remain politically attractive – as disagreeable as that may be – but to alter the environment that makes such compromises necessary in the first place. Politicians will always compete for the middle of the political spectrum and they are right to do so. The key for the long-term success of conservatives is to define where the middle of the political spectrum is.

To accomplish this, not only must there be institutions promoting conservative policies and defending conservative principles independent of the political party, these institutions must be adequately funded and competently run. By failing to provide this support and accountability, it’s grassroots conservatives and their leaders who have abandoned their ideas and principles, not politicians. Criticism of the Conservative Party is a healthy thing, but it would be a lot more credible if those doing it weren’t guilty of the same offences they accuse the politicians of.

It’s time for Canadian conservatives to stop the blame game, to stand on their own two feet, and to assume responsibility for the advancement of conservatism in Canada themselves.

Let’s let the politicians follow us for a change.

Nice line, eh

———

©2006-2007 Joesph Ben-Ami. 
Joseph C. Ben-Ami is President of the Canadian Centre for Policy Studies. He is the former Director of Government Relations and Diplomatic Affairs for the Jewish human rights organization, B’nai Brith Canada and is on the advisory board of Jews against anti-Christian Defamation.


Posted on 10/11/08 at 09:24 AM
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Joseph Ben-Ami

Joseph Ben-Ami

  posted on Thursday, June 26, 2008
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Vic Toews got it wrong – Louise Arbour isn’t a disgrace, she’s just irrelevant

When federal Treasury Board President and former Minister of Justice Vic Toews called outgoing UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour a “disgrace” in the House of Commons recently, he missed the mark. The real problem isn’t that Louise Arbour is a disgrace, it’s that she – and by extension the entire UN human rights bureaucracy – is irrelevant. One need only read Claire L’Heureux-Dube’s spirited defence of Ms. Arbour and her record, published in the Ottawa Citizen June 21, to understand just how irrelevant.

Ms. L’Heureux-Dube is the director of Lawyers’ Rights Watch Canada, a group that she claims “monitors acts of persecution and harassment” of lawyers and human rights advocates around the world. Like Ms. Arbour, she is also a former Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada.

Ms. L’Heureux-Dube praises Ms. Arbour for bringing a “new relevance to her office” by being a “timely intervenor” when innocent people and civilians are threatened by conflict. As evidence she draws our attention to Ms. Arbour’s statement in April calling on both sides of the political showdown in Zimbabwe to “restrain” their supporters.

A second example cited by Ms. L’Heureux-Dube of Ms. Arbour’s important work are her 2006 comments directed toward Israel and Hezbollah that “indiscriminate shelling of cities constitutes a foreseeable and unacceptable targeting of civilians” and that “bombardment of sites with alleged military significance” that results in civilian deaths is unjustifiable. Ms. L’Heureux-Dube is particularly proud of this statement because of its apparent impartiality and because, according to her, it successfully reminded all parties of “the possibility of personal criminal responsibility.”

The discerning observer will notice that the “timely” interventions cited by Ms. L’Heureux-Dube have one thing in common – they are all words. No tangible action, direct or indirect, was taken by either Louise Arbour or her office that resulted in the protection of a single innocent person or civilian.

How many lives were saved in Zimbabwe as a result of Ms. Arbour’s stern warnings? Answer: none.

How many rockets did Hezbollah hold back in response to Ms. Arbour’s earnest admonitions in 2006? How many has Hamas held back since? Answer: none.

How many women convicted of adultery were spared public execution in Iran as a result of any of Ms. Arbour’s strong statements? Answer: none.

How many churches and synagogues were allowed to be built in Saudi Arabia in response to any of Ms. Arbour’s heartfelt pleadings in support of minority rights? Answer: none.

How many female genital mutilations were prevented as a result of Ms. Arbour’s tireless efforts on behalf of women’s rights? Answer: none.

