Budgets in Public Enterprise

Imagine a world where public enterprise, ie government, constantly consulted we the people to determine our needs and how effectively those needs are being met by both private and public enterprise.  For each of these needs to be met, we require application of various resources.  Each of those resources bears a cost that can be measured in monetary value.  This will result in two required expenditures, capital expenses and operating expenses.  Capital expenses might be defined as future expenses as the resulting capital resources are used up in delivery of service beyond the current fiscal year.  Operating expenses represent resources used up during the current fiscal year.

Seems pretty straightforward.

Now as a democratic society we the people elect, or hire, people to manage the accumulation and delivery of resources.  This accumulation will almost certainly entail taxation of ourselves.  It might also include monetary assets that creation bestowed upon us, some of which are re-bestowed perhaps annually, some of which are used up then are gone forever. 

Okay, this is a broad picture of our situation. 

Some electees will be more capable, as in more effective, than others and that’s why we have elections.  No matter who the electees are we have a right to expect a careful identification and measure of need and a careful application, budgeting, of resources to meet that need.  The resources will be a combination of items - buildings, tools and the like, and human capacity in the form of trained and knowledgeable folks.

We always expect effectiveness, the needs must be met or there is no point in the expenditure of resources at all.  Efficiency is therefore not simply a measure of cost, it is a measure of cost while successfully and responsibly meeting needs.  Greater efficiency is achieved by using fewer resources while continuing to adequately meet need.  Greater efficiency is not achieved by simply using fewer resources. 

When both the determination of need and the determination of application of resources to meet that need are done transparently to we the people, we can then make knowledgeable decisions about both the urgency of the need and our electoral choice in whom we wish to govern the application of resources.

When these determinations are not made transparently, we are left guessing what’s going on.  Then we can only infer through past association with the electees whether the stories they tell about both the character and size of need and the application of resources to meet it, that the process of making these determinations have been made in some manner we can judge to be satisfactory. 

If the electees one day announce that steadily fewer and fewer resources, per person, are required to meet need, we really need to see and understand how that determination was made.  If that’s not forthcoming we must wonder if some other agenda than ours is at play. 

Why so?  Well if fewer resources are budgeted for, that must mean someone has found a way to deliver the required service more efficiently, of course while continuing to be effective.  The alternative must be that the electees have decided to not meet our needs effectively.

If less human capacity, ie fewer people, is budgeted for, that must mean those people work with a new delivery model that enables them to serve more people within the same human hours.  Thus some part of the management of the service of human capacity will be able to explain and describe the details of those improvements. 

In both cases without these analyses being available to we the people, we might suspect the resources of things were not being applied effectively with a portion being wasted.  We might also suspect the human capacity was over delivering.  If that cannot be demonstrated clearly, then what was the purpose of the reduction in application of resources of things and human capacity?

Perhaps our electees have decided that we the people do not understand our own needs and are overstating those needs.  Yet we know only each of us can define what quality we expect for our respective lives.  Not only that, a team of dedicated researchers at McGill conclusively proved this is so.  Thus to reduce our access to the resources before our needs are met is the exact opposite of effective government. 

We the people require a needs determination infrastructure that we can use to express our needs as they arise.  We require this infrastructure as it can enable us to hold people accountable, including ourselves, as we determine the degree of success achieved in meeting our needs.  Needs will then be transparently defined, leaving no one out, while clearly and understandably presenting those needs to all those who would wish to help us meet them.

We then require effective needs meeting service to be enabled and delivered and to have that done efficiently.  We need to identify and describe organisation and structure of service delivery to determine when agendas other than our own are being served. 

In conclusion, we must get real and voice our needs for politicians and others to meaningfully respond.  Then we must have our politicians get real, listen to us and serve our respective needs agendas, no one else’s.

Mike Klein December 9, 2019

Necessity of Due Care and Attention

He didn’t mean to dishonour the memories of Canadian soldiers who defended Canada through wars.  But, let’s see.

