Category: Opinion

Recent federal boutique tax credits not helping those who need it most, or even most families with kids

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Many, many years ago, I was a smoker.  When I decided to quit, I told my friends and family and I think that made it a little easier to stick to my own plan.
I think, in theory, balanced budget legislation might be a bit like that – a commitment device.  Having made a public statement, governments might feel more committed and follow-through on difficult choices to avoid unnecessary deficits.
In practice, it doesn’t seem to work out that way.
The research finds that balanced budget legislation needs political will to have any effect and if you have that political will, then you don’t really need the legislation.
A look through the last decade of federal and provincial budgets reveals that balanced budget legislation doesn’t predict more balanced budgets. Jurisdictions with a balanced budget law balanced the books in 5 of the 10 years. But so did jurisdictions without such a law.
If balanced budget laws don’t necessarily have the desired positive effects, is it possible they can also encourage governments to do sub-optimal things just to show a $0 deficit?
Models of government behavior say that they will feel pressure to spend public money to keep stakeholders [read: voters] happy.  Also, they want to be seen to be busy doing things in office. Governments need stuff to announce: There are pressers to be organized! Talking points to be read! Photo ops to Instagram and Periscope!  So what is a government, under political pressure to spend but also under pressure to not be seen to be spending, to do?

Cutting taxes one shiny credit at time

Boutique tax credits start to look pretty attractive, especially the non-refundable ones (the ones that don’t result in a cash payment back for lower income taxpayers). These are credits that can be announced, often in a budget, and re-cycled again, and again. They can be targeted to certain taxpayers based on behavior—for example taking public transit, enrolling in higher education or paying for organized sports for a child.
Administratively, it’s possible to make these credits conditional on some taxpayer characteristics, but not usually income. Instead, boutique tax credits have a veneer of universality–as long as we all fill out the same tax form, we all have equal opportunity to use them, no matter what we earn, right? So when government announces these credits, it’s easy to imagine that many Canadians could benefit.
Better still, if you’re inclined to spend without being seen to do so, after they are announced, these credits just kind of fade into the wallpaper. Remember the Children’s Arts Credit from Budget 2011?  How much will it cost (in foregone income taxes) for the coming fiscal year? You probably won’t find that number in the 2015 Budget. Like so many individual tax credits from budgets past, the Children’s Arts Credit is now just part of the fiscal backdrop.
The 2015 Budget documents and communications materials give the current federal government’s retrospective on its own tax cuts, pausing to illustrate how much less folks like “Henry and Cathy” (at $120,000 in family income) pay in taxes since 2006.
Let’s set aside the fact that the budget document claimed that the reduction from 16% to 15% of the lowest personal income tax rate took place in 2006 (and not in fact 2005), and instead let’s look at the other personal income tax reductions listed: the Children’s Fitness Tax Credit, the Children’s Arts Credit, the Public Transit Tax Credit and the Canada Employment Credit to name a few. There’s no special credit for “Matthew’s” yellow lunch box, not yet anyway.
The list is long enough to sound quite impressive. But do these credits represent good tax policy?
Do they use public funds prudently? Reductions in federal revenues have to be made up elsewhere or else they ultimately result in spending cuts, or deficits, or even both.
Do these credits have the desired policy impacts­–for example encouraging more physical activity among children?  The available research seems to suggest they do not.
Who benefits most from these boutique credits?  Well, not every family with one or more children.  Using the government’s own numbers, only up to a third of families are expected to get anything at all from many of these targeted tax cuts:1
Robson Chart 1
The same is true of the much-discussed Family Tax Cut that will only reach, at most, 12.9% of all Canadian households and a maximum of one third of families with children.  Bear in mind the above estimates are optimistic and include any family that gets even $1 of federal tax reduction.
So, while the rules for each of the boutique credits are silent on how much money a taxpayer has to have to benefit, it so happens that wealthier tax payers are more likely to claim these credits.  Using the most recent published data on tax returns, here’s what we know about the likelihood of getting some of these boutique credits:2
Robson Chart 2-01

How much more (or less) likely is a taxpayer to get a tax credit, compared to the average?  It depends on their income.
Taxpayers with $100-150K (darker bars) are much more likely to get all the credits, but taxpayers with $20-25K (lighter bars) are less likely to get any.
*Cancelled for the 2015 year onwards.



The dollar value to an individual taxpayer of many of these credits is often very small–just $75 for the Children’s Arts Credit, for example.  But, when stacked on top of each other (which is more likely for upper-income taxpayers), they seem to add up. Is this making a difference in what taxpayers are paying and, if so, who’s getting what?
Let’s compare the taxes paid in 2005 and the most recent year available–2011 for modest and upper-income taxpayers.3 Remember, the federal personal income tax rates and brackets haven’t changed.  The main personal income changes have been through boutique credits.
Robson Chart 3 v2-01
In 2011, the average taxpayer with an income between $100,000 and $150,000 paid $3,633 less in taxes.  The average taxpayer with a very modest income of between $20,000 and $25,000 saw only $475 back in the same period.  These numbers are before the impact of the new Family Tax Cut and the doubling of the Child Fitness Tax Credit – both of which are likely to accelerate the same trend.

Final Thoughts

In some cases, there can be good policy reasons to try to reward taxpayers with credits for doing certain things. But those choices need to be transparent about who wins and how the fiscal room will be adapted.
When public commitments to show balanced books are given precedent over promoting economic growth, boutique credits may become nearly irresistible. These trinkets are easy to make but then become hard to see.
During the 1960s and 70s, personal income taxes only brought in 30-40% of all federal revenues.  Today we’re trending closer to 50%. If a government is going to bind itself with public commitments to balance spending with revenues, it had better make sure that its main revenue stream is sustainable.
Sneaking around to hide an addiction to shiny but regressive credits is just a spending habit by another name.

