Drugs, Drugs, Drugs. Which are good, which are bad?

The marijuana legalization policy, which passed at last weekend's Liberal convention, has been generating a fair amount of media buzz this past week. The strongest arguments in favour of it come, somewhat surprisingly, from this National Post editorial and Toronto Sun column, while this Globe article raises some legitimate questions about the feasibility of legalization.

There are many logistical hurdles to overcome, but I tend to think one of the many alcohol and cigarette distribution systems we use could be adapted to marijuana. Once a mechanism is settled on and border issues with the Americans are worked out, the benefits are obvious.

Those hippies at the Fraser Institute peg it as a $7 billion cash crop which would generate $2 billion a year in tax revenue. Those stoners in the Senate like the idea because it would deal a financial blow to organized crime by bringing the economy above-ground. Anyone watching Boardwalk Empire knows what happens when you try to enforce an unenforceable prohibition.

But those are the debate arguments, and the political arguments are a bit more complex. After all, as carbon taxes and the HST have taught us, sound policy doesn't always make for sound politics.

It's easy to point to a poll and say Canadians are onside with Liberal members on this issue, but it's not as simple as that. There are at least 6 things the Liberals need to mull over before lighting up on this policy.


1. Strength of Support: Maybe people think pot should be legalized, but do they feel strong enough about the issue to vote for a party because of their stand? The "stoned slacker" vote is a lot harder to mobilize than the "mothers worried about their kids smoking pot" vote.


2. The Liberal Coalition: It's good to be behind an idea voters like, but it also matters which voters like it. Will this win the Liberals any votes from New Democrats or libertarian conservatives? Will it be enough to get young people to vote for them? Will it win them Vancouver? Will it scare off longtime Liberals?


3. The Big Picture: How does this policy fit into the key themes of the next Liberal platform? Does it play to a larger narrative about the Liberals being bold...or being soft on crime...or being a party with new ideas...or being a joke? There are a lot of ways this can be spun.

There's also the the 2 billion in budget flexibility this policy would open up. A lot of voters may not feel a legalized pot policy impacts them personally, but if it leads to a 2 billion dollar tax break? That's something they'd be stoked about.


4. A sound byte campaign: I have no doubt that even Michael Ignatieff could best Stephen Harper in an hour-long debate on marijuana legalization. But during elections, policies are all about the 10 second elevator pitch. The Conservatives will say the Liberals are soft on crime. They'll say they've promised tax breaks for kids sports while the Liberals offer kids a joint. I can guarantee you the party that brought us Oily the Splotch is thinking up clever ad campaigns as we speak.

Is the Liberal pitch as compelling? I'm not saying it can't be, but if it isn't this policy could become an albatross.


5. Stickiness: The knock on the Liberals in past campaigns is that their policies have seemed bland - a billion for this and a National Strategy for that. Pot legalization would make Canadians take notice and talk - something a third party can't take for granted.

The flip side is that this is such an attention grabbing policy it might detract from the rest of the Liberal platform. Do you want to make a policy voters are this divided on your flagship platform plank ahead of, say, a pharmacare program that would have more widespread popularity?


6. Fundraising: Rob Silver talked about the Liberals using this policy as a fundraising tool on Power & Politics last week. After all, Liberal members clearly support it - I know I'd probably give them some dough if they put it in the platform and asked for cash to air commercials in support of it on Much Music at 2 am.

Beyond that, this would be a case of the Liberal Party doing something because their members asked them to. The impact of this in terms of engaging existing members and recruiting future ones should not be discounted. Every policy wonk in Canada would take this as a sign it's worth their time to go to the next Liberal policy convention.


I don't have the answers to all these questions, but it underscores just how big an issue this is. It's one that requires a lot of thought before it finds its way into the party platform.

The good news is, by endorsing the policy overwhelmingly this weekend, Liberals have guaranteed that every leadership candidate is going to need to take a position on pot legalization. Before they do, candidates will need to think long and hard about the questions discussed above, as well as a 7th - will supporting this policy increase my chances of winning the leadership race?