Mr. Cherry made a rather moving video of his visit to Flanders Fields to walk among the poppies looking at the crosses row on row.  He truly, in measured tones, honoured our soldiers. 

But then, after the first period in the tv broadcast of a hockey game, in his show “Coaches Corner” he attacked “you people” clearly referring to immigrants enjoying our milk and honey, our way of life.  Interestingly in both WWI and WWII, Canada’s shores were never under real direct threat of invasion.  Our soldiers who died mostly died overseas defending others and thereby defending all humanity. 

As Mr. Law of Ottawa put it in a Facebook post, “In November, I have always worn a #poppy. Why? To honour those whose sacrifices gave me the liberty to decide if I will - or will not - wear a poppy.”

I don’t know why some won’t wear one, but THEIR FREEDOM is just as the same as mine, #DonCherry. That’s what the fallen gave us.

But ex-NHL coach Cherry has random rants with slurs on other players, Europeans for wearing protective gear and not engaging in hearty fisty cuffs, when he asserts all this bravado and violence is just part of the emotional game.  Then we find high incidence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy and our hockey heros are dying of a horrible brain disease contracted for our entertainment.  Doesn’t say too many good things about us either.

Ex-coach Cherry has been in hockey broadcast for thirty-eight years.  As a broadcaster, I assume it’s his obligation to handle his communication with all the finesse he would expect a player to use in handling a puck with a stick.  Yet he has made it his schtick to do the exact opposite, sounding more like the stereotypical bully and beer leaguer in the beer hall, waxing loudly in the pub after the game.  You know the style, wisecracking ever more irreverently to gain a laugh.  Beer leaguers are almost always good neighbours, family men, employees and employers in their private lives, but with the audience of a pub, often one of them can be different person.

His actual claim to fame was having the great good luck to be the flamboyant coach of the Bruins with one Mr. Orr playing on that team. He earned success in winning Lord Stanley’s Cup as head coach.

I recall Scotty Bowman having some success as head coach in the NHL.  I recall he being a different role model, even though he had considerable success. But would Mr. Bowman have had a flair for television?  Perhaps not.

As I think about the current Cherry controversy, I am reminded of what I view as an apt automobile driving analogy.  We used to have a traffic law in Saskatchewan we referred to as “driving without due care and attention”.  This is probably the starting point of a continuum that I, a non-lawyer, think ends with criminal negligence causing death.

So when I lane wander because I have not driven with due care and attention as I drive along the highway and nothing comes of it, it’s all good.  So I run over a bus with a hockey team in it, death comes of it, it’s all very bad. Same lack of care and attention, massively different outcomes.  Maybe a lane wander incident is actually always very, very bad.

So Mr. Cherry, from his broadcaster’s pulpit, decides to loudly judge people who do not wear poppies without considering that important symbolic practice has perhaps not yet become part of their new Canadian identity for them; or it has fallen off.  He is clearly being critical of “the other”, marking them as people who somehow do not count.. But it’s all part of his schtick.  He does make the point that we must all honour our protectors.  On balance it’s a bit like getting away with driving without due care and attention, so not a big deal.  Then somebody murders a group of people in a classroom or house of worship.  Now ... is the blurter of slurs against the other aiding, abetting and enabling hate crime in the form of mass murder?  I guess time might tell.  We do know it is certainly not “all good”.

Michael Klein

Note: David Law blogs at: https://davidkeithlaw.wordpress.com/ .

All Candidate Events In Canada

All Candidates Events for Your Campaign
(This is a response to a "how to"query from campaign organisers)

The following is a suggestion on how to trigger organisation of the delivery of all candidate events.

Situation
1. The people of your riding have a need, even a responsibility, to meet every candidate as each of them deliberates making their respective choice on the ballot. 

2. The political strategists of the known incumbent, the perceived front-runner, are not motivated to have that happen as that threatens their advantage of the high name recognition of their candidate.  Strategically speaking, they have everything to lose by participating in all candidate events.

