A Conservative report card

I've had occasion to read through the Conservative Policy Declaration, as amended by last month's convention, in some detail now, and I don't think I'd change much of what I said before. It isn't so much that the convention marked any radical turning point: it more confirmed the direction the party has been going in for much of the last four years. And it isn't so much what the document says -- though some of it is pretty hard to swallow -- as what it doesn't say. Anyway, here's a roundup by policy area, drawing together the good and the bad, with the requisite letter grade awarded in each. Democratic reform: B. There's a strong emphasis on Parliamentary accountability, the revival of such ancient and neglected traditions as ministerial responsibility, and of course free votes. Officers of Parliament such as the Auditor General and the Ethics Commissioner would be strengthened and made more independent. This is all good. Best of all was the pledge, ratified at the convention, to make Supreme Court appointments subject not only to the recommendation of the Commons Justice committee, but a free vote of Parliament. After that things get hazy. Senate reform is now limited to a promise to appoint those Senators chosen by the people of a province, but nothing terribly firm beyond that. As for more radical changes like electoral reform, fixed election dates, and referendums on important issues, the party now says only that it will "consider" these -- though they are increasingly the norm at the provincial level. The retreat on referendums is particularly disappointing: this is something of a litmus test for me. Citizenship and Rights: C+. Again, there's some good stuff here. There's an admirable statement of support for an independent judiciary -- though that should hardly need saying -- and the proposal for a judicial review committee to recommend to Parliament how it should respond to adverse Supreme Court rulings is unobjectionable, on the surface. A constitutonal amendment entrenching property rights gets a robust endorsement, and there's a long and quite passionate endorsement of the Charter as it applies to native peoples -- if not quite the same enthusiasm for it more generally. But this is undermined by the stance in opposition to gay marriage, which is not only inimical to equal rights but very hard to square with the party's stance that it need not invoke the notwithstanding clause. An interesting proposal to limit use of the clause to those issues on which the party had sought and won a mandate in the previous election was voted down at convention. Federalism: D. To be fair, the convention voted down a number of nutty proposals from the Quebec wing: for representation by linguistic community in international bodies for example. But overall the document endorses every provincialist nostrum, from opting out with compensation to the supposed need to obtain Quebec's endorsement of the 1982 Constitution to that latest wheeze for winkling money out of the feds, the wholly fictitious "fiscal imbalance." There's even a nod to the Council of the Federation, which even the premiers are having a hard time pretending has any relevance. But only the usual pro forma boilerplate about the economic union, for example, while the federal role in enforcing it is reduced to "taking the lead in working with its provincial partners." Somewhere along the way Conservatives got it into their head that they were the party of the premiers. It has been a disastrous detour, both in principle and as a matter of political strategy. Essentially it has handed the Liberals the Canada card in perpetuity, allowing them the kind of monopoly on patriotism that the Republicans enjoy -- and the Democrats gave them -- in the United States. Economic framework policies: B. Overall, there's quite a good series of proposals for a more predictable, rules-based economic regime. Balanced budgets would be legislated, though debt repayment would not. Property rights, as I mentioned, would be constitutionally entrenched. The statement on monetary policy is passable, though lacking in any firm commitment to price stability, let alone the kind of legislated mandate that should be given the Bank of Canada. Surprisingly little on free trade, too, considering it is the party's biggest achievement of the last century. Spending: F. A disaster. Here is the party's commitment to spending discipline, in its entirety. "A Conservative government will strengthen enforcement and criminal code penalties for fraud involving misuse of tax dollars." So outright criminality they're against. And, doubtless, waste, fraud and duplication. But not a line on where or even if they would cut spending beyond that. This, remember, is the party that lately endorsed failed to vote against a federal budget that raised spending by 12 per cent in one year, and that is now scrambling to ensure that any vote on the budget bill does not jeopardize the massive equalization giveaway to the provinces of Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. Taxes: C+. The news is better here -- possibly because tax cuts do not require any sacrifice from anyone. But while the party has a long list of taxes it wants to cut, from personal income taxes to corporate taxes to capital gains, there's a singular absence of vision. There's no commitment to tax reform, ie moving toward a more neutral, less preference-riddled tax system -- and in fact the document is laced with proposals to add new "tax incentives" for just about everything under the sun. This is activism by the back door: rather than call it a spending program, you assuage your conservative conscience by delivering it through the tax system. Indeed, even the tax cuts are justified in Keynesian terms, as a matter of putting money back in consumers' pockets, rather than in terms of removing disincentives to work, save and invest. It's a safe bet that any Conservative tax cuts would be focused on the low end, where they're popular, rather than on cutting the top marginal rates, where they'd actually do some good. On the plus side, I suppose we should be grateful they stayed away from mortgage interest deductibility, that perennial temptation to populist mischief-makers. Privatization: C. And that's being generous. There's a mention of it, but only where a government service "competes directly with existing private sector institutions." Why? Why the caveat? Why the bias in favour of the state? Why not look for innovative ways to advance the frontiers of markets? Deregulation: C. Pretty thin gruel here. There's a very carefully hedged commitment to liberalization of foreign ownership rules, but only on a reciprocal/multilateral basis -- and it's accompanied by a pledge to increase scrutiny of foreign investment. There's even a couple of oblique references to self-sufficiency in this or that as a national concern, which is preposterous. But nothing much on financial market deregulation, or liberalization of our creaking labour markets -- aside from a praiseworthy (and politically safe) opposition to mandatory retirement. Subsidies: F. After the climbdown on referendums and the silence on spending, this is the party's biggest failure of nerve. While announcing a general hope to eliminate business subsidies "eventually," there isn't a single subsidy that the party opposes: not for high-tech, not for regional development, not for farmers, not even for Via Rail and the CBC. And while it promises to negotiate reductions in subsidies for industries that compete with other countries, the regional development agencies get a ringing endorsement, albeit with a promise to see that the pork is handed out in a less "politicized" way. Embarrassing is the only word. Employment Insurance: C-. There's a vaguely worded proposal to establish EI as an "independent" program -- which as of the last budget is also Liberal policy -- but no commitment to make it into a genuine insurance program, without the cross-subsidization of seasonal employees and industries by those with more stable employment records. Again, this is a major retreat, although one that has been under way for some time. Pensions: C+. The proposal for Registered Lifetime Savings Plans as a complement to the RSSP is a good one. (RRSP's exempt you from tax on contributions, then tax you on withdrawal; RLSP's are the reverse.) And there's a strongly worded promise to protect the Canada Pension Plan from political interference. But this is a poor substitute for genuine CPP reform, which would break up the fund into mandatory RRSP-like savings plans for each worker: one of several layers of retirement security that would include a basic backstop payment (the GIS/OAS), tax-sheltered plans like the RRSP/RLSP, and non-sheltered savings. This is sad, as the party once had a quite far-reaching proposal on this issue, years before the Bush plan. That's all for now. More tomorrow.