Jennifer Robson is an Assistant Professor at Kroeger College, Carleton University where she teaches courses in pubic policy and political management.
 

Lenihan: Fixing our broken politics

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Originally posted on National Newswatch (available here)



Is politics broken? Yes, but we also know how to fix it. Through the ages, politics has been broken many times, yet people have risen to the challenge. The question now is whether we will do so again. Let’s start with a few examples before turning to the solution.
When King John signed the Magna Carta in 1215, he was under pressure from the barons, who felt politics was broken. To fix it, the king had to agree that even he was not above the law. The Rule of Law has since become the rock on which our political system rests.
Or consider the American and French Revolutions in the late 18th century. They were based on the idea that the source of government’s authority was not the king, but the people. The principle of the Sovereignty of the People rallied the people behind democracy.
During the Great Depression, Franklin Delano Roosevelt proclaimed the New Deal, where government took on a new responsibility to provide relief and jobs for the unemployed. Today, the principle of Equality of Opportunity underpins a vast array of social programs, such as social assistance, education, unemployment insurance and healthcare.
These three periods were marked by profound social changes that made the political system of the day obsolete: politics was broken and it had to be fixed. In each case, the solution came through a new principle that placed new limits or responsibilities on the leaders.
History is at another turning point. The rise of digital technology has changed our society, vastly increasing the speed, complexity and interdependence of events; and turning the system of nation states into a global village. Huge amounts of data and information on everything imaginable—health, weather, traffic, trade, finances—are streaming through cyberspace.
The tools to organize and “scrape” this data are evolving daily. Statistics Canada reports that it can now get all the information it needs for the census by scraping 500 government databases, and at a fraction of the cost. Within a decade the census will be gone.
This is a sign of things to come. If content is now pouring from cyberspace like an open faucet, soon it will be gushing like a firehose. New “smart” devices of all kinds are getting plugged into the internet, from cars to lightbulbs.
By 2020, over 50 billion devices will be pulsing out data on their surroundings and their users. New artificial intelligence systems will supercharge the capacity to scrape, organize and use this data, radically advancing our knowledge of DNA, nanotechnology, the environment, the global economy, security, transportation, and so on.
This capacity to integrate Big Data from a range of sources marks the beginning of a new era in human knowledge. It could also vastly improve policymaking, if we use the data well. And that brings us to politics.
Last week, Samara Canada released its Democracy 360 report on the state of democracy at the federal level. Among other findings, fully 60% of Canadians now think MPs only want their vote, and only 40% of us trust them to do what is right. Another 39% say they haven’t had a single political conversation in the last year.
No one should be surprised. This is the logical result of a trend that began centralizing power in the Prime Minister’s Office under Pierre Trudeau. Today, the policy process is run out of the PMO. It is utterly lacking in transparency and parliament has been reduced to little more than a shell.
Of course people are cynical. They know where the real decisions are made and that public debate over them is a facade. That is why politics is broken and needs to be fixed. But how? As with the other examples from history, we need a principled way to reverse this trend.
There is a new principle that I believe can do this. It is called Open by Default and was formulated by the Open Government movement to guide governments around the world as they transform themselves for the digital age.
The principle turns conventional government thinking about data and information upside down. It declares that in the digital age they must be defined as a public asset. The role of governments is to act as stewards of this resource, rather than owners of it who are free to use it as they wish.
Under this principle, these assets must be openly available to the public, unless legitimate concerns, such as security or privacy, dictate otherwise. When they do, the rationale for confidentiality must be given and proper oversight ensured.
According to the Treasury Board Secretariat website, the Harper government now accepts this principle. I’ll return to this below. Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau also endorses Open by Default in his Private Members Bill on freedom of information.
But Open by Default is about more than data and information. It also applies to the dialogue and debate that is needed to put this asset to work in the service of better policymaking.
For example, it we want to map the issues around a community’s health needs, we must combine data on a range of factors, such as the environment, food consumption, education, exercise, income, cultural background, and so on.
This transforms the usual two-dimensional picture of a policy issue into a dynamic, three-dimensional model. Different combinations of factors produce different models and may lead to different conclusions.
Arriving at the best policies to solve issues on the environment, poverty, pipelines or national security thus is not simply science. Evidence-based decision-making is about exploring these options to make the choices that best meet our needs and aspirations as a community. It is a democratic exercise based on dialogue and debate that is open, informed, fair and inclusive.
So here is the deep question Open by Default raises for democratic process: Will this new approach to policymaking be conducted openly, with MPs, experts, officials and the public involved? Or carried out in secret by a coterie of analysts and then “sold” to the public?
This question has moved from pressing to urgent. For two decades, the public service has been building a vast new network of digital infrastructure to handle Big Data. Notwithstanding its alleged commitment to the principle of Open by Default, the Harper government has signaled its willingness to use its power to bring this infrastructure under its control.
Bill C-51, the anti-terrorism bill, will establish a massive new information-sharing regime to improve security, yet the government appears unwilling even to listen to arguments about new forms of oversight to monitor how the data is being used. For those who thought centralization couldn’t go any further, it has apparently entered a whole new phase.
The only way to fix politics is to reverse this centralizing trend. This will take a range of major reforms, both to parliament and the public service. And there will be cries and claims about the damage they will do to our system of government. Every age has its apologists for the status quo.
But to succeed, first and foremost, reformers must unite behind a single, clear and powerful idea of the kind of change we want to bring to our governments and why. That idea should be to put an end to government secrecy and to establish a new age of openness and evidence-based decision-making. It should be to make our governments Open by Default.