3. Community associations may have met the incumbent who may have been supportive of community association endeavours.  Community associations may be afraid of upsetting the status quo because they are typically under-resourced in terms of both people and money.  They are naturally reluctant to take the chance of upsetting the incumbent as that threatens access to both volunteers and money.

4. There are a number of news media sources serving your riding.  A careful internet search will produce a roster that goes beyond the big players, into smaller, niche players who may be more relevant to many of the people in the riding.

5. The time frame is often short and the strategy for organising events must reflect that urgency.

Suggestion for your team
1. Take the lead in setting up all candidates events.

2. Search the Elections Canada website to be sure you have every registered candidate.  Contact every campaign in the riding to invite them to help organise, or at least participate in all candidate events.  It’s critical every campaign be contacted.  The initial contact to each candidate’s campaign should be one to one.  In each case, let the campaigns know you will be emailing to all campaigns, media and venue organisations simultaneously to allow for more efficient planning and coordination.

3. Print the list of candidate using the Elections Canada print function to ensure you have the Elections Canada logo on the list.  In the normal course of campaigning, ie door-knocking, public space meeting with commuters, show people the list of candidates and ask if they know each of them and if they feel they have the right to meet each candidate on that list.  Does each person think all candidate events are a good, even necessary service to them in making their voting decisions?  At least some will.  Ask them to express that opinion in their own words and would they be willing to be quoted.  If so, include those quotes in future communications being used to persuade people to help realise all candidate events.

4. Contact every community association in the riding to invite them to offer space for, or better yet, to host such events.

5. Contact every school in the riding to invite them to offer space for or host such events, thereby also offering access to the political process for their students.  Search for other venues that have space which might be used for events; think shopping centres, vacant buildings, warehouses, any space you can think of.

6. Contact every news media outlet you find, including bloggers, Facebook Groups, to alert them to the need to meet the candidates expressed by the people of your riding.  Keep them up-to-date on the developments.  Ask them to urge people to support the initiative to hold all candidate events.

7. Start urging all candidates and all news media by using a bulk email message to all of them simultaneously.  Do not use bcc.  Stay positive.  Never corner any candidate into holding ground by quoting their refusal to participate.  Always leave the door open for them to explain themselves. For instance they may say it took a while to get their logistics to work as their candidate is so busy with a pre-planned campaign.

8..Keep going until events begin to happen. 

9. Allow others - schools, community associations, trade associations, cultural clubs etc - to take the lead and be the sponsors of any events.  Do no take credit for organising any event if someone else wishes to take that credit as community associations often do.

10. Most importantly, be respectful to every single person, even if, in fact especially when, they might not be respectful to you.

Good Luck !!

Michael Klein

Not Safe for Children

Is Canada’s Fourth Pillar of Democracy Safe For Children

Re: Trudeau controls waiver of cabinet confidentiality on SNC-Lavalin (The Globe and Mail September 13, 2019)

In this piece about cabinet confidentiality, Messers Fife and LeBlanc suggest in their carefully constructed reporting of the words of retired Justice Gomery and Professor Savoie that these two eminent Canadians support the false equivalency in the decision making about cabinet confidentiality as it applies to the two cases, the SNC Lavalin controversy and the AdScam sponsorship scandal.

However, in the case of AdScam, some people were actually engaged in criminal activity as they misappropriated public dollars with very poor or no government control over those transactions. Cabinet confidentiality could lead to possible obstruction of justice in prosecution of the matter.

In the case of the SNC Lavalin controversy, there was never any legitimate allegation of criminal activity by SNC Lavalin or the Government in their dealings with each other.  Therefore the only matters being held confidential are those of Privy Council activities and deliberations which are always held confidential. 

The only highly questionable allegation made against this Cabinet was a smear perpetrated by opposition MP’s who were successful in using media outlets, such as The Globe and Mail, as a fax machine from their propaganda room to the Canadian public.

Now I wonder if that itself is not in violation of the criminal code.  I don’t have legal counsel on staff nor am I an experienced journalist, so I don’t know.

