Thoughts on the Liberals and Alberta

Michael Ignatieff has made it clear that he wants to lead a resurgence of the Liberal Party in Western Canada. He believes correctly that the policies of the Liberal Party will resonate in the West

Rick Szostak spent several months door-knocking as the Liberal candidate in Edmonton-Sherwood Park during 2008. He was repeatedly told that people liked what he said but would not vote for the Liberal Party. This experience provides the genesis for this series of web pages. Rick Szostak and Michael Ignatieff Rick feels that with the careful articulation of the right set of Liberal values, the Liberal Party can do very well in Western Canada. And he feels that the Liberal Party needs to do much better in Western Canada if it is form a true national government.

As a Liberal, Rick is dedicated to fiscal responsibility and effective stewardship of government funds. He is also committed to a much cleaner environment, the steady elimination of poverty at home and abroad, and enhanced consumer and shareholder protection. He met thousands of voters who share these values.

Rick would like to hear from others about these ideas. Email your comments to contact@rickszostak.ca and we will put these on the website (subject to a light-handed editorial control)

Rick's proposals are grouped around core ethical values. This reflects both his experience as an ethicist and his belief that these core values motivate today's Liberal Party.

Ethics in General

Liberal candidates need to identify their own unique ways of making a credible commitment to ethical behaviour. They must recognize the danger that citizens will be sceptical. They must be willing to proclaim that they have a set of ethical beliefs, that they have reflected a great deal on ethical issues, and that they are committed to ethical behaviour.

More specifically, we must move past generalities to speak to a set of values that are shared by the vast majority of Canadians: honesty, personal and social responsibility, prudence, respect, open-mindedness, and compassion..

Last but not least we must institutionalize this commitment to ethics in important ways, including:

By strengthening whistle blower protection in the federal government so that civil servants feel free to expose wrongdoing by others.
By ensuring that at least some of the key recommendations of the Gomery Report, ignored by the Conservatives, are either implemented or at least freely debated in the House of Commons. We can reap some rewards from Paul Martin's gutsy decision to establish the Gomery Commission. We have much to gain by taking steps to ensure that government spending is properly regulated and accounted for..

Personal Responsibility

The primary goal of public policy should be to allow all Canadians to live a productive and fulfilling life. This should be the core standard by which all public policies are evaluated.

Of all the elements of the 2008 Liberal platform, the one that resonated most with voters in Edmonton-Sherwood Park was the idea of tax credits for working Canadians. The idea of leaving more money in the pockets of Canadians taking entry-level jobs is simultaneously sound public policy and good for social justice. It encourages people to leave social assistance. Rick Szostak In entering the work force they become eligible for promotion into better and better jobs. Many small businesses were at the time struggling to find entry level workers, and this initiative would help them too.

Social and personal responsibility are complements, not substitutes. We all wish to take care of our families and ourselves. Almost all of us recognize responsibilities beyond these. Indeed I can hardly help my children to read without my heart going out to children who lack parents able or willing to help them. My goal in aiding others is to help get them to a place where they can look after themselves and their families and in turn contribute to the wider society. How many of us can honestly claim that we have not been helped along the way by parents or mentors or friends or even strangers who gave us support or encouragement when we needed it?

Balance in providing just the right sort of help must be found. Government bureaucracies are often not nimble enough to do so. We should also be open to provision of services by non-governmental agencies as long as we can carefully monitor the quality of services provided. We want to strike the best balance between fairness and innovation.

Rick's training as an economist leads him to focus on incentives. We want to provide people not only with the ability but also with the incentive to look after themselves and their families: to reward individuals for working, caring for their children or parents, and volunteering.

Policies that flow from this emphasis on personal responsibility include:

tax credits for working Canadians
reducing the drawback of in-kind benefits that are associated with moving off social assistance
workfare rather than welfare
expanded drug rehabilitation programs
quality daycare so that single parents especially can support their families, while their children are cared for in a way that prepares them for a fulfilling life
housing the homeless and providing counselling tailored to their individual needs
making it easier for aboriginal Canadians to move toward economic opportunities and to start businesses on reserves
supporting programs to offer low-cost banking services to the poorest Canadians
increasing the tax credit for charitable donations

Often these programs can save more money than they cost. Moving individuals off welfare into the workforce generates savings. Treating the homeless in emergency wards or jails is much more expensive than providing decent shelter.

Responsibility for the Future

There is no magic formula for maintaining economic prosperity but rather a set of useful strategies:

Making sure we have a safe financial system that directs savings toward the most profitable opportunities. We should work, with the provinces if possible, to enhance our poor international reputation in policing corporate fraud, while strengthening other aspects of financial regulation which do serve us well
Encouraging global trade liberalization in general while respecting the need for environmental and labour protection
Ensuring healthy competition within and between economies. We should be leading the charge to reduce inter-provincial trade barriers
Facilitating the movement of labour and capital from declining to growing sectors
Moving the unemployed into the work force
Providing training options for all unemployed Canadians, not just those on assistance
Encouraging scientific research
Encouraging certain types of technological research. Subsidies for environmental technologies make both economic and environmental sense
Ensuring that we have the necessary transport, education, and health infrastructure to achieve our goals
Ensuring that governments do what governments do best and markets do what markets do best
Targeting infrastructure investment and other irregular forms of government spending on periods of downturn in the private economy, such as the present
Accumulating large surpluses during good times so that governments have fiscal flexibility during bad times. The government of Canada should be moving more quickly in expanding infrastructure spending, and expanding the range of expenditures into such areas as homes for the homeless. This policy is doubly prudent: it borrows against already committed future spending in order to create jobs, while ensuring that needed infrastructure is built when it is the most economical to do so.
Urging the central bank to keep interest rates low, even after the present crisis ends

Progressive Prudence

Prudence in managing government spending is best achieved by a party that appreciates that governments have a powerful role to play in society but that governments are not perfect. Liberals have the most powerful incentive to ensure that government programs are as efficient as possible.