The Conservatives’ controversial case for war

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First posted on CIPS Blog (available here)



The motion tabled in Parliament this week to extend Canada’s military engagement against the Islamic State (IS) sets a worrying precedent. The decision to expand the air war to Syria is grounded in a confused legality that blurs legitimate concerns with Iraq’s right to self-defence with the dubious legality of a global ‘war on terror’.
The motion and the various statements made by Prime Minister Harper and Defense Minister Kenney assert, in broad terms, three justifications for Canada’s military campaign against IS: the threat IS poses to Canada; the need for Canada to assist the government of Iraq in the defence of its people and territory; and the threat IS poses to civilians and religious and ethnic minorities in Iraq and Syria.
Of the three, only the second gives clear, international legal justification to the coalition campaign against IS.  Iraq is fully entitled to defend its territory against the IS incursions from Syria, or to battle Iraqi insurgents who have joined IS. In doing so, Iraq may invite nations, like Canada, to come to its aid, including pursuing IS forces in Syrian territory that is no longer controlled by the Syrian government. The case is even stronger because Syria has acquiesced in the face of US airstrikes on IS in Syria.
Given this reasonably sound legal basis for the Canadian military engagement against IS, in both Iraq and Syria, it is surprising and worrying that the Harper government also points to the threat that IS poses to Canada to justify its action. Sporadic terror attacks on Canadian soil are not the types of threat that, until now, Canada has argued give rise to a right to pre-emptively use military force in other countries to eliminate them. Yet the parliamentary motion specifically cites the fact that IS has called for attacks in Canada. And in citing the self-defence argument, both Harper and Kenney have said it refers to the defence of Iraqand Canada.
The broader self-defence argument is familiar – it has been cited by the United States for several years to justify its global war on Al-Qaeda (and the attacks on terrorist targets in Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Pakistan and elsewhere). It is a controversial extension of the self-defence doctrine that few countries or international legal experts accept. So controversial in fact, that President Obama has limited it, noting that the US will endeavour to carry out these attacks with at least the tacit consent of the country concerned.
The reason is obvious. Many countries harbour foreign dissidents, rebels or exiles who are considered ‘terrorists’ by their home country, and who may be advocating or somehow inspiring or supporting attacks at home. The logic of the global war on terror would justify dozens of new wars – something that may soon be all too real as many countries acquire drone technology. Moreover, though posited as a military strategy, such attacks often resemble little more than targeted assassinations. Independent observers have concluded in several cases that US attacks in Yemen and Pakistan amount to extrajudicial executions.
But if they’re unnecessary, and poorly supported as a matter of law, why is the Harper government making these broader self-defense claims? There is no obvious answer. Some suggest it is just domestic politics. The Tories are hyping the IS threat to gain support, as they believe they are the party most Canadians trust on national security issues. Perhaps. But if so, it is a shortsighted approach. Many countries – indeed likely a large majority – will understand and accept that Canada chooses to assist Iraq to defend its territory. Yet, very few will agree with the idea that Canadian warplanes can attack IS in Syria because its leadership inspires violence against the west.
More worryingly, the broader self-defense claim may genuinely reflect the Prime Minister’s views – that Canada has a right to attack a terrorist group that threatens Canada, no matter where it is located. The Prime Minister has repeatedly spoken in recent weeks of the “international jihadist movement” and the threat it poses. It is an “evil” that must be confronted, not only in Iraq and Syria. Of course, there is no evidence to suggest the government actually intends to attack IS targets beyond Iraq and Syria. Further, the fact that Canada simply lacks the surveillance and military capacity to take the fight much further than the current engagement in Iraq and Syria suggests that a broader threat is not intended.
Nevertheless, there is some ambiguity in the parliamentary motion itself, especially when it refers to the need to attack “terrorists aligned with ISIL”. Presumably this means only in Iraq and Syria. There is an expanding number of IS franchises in Africa and elsewhere in the Middle East. What if they too start preaching violence against Canada? Words matter in international diplomacy, not least when war is at stake.
Finally, what of the last justification? Is Canadian military action against IS in Syria justified in order to prevent more IS atrocities against civilians and minorities? As a legal matter, a humanitarian intervention in Syria would require Security Council authorization. But as a practical matter, the argument is hard to sustain. There are many forces terrorizing civilians in Syria and Iraq, not least President Assad’s army and militias. Few would treat seriously a claim grounded in the protection of civilians that aims to eliminate only one murderous faction and in doing so arguably strengthens the others. The United Kingdom and other countries in the coalition have thus downplayed the humanitarian rationale and insisted military action was justified in the self-defense of Iraq. The US too has downplayed the humanitarian argument in making its legal case.
Canada could rely solely on the limited self-defence argument to justify the extension of its air war to IS targets in Syria. Of course, the success of the campaign is far from certain. In asserting, however, a broader right to respond militarily to terrorist threats abroad, Canada is signing up to a failing US strategy, of dubious legality, that despite hundreds of attacks in several countries, and over a decade, has manifestly not reduced the spread of Islamist militancy.