In fairness, no declaration of concern, nor statement of condemnation, nor expression of anger or outrage, could ever influence the behaviour of those individuals and regimes that engage in such heinous human rights abuses. As former general, now senator, Romeo Dallaire has noted, mere words did not save a single life in Rwanda, nor are they saving lives in Darfur today.

On the other hand, the impact of statements from officials like Ms. Arbour can deter the advancement of human rights. Consider her “even-handed” scolding of Israel and Hezbollah in 2006. Ms. Arbour was simply wrong to imply that there was no difference between accidental civilian deaths resulting from attacks on military targets undertaken by Israel and those caused by the deliberate and indiscriminate missile attacks of Hezbollah on Israeli towns and cities. In so doing, she undermined the efforts of the international community to isolate and dismantle an international criminal organization that has brought untold suffering to innocent people over the years – the vast majority of whom are Lebanese, not Israeli.

Impartiality may be appropriate in some circumstances. Applied indiscriminately, however, the very same principle can have terrible consequences. Winston Churchill said it best when he refused “to remain impartial between the fire brigade and the fire”.

Ms. L’Heureux-Dube reaches new heights in obsequiousness in expressing her “deepest gratitude” to Ms. Arbour for her “unprecedented accomplishments” on the world stage.

Setting aside the thorny question of how much Ms. Arbour actually has accomplished, to the extent that she has, is it fair to characterize those accomplishments as “unprecedented”?

We just observed the 64th anniversary of D-Day Does the accomplishment of the hundreds of thousands of Canadians who served in World War Two, including the tens of thousands who gave their lives, not count?

What of the Canadians who fought in Korea in the early 1950s, or the Balkans in the mid-90s, or who are currently fighting in Afghanistan? How does their work and sacrifice stack up against those of Ms. Arbour and her battalion of paper-shufflers and pencil-pushers? If Ms. L’Heureux-Dube is to be believed, there is no comparison at all. That in itself is a disgrace.

Neither Louise Arbour nor her devoted friend Claire L’Heureux-Dube occupies a seat on this country’s highest court anymore, both having stepped down voluntarily to pursue other interests.

Given the degree of intellectual rigour habitually demonstrated by the two, both on the bench and off, that’s something Canadians can truly be thankful for.

Nice line, eh

———

©2006-2007 Joesph Ben-Ami. 
Joseph C. Ben-Ami is President of the Canadian Centre for Policy Studies. He is the former Director of Government Relations and Diplomatic Affairs for the Jewish human rights organization, B’nai Brith Canada and is on the advisory board of Jews against anti-Christian Defamation.


Posted on 06/26/08 at 02:14 PM
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Joseph Ben-Ami

Joseph Ben-Ami

  posted on Friday, June 06, 2008
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The flawed reasons for doing away with prayer at Queen’s Park

