XPost: can.politics, bc.politics, man.politics   
   XPost: sk.politics, ab.politics, ont.politics   
   From: {~_~}@nyet.ca   
      
   April 16, 2014 - By Jeffrey Simpson - Globe and Mail   
      
      
   The Fair Elections Act is ever so telling   
      
   The bill is the product of fierce partisanship from conception to   
   adoption, critics be damned   
      
      
   The so-called Fair Elections Act, however it eventually turns out, will   
   have shown again the hard face of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's   
   government.   
      
   Everything about the bill was wrong, from the way it was conceived to   
   the method of presentation to the scorn for expert evidence.  From   
   conception to eventual adoption, even if amended by the Senate (a move   
   obviously orchestrated by the government), the bill will have   
   demonstrated a government determined to wring political gain from every   
   measure, a fierce partisanship for something that ought to have been   
   non-partisan, a dismissal of experts who, by virtue of dissent, were   
   deemed enemies of the party.   
      
   It did not have to be this way, but to imagine another approach is to   
   misunderstand the Harper government.   
   It does not know how to do politics or public policy another way.   
   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^   
      
   It has its core vote – maybe 30 per cent of the electorate – to which it   
   wishes to bolt another 10 per cent for re-election.  And, frankly, it   
   doesn't care a damn for the other 60 per cent, from which it believes   
   all these so-called "experts" and editorial writers and assorted other   
   critics come.   
      
   There is a dark and deep "them-against-us" mentality that pervades   
   almost every move the government makes, in domestic or foreign policy.   
   It is perhaps one reason why former finance minister Jim Flaherty's   
   death has been so lamented. He was a steady minister, struck down at a   
   particularly tragic moment in his personal life, who had a rumpled   
   humanity about him. He could actually tell a joke, including on himself,   
   which made him stand out in a government that is utterly without humour.   
      
   The Fair Elections Act reveals a characteristic that is known to many   
   governments but is a definer of policy and approach for this one: the   
   dressing up of political advantage as a matter of "principle."  We see   
   this all the time in what's called the government's "principled" foreign   
   policy, which is often driven by the pursuit of domestic votes.  And now   
   this bill, which contains elements designed to assist the partisan   
   interests of the Conservative Party, is being dressed in the rhetoric of   
   the "principles" of making elections fairer.   
      
   Various measures have been designed to discourage voting by chunks of   
   the electorate not central to the Conservatives' targeted core and that   
   additional 10 per cent they hope to woo.   
   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^   
   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^   
   By scrapping vouching and preventing Elections Canada from encouraging   
   higher turnout, the Conservatives are trying to help themselves,   
   although this is explained tortuously as a matter of "principle."   
      
   These and other problems with the bill have been explained by a range of   
   experts, including the head of Elections Canada, his predecessor,   
   provincial election officials, former auditor-general Sheila Fraser and   
   more than 160 political scientists who have probably forgotten more   
   about fair elections than Minister of State for Democratic Reform Pierre   
   Poilievre ever learned.   
      
   Nonetheless, in another example of how this government does business,   
   Mr. Poilievre was placed in cabinet, mostly for his screeching   
   partisanship, then handed the sensitive file of electoral change.  He   
   has lashed out at critics in ferociously partisan fashion, thereby   
   illustrating much more about himself and his government than anything   
   about the critics.   
      
   The government obviously dislikes Elections Canada head Marc Maynard,   
   who has caught out the Conservatives for various electoral misdeeds.   
   <<====   
   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^   
   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^   
   For this, his name has been added to the "enemies" list, a notional   
   concept rather than something written in black and white – it means   
   those who have crossed or criticized the government, and are therefore   
   to be mistrusted, demeaned and, if possible, destroyed.   
      
   The Harper government, focused on its core, likely assumes – perhaps   
   correctly – that the vast bulk of the electorate couldn't care less   
   about the Fair Elections Act.  After all, about 40 per cent of eligible   
   Canadians don't even vote, so why should they care about how elections   
   are conducted?  It's like asking questions about eliminating the red   
   line or adjusting the size of goalie pads to someone who never watches a   
   hockey game.   
      
   Then there are those for whom the details of public issues are of little   
   or marginal concern.  Only if an issue hits them in the pocketbook do   
   they pay attention.  Politically alert voters pay attention, and many of   
   them do not like this bill or how it has been handled.  The government   
   figures most of them aren't likely to vote Conservative, so who cares   
   about them?   
   _______________   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)