Crisis and opportunity: Time for a national infrastructure plan for Canada

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This commentary is based on the Canada 2020 research paper ‘Crisis and Opportunity’



Infrastructure is central to every aspect of life in Canada. It’s a key driver of productivity and growth in a modern economy and it contributes to the health and well-being of Canadian citizens. It is a method for enabling communication and sharing of information between citizens. It is a means for providing core services such as water, electricity and energy and is a shaper of how our communities grow and contribute to our collective social fabric.
On a daily basis across the country, Canadians are impacted by infrastructure that has failed to be maintained or that has not been built. This can be partly attributed to a major shift in infrastructure ownership and financing over the past 50 years. In 1955, the federal government owned 44 percent of public infrastructure. Today, that number is less than five percent.
Municipalities own over 50 percent of public infrastructure, but collect only eight cents of every tax dollar. On the other hand, the federal government has 50 percent of Canada’s fiscal capacity, but contributes only 12 percent of our infrastructure fund. Experts have noted that the federal government should be spending approximately two percent of GDP on infrastructure to enhance prosperity and maintain a high quality of life. The current level of investment is 0.37 percent of GDP.
In 2013, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce estimated that Canada’s infrastructure deficit could be as high as $570 billion. I’m sure you experience this backlog of investment each day— from potholes that damage cars and act as safety hazards while cyling, to the overcapacity of public transit systems and lack of affordable housing options for Canadians. We have a lot of work to do.
Equally concerning is the fact that our existing infrastructure is not equipped to deal with the reality of climate change and extreme weather. Prior to 1996, only three natural disasters exceeded $500 million in damages. Since 1996, Canada has averaged one $500 million or larger disaster almost every year. On average, each natural disaster lowers GDP by approximately two percent.
In a paper I co-authored with Evergreen CityWorks Executive Director John Brodhead and economist Sean Mullin for Canada 2020, we called for urgent federal attention to this issue. Countries that exhibit best practices for infrastructure investment have decision-making frameworks driven by a strong central government committed to innovation and economic development. Within these frameworks, projects move forward based on multi-year forecasting and planning, establishing a platform for innovation, resiliency and prosperity. In Canada there has been an absence of a national infrastructure strategy and long decline of federal involvement in infrastructure spending has exacerbated Canada’s infrastructure deficit.
This challenge also represents a key opportunity for Canada’s federal government, as the economic benefits of investing in public infrastructure are substantial. David Dodge, former Governor of the Bank of Canada, has called on government to take advantage of the historically low interest rates as a way to provide badly needed stimulative effects in the economy in the short-term, and contribute to higher productivity and a more competitive economy in the long run. The current market conditions create a window of opportunity for decisive action by an active and committed federal government.
In the paper, we argue that it is time for the federal government to play a strong role in the planning and funding of public infrastructure in Canada. A critical starting point would be the creation of a long-term National Infrastructure Plan. We outline several components of what this plan could look like, but a central feature would be a comprehensive multi-year plan that would prioritize infrastructure projects across a number of areas of national significance. This feature would include a 10-year project pipeline prioritized by status, updated at least once a year on a rolling basis to reflect the movement of the projects in the pipeline and changes in strategy or emphasis.
A National Infrastructure Plan, respecting provincial and municipal jurisdiction, would coordinate infrastructure efforts across Canada, take advantage of the federal government’s fiscal capacity, create clear, transparent rules for infrastructure programs, enhance transparency of infrastructure planning and prioritization and share best practices across Canada. Only the federal government has the ability, authority and fiscal capacity to play this role within Canada.
The state of Canada’s infrastructure represents both a crisis and opportunity for our country. Only by taking decisive action now, can the federal government ensure we collectively seize the latter and avoid the former.


–
Jesse Darling is an Urban Project Designer at Evergreen CityWorks in Toronto.

Do truth and values (still) matter in politics?

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This column first appeared in National Newswatch on March 17, 2015