The recent decision by the McGuinty government to consider removing prayer from Ontario’s daily legislative proceedings has once again catapulted the complicated relationship between religion and the modern state to the forefront of public debate.
Nobody should be fooled by the fact that there are public consultations on this subject. Like the adoption of same-sex marriage before it, when it comes to prayer in the legislature the die has already been cast. The Liberal government has concluded that the prayer must go, and the Conservatives have decided to acquiesce. Hearings are only a way of giving the decision a measure of credibility.
Given the interest of the province’s conservative Christian community, it is likely that when all of the submissions to the committee are counted, most will favour retaining the prayer. A significant minority will claim, however, that Ontario is a diverse society, and that its legislature should reflect that diversity by eschewing prayers of any single – read Christian – religious group. This will be the opinion that prevails.
I admit that I personally don’t care too much whether or not the Speaker of Ontario’s legislature opens the daily session in prayer. As a religious man, I certainly believe and engage in prayer myself, but the legislature in Ontario only adopted the practice officially in 1969, a relatively short period of time ago, and its elimination would not prevent those who wish to gather in prayer from doing so elsewhere in the legislative building.
What troubles me most about this whole affair is not the possibility that prayer may be removed, but the rationale that is being used to justify its removal.
It has become fashionable in polite company to refer to “values” such as equality, tolerance for diversity, separation of church and state, and a whole host of other “values” that we adhere to as “secular” values. In reality, however, these are not ‘secular’ values at all. They are Judeo-Christian values; standards of behaviour that have so deeply permeated the collective consciousness of our society that they have more or less retained their rightful place as hallmarks of Western civilization, despite the widespread and growing ignorance of their philosophical pedigree.
When Ontario’s government rejected a plan to allow Muslim courts to function as arbitration boards under the law in 2005, it was not embracing diversity. On the contrary, it was imposing a particular cultural norm on the province’s Muslim minority. The great fear was that Muslim women in particular would be pressured to submit their disputes to such courts unwillingly in cases dealing with divorce and separation, thereby surrendering rights that all Ontario women possess. That decision was presented as a victory for secularism over religious orthodoxy, but in reality, it was nothing of the kind. It was a victory for the Judeo-Christian perspective on women’s rights over the perspective of other religions that regard women as mere chattel – the property of their husband.
Few people today seem to know that most of the chief organizers of the original women’s rights movement (as opposed to the radical feminist movement of today), both here in Canada as in other Western countries, were devout Christians. Their argument for equality was simple and compelling. They believed that the practice of denying women the right to vote, or to enter certain professions, or to attend certain schools to obtain a higher education – in other words the practice of treating women as though they were born with a diminished intellectual capacity – was inconsistent with the principle of equality intrinsic to normative Christianity and therefore unjustifiable in a society that professed itself to be Christian. In short, they said, treating women as second class citizens because they were women was un-Christian. Like the decision regarding Muslim courts in Ontario, the end of official discrimination against women did not represent the ascendancy of secularism over religious orthodoxy. Quite the opposite, it represented the triumph of Judeo-Christian principles over a lingering practice traced its roots to pre-Christian – that is to say, secular – society.
Similarly, it was Christians, mostly evangelical, who led the campaign to end slavery. Abolitionists argued that the idea of human beings as property was inconsistent with genuine Christian principles – that a truly Christian society could not tolerate a slave trade in any form. It’s an argument that they won. In the war of ideas waged in Europe and throughout the British Empire as well as on the actual battlefields of America, Judeo-Christian moral principles emerged victorious over the lingering amoral and obsolete practices of pre-Christian society.
This concept of equality is not an objective fact that can be scientifically proven. It is a philosophical premise – Judeo-Christian in origin – that was gradually, and reluctantly, accepted by our society. Today’s intellectuals are loath to acknowledge these Judeo-Christian roots and the institutions and practices that are their embodiment, such as individual liberty and constitutional, democratic government. What neither they, nor the myriad of other intellectuals who have come before them – both religious and non-religious – have been able to do, however, is posit a credible theory of right and wrong that can successfully transcend narrow self-interest in the absence of that religious framework.
The reason is quite simple really – there is none.
A truly secular society can admit the existence of no objective moral code. Instead, it must rely on the moral capital it has inherited from previous generations to justify the standard of behaviour it imposes on its members. Once that capital is depleted, a secular society has no means of weighing questions of right and wrong except by conducting a brutish cost-benefit analysis.
We can already see the results of this depletion of moral capital in our own society. Unlimited and unregulated abortion is now the norm in Canada. Doctor-assisted suicide, while still illegal (for the time being), is wide-spread, as is euthanasia. In an environment where Robert Latimer is considered to be a hero for murdering his severely disabled daughter as a means of ending her suffering, how long will it be before the “compassionate” killing of all severely disabled children becomes a “moral” imperative? It is an indication of just how compartmentalized Christianity has already become that these issues are subjects of legitimate debate today, but at least there is still a debate. What will happen if secularists succeed in negating Christian influence in the dialogue over public policy altogether, as is their stated aim? I shudder to think.
Which brings us back to the controversy over the daily recitation of prayers in Ontario’s legislature.
I don’t object to the elimination of these prayers per se, I object to the argument that they must be eliminated because we live in a secular society. Ontario, like the rest of Canada, is not secular, but Christian. It may be that we have largely removed any reference to Christianity in describing the character of our society, but this does not alter the fact that it is fundamentally and profoundly Christian. Indeed, the very respect for diversity that we believe is offended by the inclusion of these prayers in the first place is predicated on that Judeo-Christian heritage.
This is not to say that Canadians should all become Christians, nor, of course, is it to say that the government should promote Christian theology.  It is a plea to end the campaign, conducted in the name of a lazy understanding of the separation of church and state, to marginalize Christians and to deny the crucial role that Christianity has played – and continues to play – in the emergence and maintenance of our culture of freedom and equality. And it is a plea for conservative church leaders to not abandon the field, thereby becoming willing participants, not just in their own demise, but in the demise of Western society as a whole.
I can recognize a good thing when I see it, and speaking as a member of one of Canada’s many religious minority communities, I think that this country’s Christian character is a good thing.
I just wish that more Canadians, especially Christians themselves, would recognize it as a good thing too.