In any case, the upshot of this is that I will not allow children in my care to read any part of Canada’s major daily news services without adult supervision because I believe the example set throughout the SNC Lavalin controversy is not in keeping with a pillar charged with supporting a democratic society.

Michael Klein

Boeing, Who Is Your Customer?

TQM Matters so we must ask, “Boeing 737 Max, what is it?”.

Interesting discussion in the Globe and Mail provides context about the interaction between corporate culture and quality production.

 (link: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/commentary/article-can-corporate-culture-be-blamed-for-errors-at-boeing/?utm_medium=Newsletter&utm_source=Top%20Business%20Headlines&utm_type=text&utm_content=TopBusiness&utm_campaign=2019-7-19_17&cu_id=duF4Be0wsCfC2EFDKe%2BaydZcn7xjnYRB )

So the first thought I had was about Total Quality Management, management of quality through quality of management.  TQM is a movement that really took hold in the 1970's.  The startling outcomes include the sharp market ascendency of Japanese automakers Honda, Toyota in the North American market.  This was a market wherein the Japanese automakers were previously given no chance of meaningful penetration.  Now, some 45 years later, we know them to be a given part of the North American automotive landscape as market leaders and forces to be reckoned with. 

How did this come about?  Mostly because of TQM.  They became well-known for solid, dependable, and therefore low total cost of ownership automobiles that drove well and comfortably with refined styling.  What do you know, consumers cared about such stuff!

There were and are many TQM theorists complete with their own implementation programs.  My favourite was Philip Crosby of  “Zero Defects” fame.  I came to understand his theory in two different ways.  First, define quality of product and understand that quality is dependent upon quality of management of productive processes.  So, quality of product must be part and parcel with quality of management.  Second, I think Zero Defects drives the qualitative definition of the outcome of production processes.  If a unit of output is defined, specified, and the output in any way does not comply with that definition, specification, can it be said to be one of the units successfully produced?  I think it cannot.  It is a defect.  Therefore never stop looking for all and any ways of eliminating defects however these might be defined.

Now we have the example of the Boeing 737 Max, grounded because it cannot be trusted to fly and land safely.  Is the Boeing 737 Max an aircraft?  Not by my definition.  I don’t know what it is besides an assemblage of various materials, but it clearly is not an aircraft. You see, my specification for an aircraft includes the ability to take-off, fly and land safely, thereby providing a service to users, the passengers.

This is an important distinction.  The closest these crafts can come to being considered Boeing inventory, for example, is as inventory of work in progress.  Some might consider even that to be a generous definition if it becomes obvious that the design and engineering flaws indicate they could never be trusted to take off, fly and land safely.  They would then be simply costly junk.

It seems to me the entire process from determining need for a new design through to delivery and use needs review for effectiveness.  That means the production processes of design, factory engineering, plane engineering, plane production and delivery must be reviewed in detail. 

I suspect Mr. Sorscher, cited in the article linked above, is correct as he at least represents people working at Boeing.  He is in a position to know the details of the work there and is also in a position to understand the impact of those details on product quality.  Boeing indeed operated with a total quality culture and apparently no longer does.  That suggests a change in the C-suite’s culture from one of product quality to one of balance sheet quality.  Product quality can lead to balance sheet quality, balance sheet quality has no direct causal relationship to lead to product quality. 

Corporate culture includes every person in the society of the workplace.  TQM unites these people in common cause, teamwork.  If C-suite decisions have abandoned product quality as Job 1, then corporate culture is built on something else, perhaps cost-cutting.  This suggests that every productive employee might then be focussed on costs, something over which they have little control, instead of producing quality components, something over which they have much control.  In fact, costs can be totally eliminating by not attempting to produce anything.

I see the balance sheet as the aggregate of all the details that went into generating operating income over a given time period, implementing capital budget strategies and realizing investment policies.  All these details are important as they are the transactions, the basic units of business activity, that form the balance sheet.  For Boeing, producing and selling aircraft that take-off, fly and land safely is a significant part of that and has a significant impact on its balance sheet.