During the debate over the niqab last week, I couldn’t help but think of Karl Rove, the renowned Republican strategist and spiritual mentor of the Harper government. The jury’s still out on what really happened, but I’d love to hear his take on it.
Karl Rove was George W Bush’s senior political advisor and campaign strategist. He may be one of the most influential figures in recent political history. He also had a huge impact on the Harper government.
Rove’s political philosophy can be summed up in three basic points.
First, much to his credit, he recognized the value of Big Data long before most strategists had even heard the term. Rove used the Republicans’ huge database to identity key groups of voters that could be specifically targeted to turn elections one way or another.
Second, he was brilliant at using wedge issues to split these groups off from larger cohorts in ways that advantaged Republicans.
Third, he was indifferent about whether positions held by the Republicans were true or false, right or wrong, as long as they garnered votes. Indeed, Rove had little use for policymakers who agonized over truth, evidence and values. He famously attacked the “reality-based community” for wasting its time trying to be objective.
In Rove’s view, perception is reality. Whoever controls the message gets to frame the issue, which, in turn, defines the public’s view of truth. So in politics, controlling the message is what really matters.
This was a revolutionary idea. Traditionally, political strategy was about striking the right balance between virtue and expediency, that is, between advancing the values a party stood for and making compromises to help it win power. Rove declared that politics was about winning, pure and simple.
This doesn’t mean that the Bush administration held no values or that its leaders disbelieved in truth. Rove and his allies in the White House thought it was their job to set goals that served the public interest. They just didn’t believe the public was up to playing a significant role in this.
They saw the public as an impulsive prisoner of emotion. The politicians’ job was to push the right buttons to get the right result. Rather than a search for solutions, public debate was a means to an end, a step in the policy process that had to be observed.
It was the agenda that really mattered. Implementing that justified using whatever means necessary to win the public debate, including lying to people, suppressing information, or employing wedge issues to divide one group against another.
Rove’s three points provide the philosophical rationale for the Bush administration’s infamous “Straussian doctrine,” according to which the truth was known inside the White House, but could not be shared with the public outside of it. The role of communications was to tell the public whatever story was necessary to get it to support the government’s plan.
If this all sounds familiar, it should. Rove’s fingerprints are all over the Harper PMO, from micro-targeting to the use of wedge issues to play one group off another. The gun registry, the crime agenda and the energy pipelines are all examples.
We can also include talking points, omnibus legislation, time allocation, committee interference, and media control in this bag of tricks. All are quintessential Rovian tactics.
And the abandonment of truth? Here too the Harper government has followed suit, showing a sometimes ruthless willingness to deny, discredit and even suppress evidence that conflicts with its positions. It has done so on crime and climate change, for example, and is now doing so on the new security law, C-51.
But last week may have been a turning point of some kind. The Harper government seemed to be taking this Rovian story-telling to a new level.
Many Canadians—including this writer—have doubts about the niqab and the burka and harbor suspicions about the cultural assumptions behind them.
With the assertion that the niqab is a symbol of an “anti-woman culture,” the prime minister seemed to be playing on this, trying to link fears over terrorism to individuals in our midst.
Having already stoked public fears about jihadis, this may have seemed to the government like the next logical step in its Rovian story on terrorism.
But when the three opposition leaders rose to challenge both him and Canadians to take a step back from our emotions and reflect on the nature of our political rights, a very un-Rovian thing happened.
Many commentators began arguing that Muslim women’s right to wear the niqab was more important than their feelings of suspicion and doubt.
In Rovian politics, this is not supposed to happen. The public isn’t supposed to be reflective and rational, especially when they’re scared.
Of course, these responses came mainly from members of the political class. I don’t know what would have happened if the debate had carried on. Would ordinary people also have risen to the occasion? I couldn’t help wondering what Rove would say.
The clear lesson from last week is that we have two very different views of politics in our country and they appear to be getting ready to square off.
One is optimistic about citizens and expansive about democracy. It is hopeful about people’s willingness to engage and to distinguish between truth and fiction, right and wrong.
The other is skeptical of the mob. It sees leadership as a secret society and communications and marketing as the appropriate surrogate for public debate.
One of these views of Canadians is right and one is wrong. We deserve an answer.

Trudeau on liberty

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This column was first published on the National Newswatch website on March 11, 2015



What is it to be free? In a democracy like ours, there may be no more important question. Justin Trudeau gave a speech in Toronto on Monday night that engages this question with the seriousness it deserves.
Freedom, he tells us, is a core value that will “motivate (political) leaders’ decisions, whatever events may throw at them.” For Trudeau, liberty is the moral compass that guides our leaders and his speech is an impressive effort to spell out his views on it.
Stephen Harper also figures in the speech, cast as the chief architect of a competing view of freedom, one that Trudeau believes is taking hold in Canada today, and which he fears. To bring out the difference between the two versions, first we must spend a bit of time on the history of liberty.
Bear with me.
To be free is to be able to make choices, such as a career, a spouse or where to live. On this much, liberals and conservatives agree, but then they part company.
While conservatives are inclined to see freedom as the absence of restrictions, liberals believe it is more. After all, there may be no law preventing a poor person from becoming a doctor, but poor people are far less likely to become doctors than those born into privilege. So what does it really mean to say they are “free to become doctors”?
According to liberals, if all citizens are to enjoy their freedom, the right economic and social conditions must be in place to support them, such as food, shelter, education and medical care. Without these, freedom is often little more than an abstraction.
So for liberals, freedom is not something you either have or you don’t. It comes in degrees and stages; and it grows, changes and develops over time. To promote the growth of freedom, liberals endorse Equality of Opportunity. This allows governments to tax the wealthy so they can help the less fortunate develop the knowledge, skills and tools they need to exercise and enjoy their freedom.
Conservatives, on the other hand, believe it is wrong for the state to take away one person’s property to enable another. It violates their liberty.
This disagreement over liberty has been a constant tug-of-war between these two sides for almost a century. Yet, curiously, Trudeau says nothing about equality in his speech. Instead, he focuses on the role of community. What should we make of this?
Trudeau’s speech not only has a deep affinity with traditional liberal thinking on equality, it expands and deepens it in a way that makes it even more relevant for our century.
Much as 20th century liberals argued that education or heath care enables freedom, Trudeau believes that in the 21st century liberals must come to terms with a whole new category of enabling conditions: community participation. He explains this through two key ideas: inclusion and collective identity. Let’s start with inclusion.
Suppose a wave of immigrants arrive in a town where their customs, language and dress are different from the residents. Should the locals be expected to make adjustments to their lifestyle to accommodate the immigrants?
Many conservatives would see this as an infringement on their liberty, much like taxes. They would say it is wrong to ask the locals to give up their freedom to accommodate “outsiders.”
Trudeau sees things differently. For him, freedom is not a zero-sum game where a gain by one side is a loss for the other. Inclusiveness gradually expands the range of freedom within the society as a whole—and that is good for everyone.
For example, it challenges Canadians to see immigration as a two-way street where everyone should be open to new experiences and new choices. This, in turn, develops and deepens everyone’s understanding of freedom.
Collective identity, which is the second aspect of community, is like the flipside of inclusion. While inclusion is a way of expanding the boundaries of our experience, collective identity ensures these boundaries don’t just dissolve.
Liberty is meaningful only if the choices we are free to make reflect our sense of who we are and of what is important to us. Membership in a distinct social, cultural, ethnic or linguistic community is a critical part of meeting this identity condition and, as such, a key enabler of freedom that must be recognized and safeguarded.
In future, societies like Canada will become increasingly more diverse, not less. Striking the right balance between the “centripetal” force of collective identity and the “centrifugal” ones of inclusion will be among the most pressing and potentially stressful challenges facing democracies like ours.
For guidance, Trudeau believes Canadians should look to the Charter, which he sees as a key instrument to help us strike this balance. But while the Charter is central to this view of liberty, it is not enough to ensure it, which brings Trudeau to his third and final theme: political leadership.
He tells the story of a Muslim woman who recently appeared in a Quebec court. When the judge asked her to remove her headscarf, she refused on religious grounds. The judge, in turn, refused to hear her case, even though the federal court had confirmed a woman’s right to wear the hijab.
Trudeau was furious. But even more disconcerting, he notes, Harper has promised to appeal a ruling allowing women to cover their faces during the citizenship ceremony and that, on announcing this, went on to described Muslims’ refusal to remove the veil as “offensive.”
The anecdote is meant to bring out the difference between the two kinds of freedom, as well as the role of leadership in promoting them. Trudeau believes Harper sees diversity and difference as a threat to liberty, rather than an enabler of it. In Harper’s view, granting immigrants special freedoms will only diminish those of other Canadians.
Nor does Trudeau think Conservatives trust the courts and the Charter to help strike the right balance. But without the Charter and the courts to discipline politics, Trudeau fears Canadians could become hostage to a view of freedom that is inward-looking, reactionary and xenophobic. Indeed, he thinks this is already happening.
In response, he challenges us to see Canada through a very different lens—as a great experiment that is changing the rules of social organization. We are a “constitutional superpower” that is leading the world in the practice of liberty and we have been widely recognized and praised for it. The question we need to ask ourselves is whether we are really ready to give up on this now.
In the end, Trudeau’s view of liberty is very much in keeping with the liberal tradition he defends. Indeed, it can be traced back to the original triad of democratic values in the French Revolution: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity (Community).
As for the Charter, it is much more than a collection of rights and freedoms. It is a tool for aligning these three values within a single system of social organization. This achievement goes beyond the handful of Canadian First Ministers who created the Charter. It is a legacy of 250 years of hard work and often bitter experience from the liberal tradition.
Trudeau is simply trying to bring this learning fully into the 21st century.