Nice line, eh

———

©2006-2007 Joesph Ben-Ami. 
Joseph C. Ben-Ami is President of the Canadian Centre for Policy Studies. He is the former Director of Government Relations and Diplomatic Affairs for the Jewish human rights organization, B’nai Brith Canada and is on the advisory board of Jews against anti-Christian Defamation.


Posted on 06/06/08 at 11:18 AM
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Joseph Ben-Ami

Joseph Ben-Ami

  posted on Tuesday, April 15, 2008
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Unfettered speech is not dangerous, unfettered power is

Joseph C. Ben-AmiOne would think that if anyone could mount a strong defence of Canada’s much maligned human rights commissions and their role in regulating free speech in this country, it would be Maxwell Yalden. A former ambassador to Belgium and Luxembourg, Yalden was Chief Commissioner of the federal Human Rights Commission from 1987 to 1996 and Commissioner for Official Languages from 1977 to 1984. He also served on the UN Commission on Human Rights.

Yalden finally waded into the debate by drawing a connection between historical events and what he calls “unfettered” free speech in a column published by the National Post. “After two disastrous world wars and the horrors of the holocaust,” he writes, “we are surely obliged to judge rather differently the anything-goes theory of free speech”.  In other words, if only there had been laws limiting free speech, creatures like the Nazis might never have come to power and there might never have been a Holocaust.

This is a popular and seductive theme that proponents of hate speech laws return to again and again to justify their positions.

It’s also wrong.

Yalden wants readers to believe the Nazis were able to come to power and perpetrate the Holocaust in part because of “unfettered” free speech when in fact, the opposite is true. Suppression of civil liberties in Germany, especially free speech, was essential to the Nazi’s successful acquisition and consolidation of power.

It’s a myth that Weimar Germany was a bastion of freedom and civil rights before being taken over by the Nazis. The Weimar Republic was no respecter of civil liberties and the rule of law – at least not consistently. Weimar “liberals” shut down newspapers when it suited them, they spied on political parties, they used plainclothes police or other surrogates to break up political meetings, they outlawed political parties – including the Nazis for a time, they not only tolerated armed militias but in many instances encouraged their existence and activity while the judiciary turned a blind eye.

There is a lesson to be learned here, but it’s not the lesson that Yalden and his ideological compatriots are teaching. National Socialist Germany is not an example of what happens when hate is tolerated – it’s an example of what happens when hate is empowered. The uncomfortable fact, moreover, is that the Nazis didn’t invent the apparatus of power or culture of repression in Germany, they merely took control of, and perfected, an apparatus and culture that had already been created and used by “liberals” to combat extremism.

In contrast to this, those countries that formed the nucleus of the alliance that fought and eventually vanquished the Nazis were distinguished by their respect for civil liberties such as freedom of speech. (The sole exception was the Soviet Union – tellingly, an ally of Nazi Germany up until the moment it was attacked and forced to fight for its life.) It may be true that some civil liberties were constrained by the democracies during the war years, but there is no comparison between the modest limits imposed by democratically elected governments and the brutal suppression practiced by the dictatorships. There is also no evidence that such measures contributed to victory. On the contrary, they were much more effective in silencing opposition to some of the sorrier acts of our governments, like the internment of Canadians and Americans of Japanese descent.

