Beyond The Commons

Aaron Wherry covers all the goings-on in and around Parliament Hill. Follow Aaron on Twitter: @aaronwherry

Categories: Beyond The Commons, Capital Read

The size, scope and purpose of government

by Aaron Wherry on Tuesday, August 24, 2010 11:42am - 0 Comments

Alex Himelfarb takes stock of the state and the competing visions of welfare and security.

We have seen in the U.S. today how hard it is to shift the momentum, to provide access to health care for all or to build bridges rather than fortresses. In Canada we should have it easier. We have a better base. But we seem to be vulnerable to those promoting distrust and fear. Perhaps our version of the welfare state has worked too well and we expect too much from it and are too easily disappointed by its failures. It seems too that as we get older, we are more fearful. Perhaps we expect more security from physical harm than is ever possible, especially in a free and democratic society. Leaders who over-promise in either camp do us no service, nor does fueling distrust and false fears or ignoring the evidence. And it is too easy to promise that we can somehow have it all without having to sacrifice anything or pay the taxes.

Tags: alex himelfarb, democracy, Government, security state, welfare state

More by Aaron Wherry

Emily

It is always a balancing act, and we've done well with it in the past.

We have far more trouble when ideology gets involved, instead of sticking to reason and common sense.
Blacktop

Öur system is not sick, even if libertarians and Harper's crew think it is. The main surge in public spending programs such as health is not what they say it is:old people, equipment new tests. It is the fact that few of these programs had unionized staffs before they were started. Whether that was calculated or not into the total, the work that many newly unionized staff had to do (in the Long-Term Care Program facilities in BC, for example) deserves to be paid at hospital rates, which it has been since 1979. The care load is heavy and onerous, and if I my use a codeword, dirty i.e the workers deserve it. There are some other health jobs that might deserve less according to the work load.
wsam

Troop haters all.
chet

"Worked too well"

Skyrocketing debts to unsustainable levels, with a corresponding drop in accountability, freedom and individual responsibility,

is "working too well"?

You know things are out of hand when departements of non essential services have sub departments such as "language sensitivy specialists" and become laden with the farthest extreme examples of "progressive" utopia creating pet projects.

Now excuse me while I take shelter from the outrage from the progressives here, daring to tread on sacred ground.

wsam

I agree. Individual accountability and responsibility is way down. Starting from the top.

Like the responsibility to embed real live examples within your argument, taken from recognizable reality, examples which purport to prove your argument. An example of this would be arguing that a mandatory long-form census is not necessary for Canada and explaining exactly why making it voluntary is a good thing. The opposite of behaving responsibly would be to lie and say you’ve consulted the experts and, according to them, making the long-form census voluntary will have no effect the census. Worse would be continuing to lie after having gotten caught.

Government has a responsibility for the outcomes of its preferred policies. If they propose raising taxes they have a responsibility to map out ahead of time what a higher tax rate will mean for the Canadian economy. Or if you seek to reduce the GST you have a responsibility to acknowledge counter-arguments claiming the attendant loss of revenue will put Canada into structural deficit. It is not responsible to simply grunt lower taxes good. Lying about the likely outcomes of your preferred policy is not being accountable. It is the opposite.

Standing By

He is correct that "we seem to be vulnerable to those promoting distrust and fear."

This is especially so when those promoting distrust and fear are actually running our government.

It's why I disagree with those who believe that having a divisive and fearmongering news network like Fox News North will be benign or inconsequential in Canada.
Jenn_

A great article, thanks for linking to it Aaron.
Emily

Otherwise perfectly normal people will start to stampede when they're fed a constant diet of 'fear, fear, fear'.

Especially when we don't seem to have anyone trying to halt the panic and paranoia.
LynnTO

There are also sociological arguments that suggest that a growing heterogeneity in our society will result in reduced interpersonal trust (which is associated with decreased civic participation and increased social conservatism). If those sociologists are correct in their assessment, and the politics of fear are promoted by a relatively trustworthy source ("government", not "policians") and reinforced by media, it would create a substantial political shift among the electorate, in particular, where there is already an appetite for change.

See: Rob Ford up by double-digits in mayoral polls.

And no, this isn't me saying "let's stop all immigration." This is me saying that there are bodies of thought that I think it's prudent to be aware of and plan for, in order that, if true, decreased interpersonal trust can be mitigated and (possibly) reversed through other means.
wsam

Except Canada has always had a heterogeneous population. English. French. Native. The standard Liberal narrative sees consensus as the result of these three founding nations, since for much of our history no one group could dominate the other. This, the Liberal narrative feels, is why Canadians have historically been more tolerant of 'otherness'.

I'm not sure I totally agree with this view of Canadian history. But I don't entirely disagree either.

Toronto is the mostest multicultural cities in the world and, Rob Ford notwithstanding, I don't see a lot of people saying we should reduce social services offered to Chinese people, or East Asians. I do see people argung services should be provided more efficiently (which might be a way to mask racism).

I think that study you are referring to was done in the UK and then was siezed upon by American conservatives because it confirmed their policy preferences that increased state provision of social services was useless, in this case because people would never go for it.
madeyoulook

Himelfarb, 2010: And it is too easy to promise that we can somehow have it all without having to sacrifice anything or pay the taxes.

Gerald Ford, 1974: A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.

Michael Ignatieff, 2004: [I am a] tax-and-spend, Pearsonian, Trudeau Liberal…
madeyoulook

I've only had one thumb-downer after 3-ish hours. Must be a slow night.

To that one, and to the many eventual others who will also have the urge to down thumbs without the courtesy of a rebuttal or at least an insult: would ANY of you please show me the error of my ways? Did I misquote, perhaps?
Out There

Serious question: where did you get that Ignatieff quote from? I searched for "michael ignatieff tax-and-spend", and the only references I saw were to Conservative attack sites and reports quoting Dimitri Soudas.

I'm prepared to believe that he said that, but I haven't found proof yet. (I'm also equally prepared to believe that the Conservatives made this up.)
madeyoulook

Thomas Walkom (2008) quotes him, as told to a Star colleague (Lynda Hurst) in 2004. The evil Conservative attack sites peg the publication of this self-description to November 20, 2004.

Here is the Walkom article:
http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/551176