If you give First Nations students the tools they need, they will succeed

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The youngest and fastest growing segment of the Canadian population is underperforming academically to a dramatic degree. Nearly 40 per cent of indigenous Canadians do not graduate from high school, and the figure is nearly 60 per cent for First Nations people on reserves, rates that far exceed the Canadian average. What these statistics show is that the majority of First Nations students are not reaching their full potential and the question is why not?
The answer can be found in many areas, from extraordinarily high poverty levels to the underfunding of both healthcare and primary and secondary school education by the federal government. It was in this latter context that some of us enacted the Model School pilot project in September 2009.
Based on the very successful Turnaround Schools program developed by the Ontario government over a decade ago, the Model School project, known as Wiiji Kakendaasodaa: (Let’s All Learn Together) was a partnership between the Martin Aboriginal Education Initiative (MAEI), the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) at  the University of Toronto, the leadership of Kettle and Stony Point First Nation and Walpole Island First Nation, students, teachers and parents at the two host schools: Hillside School and Walpole Island Elementary School.
The project taught teachers new teaching methods, raised expectations for students and introduced a mandatory 90 minutes of daily reading and writing instruction. The results, announced in Toronto a few weeks ago were nothing short of outstanding.
Before the program began, 13 per cent of First Nations students at the two participating schools reached the provincial standard on Grade 3 reading tests, and 33 per cent met the provincial standard in writing. In Grade 6, 17% of students met the provincial reading standard and 39% of Grade 6 students met the provincial writing standard.
After implementing new teaching methods in the Model School Project, almost 70 per cent of Grade 3 students achieved the reading provincial standard and more than 90 per cent hit Ontario’s writing provincial standard, which surpassed the provincial average. In Grade 6, 72% of students met both the reading and writing provincial standard.
Also of particular note was the fact that the percentage of students identified as having special needs greatly decreased. During Wiiji Kakendaasodaa, the percentage of students identified for special education services decreased from 45% to 19% in Senior Kindergarten to Grade 3; the percentage decreased from 24% to 4% in Grades 4 to 6.
These results provide irrefutable evidence that First Nations students can and will succeed if given the opportunity. For this reason the project should be replicated in every First Nations community where it is needed across this country.
Teaching literacy is a moral obligation. It is also essential to harnessing the economic potential of Canada for Indigenous children, who represent the youngest and fastest growing segment of our population.
What should be done? The Government of Canada should act. Proper funding will make the difference. The proof is here.
To see the full report: http://www.maei-ieam.ca/pdf/Model-School-Feb%2022.pdf