Yalden continues his defence by recycling the tired example of the individual who shouts fire in a crowded theatre to demonstrate the folly of “anything goes” free speech.

Here he is guilty of employing a rhetorical slight-of-hand to make his case. He bases his argument on the premise that defenders of free speech oppose any limitation. This is simply untrue. No credible defender of free speech would take the position that the right should be “unfettered”. As with all rights, freedom of speech can be abused, and when it is, the abusers should be held accountable. The dispute is not about whether there should be limits – it’s about what those limits are and how they should be enforced. Yalden contends that we need special human rights commissions to perform this function while his opponents, of which I am one, point out that the law already established what those limits are, and what penalties should be imposed on an individual for exceeding those limits, long before the creation of special commissions.

Let’s return to the example of shouting fire in a crowded theatre. Yalden appears to be arguing that human rights legislation and commissions are an essential deterrent to the act. But setting off a false fire alarm is already a crime punishable by fine and/or imprisonment. What more can a human rights commission do to discourage such egregious behaviour? The answer is nothing.

And where criminal courts end, civil courts take over. Anyone who suffers a loss as a result of someone’s negligent or irresponsible behaviour has the right to sue to recover their losses, and in many cases civil courts do not just award compensatory damages, they award punitive damages too. The same thing goes for slander or defamation – the civil courts are empowered adjudicate such cases based on laws that are, in many cases, centuries old.

The problem with all of these laws – if you call it a problem – is that to be enforced, a formal complaint must be lodged, a full investigation must be conducted to ascertain all of the facts, charges must be laid if the facts support the complaint, and then a trial must be held in an impartial setting, with an impartial judge, where the accused must be entitled to confront both his accuser and/or the evidence against him.

In other words, the wheels of justice grind slowly, they grind cautiously, and they grind very publicly. Is this inconvenient? You bet, but it’s what due process and the rule of law is all about.

Which is precisely what Canada’s progressive human rights champions and ‘practitioners’ can’t stand. For them, our existing laws and practices – laws and practices that I might add were sufficient to protect us from turning fascist when fascism was popular among progressives – are inadequate to their plans. Like all true believers, for them, only the cause matters, and if existing legal institutions and traditions impede the speedy success of that cause, those institutions and traditions have to be replaced by new ones, better suited to the efficient imposition of the ideology of the day.

This is the true innovation of human rights commissions and legislation in Canada. They do not enhance the rule of law – they circumvent it. Their supporters can adorn them with noble platitudes about tolerance and respect for diversity, but that doesn’t change the fundamental nature of their purpose, nor does it mitigate their inherent danger.

The only sure defence against tyranny is the maintenance of a free market in ideas, because it in such a free market that bad ideas can be weighed against good and exposed for what they are. Vile ideologies such as those espoused by the Nazis can never succeed in acquiring political power in a society that values above all the free exchange of ideas and opinions. They can only prevail in a society where the range of ideas and opinions that can be expressed in the public square is limited only to those approved by the state.

Unfettered speech is not dangerous, unfettered power is. Where there is unfettered speech, there can be no unfettered power.

In this context, Canada’s human rights commissions and their apologists are the best friends hate-mongers have in this country.

Nice line, eh

———

©2006-2007 Joesph Ben-Ami. 
Joseph C. Ben-Ami is President of the Canadian Centre for Policy Studies. He is the former Director of Government Relations and Diplomatic Affairs for the Jewish human rights organization, B’nai Brith Canada and is on the advisory board of Jews against anti-Christian Defamation.