Prudent policies include:

Parliamentary committees should be mandated to review in detail all government programs. Ministers and senior civil servants should be prepared to defend each expenditure. Expenditures that cannot be defended should be eliminated.
We need better score-keeping with respect to the reports of the Auditor-General. Every year a host of inefficiencies are uncovered. Have governments succeeded in eliminating previously noted problems? Canadians have no easy way of knowing whether this is so. The Auditor-General should answer this question clearly and succinctly.
External efficiency experts should review government programs.
The Parliamentary Budget Office should be made truly independent of the government.
The work of civil servants should be celebrated. A frontal attack on waste should not be confused with a frontal attack on those that serve us. We need to highlight their successes.
Canadians should be provided with better information on how their tax dollars are spent. Most Canadians do not fully appreciate how much of their tax dollars goes toward debt payments or transfers to provinces. This information would help taxpayers to understand that they are getting their money's worth.
We should regulate financial institutions so that among other things only a small proportion of their assets can be devoted to any novel financial instrument
We need better information systems in health care. These can immediately deliver better patient care as health care workers have ready access to a patient's medical history. They also create the potential for better identification of medical interventions that do no or little good at considerable expense.
While we are attacking waste in government we should also alter our business regulations to increase corporate democracy, reform abuses of executive bonuses, and enhance competition

These policies free up not just funds but public support for new government policies. If we are credible in our evaluation of programs and attack on waste then voters will embrace new programs such as:

Pharmacare. Not only is this a natural extension of Medicare but as with many other programs it contains important cost savings: patients without drug plans at present may resist being discharged from hospital in order to continue getting drugs without paying out of pocket. Moreover total expenditures on drugs in Canada should decrease with Pharmacare because the government can better negotiate with drug companies. Administrative costs will also fall in total. The government should also insist that drugs only be prescribed when there is clear and unbiased evidence that the drug alleviates the patient's condition. Our drug approval process should in any case be improved to enhance consumer protection.
Training more doctors and nurses (as promised in 2008), and ensuring these are available where they are needed
Workfare. In the short run it is more expensive to provide people with jobs than with handouts. In the long run this is likely not the case. Workfare, if properly administered, erases concerns that those on public assistance are abusing the system. Workfare can be a powerful poverty reduction program.
Other poverty reduction initiatives, such as the tax credits for the working poor proposed by Liberals in 2008.
Programs in the education area that increase high school completion rates and ease the financial burden of post-secondary education. We can, for example, forgive student loans for graduates who either do not obtain high-paying jobs or who agree to take on designated jobs with a high social value. We can also, as promised in 2008, delay the payback period for a couple of years. The long run benefits of a more educated population likely outweigh the short run costs.
Early childhood education for at-risk children can provide them with basic literacy and numeracy skills so that they do not start school at a powerful disadvantage. The long run benefits of such programs are likely huge. They increase the productivity of our population, and also encourage better health outcomes.
Subsidies for environmental technology development and use. While much environmental policy can have a positive impact on government revenue (by placing fines on polluters), we also want the financial freedom to be able to pay as appropriate for environmental enhancement (including increasing the budgets of our National Parks).
Increased support for the disabled, making disability benefits comparable to seniors' benefits
Public art. Sculptures, mosaics, subsidies for architectural innovation, and public performances of music and dance: we can and should support artistic activities that are experienced by the whole population.

It cannot be stressed too much that the policies proposed above combine the best of fiscal responsibility and social justice. It is this combination that the vast majority of Canadians want. And we are the only party that can credibly deliver it. The present Conservative Party cannot credibly commit to social justice, and the present New Democratic Party cannot credibly commit to fiscal responsibility. It is doing both in concert that is the strength of the Liberal Party.

Courage

Rick's commitment is this:

If the majority of experts and the majority of Canadians support a particular policy, it should be instituted over the objections of a vocal minority.

To be sure, the government must still evaluate the policy on its merits, querying the claims of experts, and seeking common ground that satisfies objections without sacrificing the public good. Nevertheless, if the Rick Szostak above principle is firmly established in the public mind, then the political calculation changes: some of those who suffer a little from bad policy will vote for the display of courage that good policy entails. This result is particularly likely if packages of courageous policies are presented to the public. We may all find ourselves in the vocal minority from time to time, but can still appreciate the general advantage of policies that serve the overall public good.

We will not win seats in Western Canada by throwing money at it but by credibly promising not to throw western tax dollars at others.

Courage is also called for in pursuing policies with benefits beyond the electoral cycle. Early childhood development programs by their nature have benefits decades down the road. Dealing with foetal alcohol syndrome is similar in this respect. It may take many years before improved medical information systems yield financial savings. In all these cases, political leaders need to raise public awareness of these future benefits.

Reason

Rick was greeted with respect and kindness almost universally by the voters of Edmonton-Sherwood Park. Rick's constituents displayed ('lived' is an even better word) a commitment to respectful and open political discourse. They often bemoaned the fact that our elected officials could not have the sort of reasoned conversation we had on their doorsteps. We need to do two things. First we need to advertise a commitment to reasoned discourse, and then behave in accord with that commitment. Second, we need to establish institutional structures in Parliament and beyond that will reward reasoned discourse.