Trouble is, now Boeing is adjusting its projected sales, adjusting its current sales as sales are cancelled and I suggest might be adjusting its balance sheet to reflect the reduced value of finished goods inventory.  Its balance sheet is crumbling.

This might be Boeing’s Edsel moment.  Ford was so disturbed by its Edsel moment that it launched a research project that eventually generated a whole new class of automobile.  Ford wanted to know what purposes people wanted to serve through automobile ownership and use.  Interestingly, Ford then abandoned that research with the result that it was Chrysler who developed and sold the mini-van, creating the means to serve that newly identified market demand.

So, Boeing 737 Max, what is it?  Good question.  After two crashes resulting in heart wrenching loss of life and wreckage of families and workplaces as employees died, maybe it’s not an aircraft.  Lets hope the 737 Max is the spark that creates a new Boeing.

Enabling Cultural Dichotomy

Climate Dichotomy

my critical response to “Global Warming for the Two Cultures” - Richard Lindzen
available at :
https://www.thegwpf.org/richard-lindzen-global-warming-for-the-two-cultures/

Thank you Phil Prince of www.SeekingObjectivity.ca for bringing Professor Lindzen’s speech to my attention.

Professor Lindzen makes the point that there are two cultural views underlying debate over what to do about man-made climate change.

He describes the complex science issues at play in thermal and fluid dynamics that characterise atmospheric studies.  Taken individually, each of these factors of heat, heat transfer, motion, energy, gravity, sunlight spectrum, pressure, mathematics, chemical composition, time, logic, language, communications, education, human behaviour, political power, history, represent specialties in scientific studies complex enough to warrant sub-fields within each of them.

This complexity is important.  When people add information and communication technology to their effort to model weather and climate to be able to forecast events, the complexity is made that much greater because every complex sub-system multiplies the complexity of the whole system.  The complexity makes it very difficult to accurately model climate and weather systems.  Difficult should not stop us from trying, but it is difficult.

Professor Lindzen makes that point quite well.

He then segregates the climate-concerned population into two groups each identified by its own culture.  Paraphrasing, one group is comprised of climate change sceptics who think the amount of change is a) overestimated and b) doubt it’s appropriate to credit human activity for any of the change.  The other group is convinced a) there is climate change and b) a significant amount of it can only be credited to human activity.  He argues that because we have incomplete knowledge of the factors driving climate variability, he must be on the side of the sceptics. 

He then goes on to argue that the sceptics are blessed with innate and intuitive understanding that the climate is not changing and any change is certainly not because of human activity.  Therefore preventative and mitigative measures we might undertake are simply expensive fool’s errands.  He further argues that the other group is populated with those who pursue preventive and mitigative measures do so out of ulterior motives. 

My Conclusion
He passes judgement on the people, blessing or cursing, using incomplete understanding of human affairs, including how humans think and act.  In fact both groups can plausibly be charged with their judgement being influenced by ulterior motives, on the one hand protection of their incomes in the status quo, on the other hand protection of their future income prospects through creation of new job opportunities.

He avoids using a basic risk analysis that asks what are the possible outcomes of each strategy, doing something or doing nothing, given that one or the other is correct.

If the sceptics are correct and we do something, we certainly will have economic and perhaps social disruption and have to add transition from our current economic and social situation to our efforts, all of which, of course, being done without complete knowledge and understanding.  We may also find we can use this opportunity to greatly drive efficiency in energy usage, which is always a positive feature, even though it will possibly have some disruptive effect on the economy and society.

If the sceptics are incorrect and we do something, we may not succeed but we might have at least tried to prevent mass extinction of all species including our own.  Again, we will be doing this with incomplete knowledge and understanding.

Furthermore, what human endeavour has ever been undertaken with complete knowledge and understanding?