Blog: Building Ottawa (and Canada) through healthy babies and healthy children

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In the draft budget for 2015 tabled by the City of Ottawa, one seemingly small but critical program is at risk: Healthy Babies Healthy Children. Launched by the province of Ontario and run by the Ottawa Board of Health, it is program on the proverbial chopping block that is worthy of national attention.
The early years – from birth to age six – are critical in a child’s development. Healthy Babies Healthy Children helps to support pre-natal and post-natal care for all citizens in the city. Three avenues of programs and services provide this support.
First, to help parents learn about pregnancy, preterm labour, breastfeeding, and caring for an infant, free online and in person prental classes are offered in English and French in various locations across the City throughout the year.  In addition, public health officials facilitate ‘pregnancy circles’ that are offered in English, French, and Chinese, for expectant parents who may need extra support.
Second, after a baby is born in Ottawa, a public health nurse calls to check in on the health of the newborn. Asking fundamental questions, these simple phone calls connect parents to the outside world at a time of vulnerability and uncertainty. It lets families know that they are not alone and that there is someone out there that they can call if need be.
Third, drop-in centres are open on a rotating basis every day of the week all across the city. Facilitated by public health nurses, nutritionists and lactation consultants, the centres provide a safe and warm environment for parents with young infants to visit. Here, babies are weighed, ‘tummy-times’ are had, and communities are built. Moms having problems with breastfeeding can learn new tricks to make it easier for them, parents worried about the development of their babies can have questions answered, nurses are given face-to-face opportunities to explain the benefits of vaccines (all the more important given the recent measles outbreak), and everyone gets to share their stories about the joys and challenges they are facing with young infants at home.
Individual benefits for babies from such programs are clear. While nothing really prepares you for bringing a baby home, prental classes nevertheless give parents good information to increase infant well-being. Regular weekly weigh-ins that is charted provides early warning signs if something is wrong. Or, weekly weigh-ins may calm nervous young parents keeping them out of doctors’ offices. Even as early as three months, contact with other babies furthers cognitive and emotional development. Such individual benefits for the babies should be enough to convince any government to keep these programs running.
Benefits, however, are not restricted to the individual babies. Collective benefits for families and the community writ large are invaluable.
Post-partum depression, for example, is a major illness that can affect moms, dads, and parents who adopt [1]. Caring for an infant is often extremely isolating, amplifying the symptoms of post-partum depression. Having a safe space to visit and regularly meet with other people can help parents see if they are experiencing the symptoms of post-partum depression and seek the help that they need.
Ottawa, like many cities across Canada, is also filled with families that have just moved who don’t have access to an extended network of aunts, uncles, and grandparents that they can rely on. The drop-in centres held under the Healthy Babies Healthy Children program help build communities. From clothing exchanges to informal parental baby-sitting networks, these centres provide a hub for new residents helping them to integrate into the place that they are now calling home.
That, in a nutshell, is the Healthy Babies Healthy Children program and some of the key benefits that it offers. What, then, is the problem?
In her report submitted to the City, Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Isra Levy draws attention to the fact that Ottawa Public Health faces ‘significant long-term funding shortfalls’ caused by inflation and insufficient support from the Government of Ontario due to caps on provincially funded programs [2]. A funding gap has thus appeared.
To fill the gap, Ottawa Public Health is planning to restrict access to the three avenues of service for clients with ‘identified risk factors’. In other words, a program that was once open and available for all families in the city will now be limited to only those who meet defined criteria.
If the City does this, a universal program will be transformed into what policy wonks call a means-tested service. A poor strategy for two reasons.
First, restricting the program to ‘at-risk’ clients will increase the administrative costs of the programs. Staff members will now need to spend time determining whether or not a person should actually access the service, rather than simply working with everyone who comes through the proverbial door.
Second, universal programs help build solidarity and foster shared understanding. Such programs also have a greater number of people concerned that are ready and willing to fight for them should they be threatened with cuts or cancellation. When services are means tested, such advocates disappear and, overtime, the benefits are at a bigger risk of withering or vanishing altogether.
Contrast this proposal with a long-standing practice in Finland. There, for more than 75 years, expectant mothers are given a box by the state. With clothes, sheets and toys it gives all Finnish children, regardless of their background, the same start in life.  And, according to researchers like Mika Gissler, professor at the National Institute for Health and Welfare in Helsinki, the boxes have played a major role in improving family health overall in the country [3].
So what should happen? To start, the Province of Ontario should index the funds to ensure the costs of the programs it launched are sufficiently covered. Ironically, Ontario is subjecting municipalities across the province to the same critique often lobbed at the federal government: the province started a ‘boutique program’ while leaving the other level of government holding the financial bag. The City of Ottawa could be a bellwether for other municipalities across the province, and the entire initiative may be on route to its demise.
Even more importantly, particularly given Canada’s egregious and stubborn rates of child poverty, provinces and territories from coast to coast should offer similar programs and improve on the Ontario model [4].  An integrated yet diversified network of such programs dedicated to young children should be established and made available and accessible for all families regardless of where they live in the country. Healthy babies and healthy children should be a benefit enjoyed by all who live in Canada.