Posted on 04/15/08 at 02:05 PM
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Joseph Ben-Ami

Joseph Ben-Ami

  posted on Thursday, April 03, 2008
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A small step toward fixing Canada’s broken immigration system

I’ve often said that the single greatest problem Canada faces today is the general, and in my view cataclysmic, decline in the quality of thought that politicians and policy-makers put into the positions they take on issues.

Take the recent brouhaha over the government’s proposed changes to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act for example.

Right now, immigration applications in both the family reunification class and the skilled worker class must be processed on a first-come, first-served basis. The government wants to change this rule with respect to the skilled worker class so that the applications of those who possess skills in short supply in Canada can be processed first, regardless of their place in that queue.

Taken on its own merit, this is a reasonable proposal that deserves the support of Parliament. After all, the whole point of having a skilled worker class is to facilitate the immigration of individuals who possess skills that our labour market needs. It makes no sense to say that we can’t prioritize the processing of applicants under this classification who meet these needs.

Consider that at present there is a backlog of around 600,000 applications in the skilled worker class waiting to be processed. If Canada is in desperate need of trained nurses, shouldn’t the Minister be able to say to the department: “Process the applications of trained nurses first, regardless of their place in line.” Surely no sensible person will argue that this is wrong.

But sensible people seem to be in short supply themselves in Ottawa. To hear opposition politicians describe it, the proposal is part of a sinister plot on the part of the government to ban future immigration to Canada.

Some in the media have joined in the silliness as well, reinforcing NDP-Liberal conspiracy theories by accusing the government of “hiding” their proposals in the budget implementation bill, C-50 in an attempt to “sneak” them through Parliament.

It reminds me of a line from the movie, Forrest Gump, when Tom Hanks (who plays Gump) relates something a relative of his used to say: “Stupid is as stupid does.”

Or as stupid says, I guess.

Hiding? Hmmm - someone must have been dozing off when the Finance Minister revealed that the government would be making these modifications in – wait for it – the budget speech!

“We are changing the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to improve and speed up the application process,” Jim Flaherty announced on February 26th. “In addition, we are providing $22 million in new funding to support immigration initiatives over the next two years. This funding will improve the responsiveness of our immigration system and better align it with our labour market needs.”

One might well ask why changes to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act would have been included in the budget in the first place (the answer is that the government is allocating money to finance the changes, and that it believes the changes will benefit the economy), but once they were, for members of the media to question their inclusion in the budget implementation bill betrays either a stunning ignorance of parliamentary procedure, or a more partisan motivation. Frankly, given that C-50 includes amendments to several other disparate pieces of legislation to bring them into line with provisions announced in the budget – once again, a normal procedure – I’m not sure which of the two possibilities is the most credible.

Of course, none of this foolishness means that there is no good reason to criticize the government plan – there is.

Citizenship and Immigration is arguably the most badly broken of all federal government departments. For years, its policies have been incoherent and inconsistent with any serious analysis of Canada’s needs. When all other immigration classes are factored in, the backlog of applications waiting to be processed swells to a staggering 900,000. The department simply does not have the means to do the work it is being asked to do.

And this is only on the immigration side. When it comes to refugees, the problems are exponentially bigger.

Both the system and policy are in desperate need of a complete make-over from top to bottom. Everybody knows this, but few are willing to say so publicly for fear of being labeled anti-immigrant – or worse – by the Olivia Chows and Jeremiah Wrights of the world. And so, as is too often the case, taxpayers are forced to settle for minor procedural adjustments rather than the sort of comprehensive reform that is required to bring the department into the 21st century.

As far as procedural changes go, this is certainly a good one and the government deserves credit for making it. But let’s not crack the champagne bottles open yet – it’s only a first step, and a rather modest one at that.

Nice line, eh

———

©2006-2007 Joesph Ben-Ami. 
Joseph C. Ben-Ami is President of the Canadian Centre for Policy Studies. He is the former Director of Government Relations and Diplomatic Affairs for the Jewish human rights organization, B’nai Brith Canada and is on the advisory board of Jews against anti-Christian Defamation.


Posted on 04/03/08 at 07:33 AM
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