Lastly, we waste collective time and energy by passing moral judgement on one or the other group.  Passing moral judgement on each other serves no useful purpose at all and in fact only creates opportunities for those power seekers who would exploit that division for their own ends.

I don’t feel Professor Lindzen’s speech used his credentials in natural sciences to increase our understanding of the underlying natural science.  Rather the point of his speech seems to have been based on humanities and social sciences in neither of which does he have recognized credentials.  While describing his understanding of the social divide over the issue, he does not offer an answer to the underlying climate question, but further divides humans over the issue.

It seems a significant educational effort is critical for understanding both the natural world and each other.

Michael Klein June 23, 2019

Demand Driven Economy

Demand Driven Economy

Democratic society must have a demand driven economy.  The economy is the measure of activity serving the members of our democratic society.  As democrats we believe every person counts, matters and must be respected.  Therefore every person’s needs are paramount.  Very high bar perhaps, but that is nonetheless the point expressed by equality before the law.

On top of that, students of business know that a business with productive capacity to serve no demand has no purpose and is therefore doomed.

We have interesting industry examples which perhaps may be contrasted only by scale, some are one-to-one services such as dentists, lawyers, doctors, barbers and so on.  Others are one to many services such as banks, electrical utilities, automobiles, telephones, and so on.  In every case, there must be adequate demand for the business to exist and remain viable.

So I argue for an economic rethink, wherein demand leads creation and delivery of productive activity.  Currently, our industrial sectors have come a long way from Henry Ford’s famous suggestion, “You can have any color so long as it is black.’ 

We have supply side developments. 

Focus groups were started to figure out which option the firm should produce, which would be most likely to spread out the cost of overhead to make it as small as possible per unit of output.

We had mobility research done by Ford Motor Company in response to the Edsel which met total lack of demand.  Mr. Lee Iacocca included that research package and its outcomes in his severance package when he left Ford.  That research was a breakthrough in that it asked open-ended questions about people’s expectations for mobility machines. The result was Mr. Iacocca started the production of minivans in setting a supply specification to meet Chrysler’s interpretation of that demand specification.  Seems it was pretty close.

Even then, it took until the Financial Crisis of 2007 through 2009 to train automakers to not download their overproduction onto their dealership networks.

We now have terms like “patient-centred”, “user-centric” and other terms to suggest the supplier is focused on the needs of the end user.  Interestingly, the 1960 approach of open-ended research is still not the default user specification setting model.  For instance, check out the terms and conditions of use, privacy policy statements and other one-sided lengthy legal documents to which users are expected to simply, “Agree” or “Don’t Agree”, “Yes” or “No”.  Is it any wonder Ann Cavoukian’s institute promoting Privacy By Design has the importance it has?

So yes, we do need demand to lead our economic development, but we have a long way to go.

Michael Klein March 25, 2019

Trust is maintained by Transparency

Globe editorial: The SNC-Lavalin saga won’t end until the whole story comes out
The Globe and Mail March 22, 2019

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/editorials/article-globe-editorial-the-snc-lavalin-saga-wont-end-until-the-whole-story/?utm_medium=Newsletter&utm_source=Globe%20Opinion&utm_type=text&utm_content=GlobeOpinion&utm_campaign=2019-3-23_17&cu_id=duF4Be0wsCfC2EFDKe%2BaydZcn7xjnYRB 

Interesting headline and conclusion for the editors of the Globe and Mail.

The machinations, hypotheses etc. are obviously interesting as they are selling ink and air time.  My particular interest, however, lies in transparency in the carrying on business of the people’s government.  Alas that has never been how our governments have acted.

Suppose a firm, e.g. SNC Lavalin, came forward in pursuit of a ruling for a Delayed Prosecution Agreement.  As Kim Campbell so ably pointed out, prosecution was going to happen even with a DPA, what the firm was pursuing was merely a matter of timing. 

What if the opening discussion had been held in the public eye?  What if the firm was asked to specify exactly which factors to its case it felt must be confidential?  What if the firm had to make a case for confidentiality for each factor separately?  What if the firm then had to make a case for confidentiality of the matter as a whole?