Jennifer Wallner is an Assistant Professor at the University of Ottawa’s School of Political Studies. She can be contacted at jennifer.wallner[at]uottawa.ca

Blog: One-size childcare policy fits no-one

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There are a little more than 4 million children in Canada aged 0 to 12 years.[1] They need care and education. I don’t think anyone really disputes this–youth 13 and older obviously also have needs for care and education but they’re not the focus of this post. In most cases, decisions about that care and education are made by parents or legal guardians who will have the bests interests of their children at heart. I don’t think anyone disputes this either. Those children and the families making decisions for them are really, really diverse. So why do we keep trying to produce national public policies on child-care that are one-size solutions?
Sometimes one-size fits all means everyone gets the same kind of choices for childcare.
Supply-side solutions look for ways to increase the number of spaces for children in quality childcare programs. For example, Quebec’s provincial childcare system provides all families with a regulated space in a childcare centre or in licensed homecare and regulates the out-of-pocket costs to parents. In a long-overdue move the province has started to tie that fee to household income. The 2005 federal-provincial agreement on childcare was similarly intended to increase the supply of regulated spaces in the rest of the country. All provinces in the country provide some financial support (from some combination of federal transfers and their own tax revenues) for the early learning and care services in their jurisdiction. In 2006-07, there was also a short-lived federal effort to look for recommendations to encourage employers to create more childcare spaces for their employees. That last effort ended quietly.
It’s not totally clear we have a supply-side problem when it comes to learning and care for kids. Our indicators on the supply of childcare in Canada are a bit problematic in that they exclude other options used by families like after-school recreational programs and homecare with too few clients to require a license.[2] What we do know is that there were 585,274 licensed spaces (in centres or licensed homecare) across Canada (outside Quebec), which makes it sound like as many as 85% of kids are going without childcare from infancy to middle school. In reality, we have to adjust that ratio to account for other factors like access to parental leave, private care arrangements and programs that may be high quality and developmental but fall outside provincial regulation. Furthermore, depending on the age of the child, between 40 and 60%[3] of families say they don’t use any daycare services (note the switch here to “daycare”) at all. How do they manage?  Well, probably through some combination of private arrangements, adjusting their work hours and relying on things like full-day kindergarten (where they can) and after-school recreational programs. When parents are asked what matters most to them when they choose their childcare, parents report that location, trust in the provider and affordability are, in descending order, their 3 primary criteria with location by far the most frequently-cited factor.[4] So, getting the supply-side right has to mean attention to a really wide range of types of care, the market price of that care and even the minutiae of where that care is physically located. That’s a tall order if you want to rely on just one policy instrument, no matter what that one instrument is.
Sometimes, one-size fits all means giving everyone the same financial support, regardless of need or ability to pay. This is when really strange things can happen.
Demand-side solutions look for ways to reduce the need for childcare or to subsidize the market price of that care. For example, all provinces outside of Quebec offer income-tested subsidies for licensed childcare services. Quebec did away with subsidies when it introduced its universal daycare plan which has led to an interesting puzzle: Among households who say they use childcare, Quebec households are more likely to say they pay $10 a day or less, but modest income households (making under $40,000/year) are significantly more likely to say they pay $0 out-of-pocket for that care if they live outside Quebec than inside Quebec.[5]  In short, swapping subsidies for flat fees seems to mean that costs for childcare are lower on average across all households but are actually higher for lower income households.
Federally, there are two key instruments intended to help families with the costs of childcare. The Child Care Expenses Deduction (CCED) lets parents deduct eligible out of pocket childcare costs, within certain limits. It was recently increased to $8,000 for each child under age 7 starting in the 2015 tax year. When the 2005 federal-provincial supply-side agreement on childcare was cancelled, the money was used to create a new flat cash transfer of $100 per month for each child under 6 years–the Universal Child Care Benefit (UCCB). Financing the UCCB also meant diverting money out of the income-tested Canada Child Tax Benefit system.[6] The UCCB was recently expanded so each child under 6 creates a flat entitlement to $160 per month and each child aged 6 to 18 years generates flat entitlement to $60.
The CCED and the UCCB are both responsive to parental income in some weird ways. The CCED has to be claimed by a working (or student) parent with the lower income and the UCCB is taxable in the hands of the lower income parent (regardless of their labour force activity).  Let’s take a simple case, where two parents in a household have equal incomes, or at least incomes in the same federal tax bracket. Figure 1 (below) shows the maximum federal benefit they could receive out of the CCED and UCCB for one child under 7 years of age in the 2015 tax year.
CCED and UCCB
The net effect is that direct federal demand-side support generally rises with household income. The UCCB purposefully pays the same amount, before taxes, no matter a household’s actual expenditure on learning and care.  The CCED lets families claim some tax relief only after they’ve spent the money on eligible forms of daycare–an approach that works far better if a family can afford the cashflow pressures in the interim and has enough tax liability get some real benefit out of a deduction.
Policy proposals that promise the same amount of money to all families, whether they are supply-side or demand-side solutions, are politically attractive. They make for nice pithy bumper-sticker commitments that are easy to communicate. But they come with real problems because neither is able to adjust to the needs and means of Canada’s diverse families. In either case, some strange things seem to happen.
Maybe the primary problem in the current childcare policy debate is that it has pitted families who use daycare against families who don’t. Families who use daycare are reduced to supporting a one-sized supply-side approach.  Families who don’t are reduced to supporting equally one-sized demand-side option instead.  In neither case does the debate acknowledge or respond to a more realistic range of preferences, needs and ability to pay.
What if instead, our starting point was that:

  1. Childcare is what all families provide for their kids.
  2. All of those kids need learning and care.
  3. Many, but not all families meet their kids’ needs for learning and care through daycare.
  4. Different families will have different demands for early learning and care in their community.
  5. Different families will have different abilities to pay and out of pocket costs.

 
There are lots of different levers that could be used on the family policy front and it’s time they started to be used in more nuanced, integrated ways.  This route doesn’t lead to simple policy solutions of $X per day or $X per month. Maybe we’ll just have to start making some bigger bumper-stickers.

Jennifer Robson is an Assistant Professor at Carleton’s School of Political Management. Contact her at jennifer.robson[at]carleton.ca

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