What if there was a government test for confidentiality required because the default procedure was to have everything done in public?  Exceptions might be made for only those factors not already in the public domain and not germane to the process of administration of justice which would do additional harm.

Had the government’s default position been to carry on its business in public, imagine the case in hand, namely SNC Lavalin and the DPA.   

What information and opinion would we have formed regarding all the characters in this story?

Would the Loyal Opposition would have been better able to carry out its duties as part of the public process? 

I think this case proves the point that we would be far better served where government business is by default carried on in public.

Indeed, the whole story would have come out as it unfolded, rather than through interpretations and misinterpretations after the fact and we would have a much more fulsome understanding of the issues considered in setting and carrying out policy. 

Michael Klein March 24, 2019

Trust - Processes

The Government of Canada & SNC Lavalin

We have a situation where wild allegations are flying, expressed with anger and resentment in terms of self-righteous indignation.

That suggests to me a system failure.

With my cursory look at the stuff coming out, I think I see at least a difference of style, certainly a difference of expectations about how the process should unfold.

I assert all efforts were made with best of intentions, even including the original writing of the statute within a budget omnibus bill.  I suspect a need was seen to be addressed rather urgently, hence the format of including the statute within a budget bill. 

I suspect no record was made of considerations of operating procedures required to realize the intent of the statute.  Thus I further suspect no procedural rules were included, that is no standard operating procedure with sequential tasks for delivery. 

That means at the time of the first test case for the statute, the sitting Justice Minister had to come up with those procedures with the hope they would meet the eventual court challenges.  The Minister, as our government has done since Confederation, was assumed to know how to craft these processes without consulting other ministries or anyone else, unless the Minister chose too.  This would be treated much like experiential learning, where the work would be completed and eventually tested in court.

Additionally we have a Prime Minister with a set of expectations and a Justice Minister with another set of expectations about the style and manner of doing government business. 

Each of these people face respective sets of challenges, which are probably not the same for each.  They then proceed to try to meet their own challenges by working together.  Having two sets of perspectives is highly likely to create miscommunication.  If this situation is not managed carefully, it can easily lead to frustration and eventually hard feelings. 

However, this is all taking place in the world of big P politics.  There is an election looming.  When parties opposing the incumbent in this election hear of disharmony in the government, there is a tendency to put it all into as bad a light as possible, complete with personal attacks.  Of course the people accusing, simply by virtue of being accusers, put themselves into the position of being holier than the accused.  The harsher the wording of the accusations, the more effective this becomes.

Interestingly, this is a case where the parties to the confrontation have not broken any laws.  This is not an actual scandal, but no actual scandal makes it hard to sell papers, so many political commentators have chimed in using the exact same terminology as the accusers. 

Now all that wall paper is making it look like we actually have a wall. 

I think all parties should take this opportunity, especially as there is no threat of jail time for any party wishing to co-operate fully, to re-examine the processes at play here.  The processes of intra-cabinet decision-making and the processes of applying and possibly amending the statute. 

Everyone seems to be “losing the plot”.  The plot is the democratic governance of Canadian society in the effective manner expected by Canadians.  Simply slinging allegations and counter allegations, seasoned with personal attacks, serves absolutely no useful purpose.

Let’s all get real here folks!

Michael Klein March 7, 2019

Trust - Cornerstone of Democracy

Democracy in Alberta

Individuals of voting age in Alberta face a conundrum in the coming election.  The issue, as always, is trust.  To whom do you entrust that part of your quality of life enabled and enhanced by government action?

Situation

The New Democrats were elected in 2015.  Many individuals were fed up with the Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta and the Wild Rose Party when they were seen to be in politics only for themselves. 

The WRP was formed to hold the long standing PCs to account for not paying attention to primacy of the individual and mostly following their own group think.  The PCs were seen as dogs in the manger, keeping government for themselves.  Most of the WRP MLAs had chosen to cross the floor and join the PCs in what was seen as a cynical move to get cozy with the levers of power and control of the economy.  There was clearly a mood to “throw the bums out”.

The NDs were organized and ready in every constituency with candidates nominated and ready to go. 

The Alberta Liberal Party and the Alberta Party were not as well organized and were not ready to form government.

The PCs and WRs were likewise ready with a slate of candidates.  After the ND were elected, the United Conservative Party was formed out of the grafting of the former Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta onto the Wild Rose Party. 

The Prospective Trustees

ND
The ND were for many people not knocking on doors and hearing the people talk, the surprise winners of the election.  People at the doors were expressing pure displeasure with the PCs and WR’s and looking for whoever could plausibly replace them.  With the NDs being the only obvious alternative in every constituency, they had to win.

The ND government now has a record for governance.  I don’t think even their opponents can justly say they have not overcome the terribly steep learning curve they faced and done so admirably well.  The are a known quantity.

UCP
The UCP then held its leadership election.  The process was contentious.  There were members who complained their eligibility to vote had been wrongfully denied.  It was reported the UCP had attempted an examination of the situation which they subsequently abandoned as it was decided there would not be enough challengeable votes to change the declared outcome.  This may well have been so.  Interestingly, voters deemed most likely to support the UCP were also deemed most likely to press for primacy of the individual.

ALP
The Alberta Liberal Party held a leadership election in 2017 to replace their interim leader. The vote count was also contentious.  Both candidates had members denied eligibility to vote, the declared winner reportedly had some eighty such and the declared loser reportedly had some two hundred such.  The Party never did engage in an outreach program respecting each and every individual member, whether that person was deemed eligible to vote and voted or not. 

The total number of votes counted was 1,671.  The total registered as vote turnout members 2,258.  The stories of eligible members being denied the right to vote is certainly plausible.  It’s also plausible that the declared winner did not actually win.  The reported percentages for each were 54.8 and 46.2, the difference then being 8.6.  8.6% of 1,671 is 144.  Thus the number of winning votes is not clear.  Reportedly an intra-party appeal was attempted, but it was denied.

AP
The Alberta Party has struggled to come up with a “manifesto” to define their philosophical principles.  I know they define themselves as centrist, between the ND and the UCP.  I know they are against whatever the UCP stands for and see themselves as the long term solution to political governance in Alberta. I know that in the main AP membership has come from the old PCs, former ALPs and others.

That group’s growing pains were made evident when five candidates were not allowed to participate in the Alberta election by virtue of late filing of their annual returns with Elections Alberta.  Unfortunately this number includes their leader.  That group’s handle on the process of governance is in question.

My Real Issue
However, believe it or not, I do not think the vote count question is per se the most important issue for both the UCP and ALP.  My most important issue was some apparently arbitrary eligibility determination, disrespecting the individual member attempting to exercise the democratic right to vote.  Additionally, as far as I am aware neither party has reached out to all their members, not only those disallowed from voting, but to others who might be wondering what kind of democratic organization they belong to.

My Political Stance
All four of these parties and the other even smaller political parties have yet to demonstrate their willingness to engage with individual Albertans as one of their founding principles.  None of these have produced any methodological process for gathering and transparently processing input from individuals in Alberta.

Alberta people are often proud of their belief in the primacy of the individual.  That any Alberta political party would deny this in practice does not fit.

Conclusion
The incumbent ND have a record of government that does demonstrate how they like to govern our society. 

The PCAA-WRP alliance in the guise of the UCP has a record of governance which was roundly rejected by Alberta voters in 2015.  One would think that would not be a good record to recommend to people and people might wonder what has changed. 

The UCP, ALP and AP have only their respective records of how they conduct their own affairs and how they include the interests of their own members to indicate how they might operate government.

Each of us in Alberta faces an interesting opportunity to define trust for ourselves and to exercise that trust at the ballot box.

Michael Klein, February 25, 2019