Guest Post: Why I'll Be Voting Against Nearly Every Policy At the Convention

A few years ago, I was at an Liberal Party of Canada in Alberta AGM voting on policies to go forward to the Vancouver Biennial in 2009. We were debating a policy that called for a 25% reduction in greenhouse gases. A funny thing happened; someone stood up and declared that this was too high, it would hurt the economy too much and that it should be a 20% reduction instead. Cue a half hour debate over the proposal. Tempers flared, people took sides. A frustrated friend of mine stood up and asked a very simple question; did anyone know what 5% of GHG entailed? Sure enough, nobody did. The environmental-focused Liberals just lined up behind the 25% while the more fiscal-focused Liberals went for 20%; nobody had any context and the whole debate was effectively meaningless.

There’s no doubt that our policy process has significant flaws and is in need of serious reform. However, even if we had an efficient and engaging process, we would still have the serious problem of "garbage in, garbage out". If we don't take this process seriously, why do we expect others to?

I've read the resolutions for this coming Convention and I've come to three conclusions. First, we seem to be actively avoiding substantive policy. I don't want to pick on anybody, but I am going to use an example; one policy calls for a national housing strategy to address homelessness. Alright, noble enough goal, but that's all it does. No mention of what might actually be in said strategy, other than it'll address homelessness. Well, what does that mean? Clearly we've entered some metaphysical realm where we have a policy in favour of having a policy (and we'll get back to you on what it is exactly). We may as well have a policy condemning nuclear war, just in case people weren't clear on where we sat on that issue (naturally there'd be an exemption for the leader to support nuclear war in "special circumstances”).

Second, we need to put a lot more actual research into our polices. For instance, the call for a National Food Strategy. Well, I Googled "Canada National Food Strategy". The first hit was the Canadian Federation of Agriculture's National Food Strategy. The policy we're looking at calls for us to work with them to develop a policy. Well, they seem to have done the work for us. What our policy should actually have expressed is what we want a national food strategy to say, and we can then say "Hey, the CFA supports this approach". Or, "Hey, we disagree with this aspect of the CFA's policy".

Third, party members are obsessed with making sure they have a policy that passes (even if it then disappears into the ether). We're so focused on making sure our policy passes that we water them down into striking committees and seeing what other people think rather than statements expressing the will of the membership. Here, I'll use the example of a proposal that's been getting a lot of ink - the Young Liberal proposal to abolish the monarchy...except that's not what it does. No, it wants to strike a committee to examine rules to establish a Canadian Head of State.

If we want to have a debate, let have it. Debates are good, they focus us, challenge us, make us better. But even if we can’t reach that level of discourse, lets please stop having water cooler conversations designed to not offend anyone and calling these debates and policies. So what if your policy doesn’t pass? A failed proposal that started an important debate can alter the course of our thinking and a few conventions later, the membership may express a different opinion.

So aside from the few good ones that I’ll be supporting, I'll be voting against most of the polices at Convention. Policies that try to be all things to all people (a real problem we've had lately, n'est pas?), that don't actually do anything, and that haven’t been adequately researched do not deserve our support. Canadians aren't stupid; if we vote down a toothless call for a National Housing Strategy, they aren't going to suddenly think we're in favour of homelessness. They're going to get the message and know that we're taking this process seriously and going back to the drawing board to create policies for the next Biennial in 2014 that are important to us and mean something to them.

Glen Krueger is a Past President of the Dalhousie Liberals, past Board Member in Calgary and Halifax constituencies, and is currently articling at a law firm in Toronto.

Policy Watch

Although the focus of the upcoming LPC convention seems to be all about WOMOV (oh, and I guess picking a leader), it is still a policy convention.

As discussed before, policy debate took place online for the first time ever - a welcome change since it gave everyone the opportunity to participate. And it appears to have been a big success, with close to 1,000 Liberals participating, almost 25,000 votes cast, and some resolutions drawing 80 or 90 posts about them. Considering the number of people who skip policy workshops at a convention, that's not bad.

The problem, as also previously discussed, is that rather than using this vote to prioritize policies, the Council of Presidents were the ones entrusted with this most sacred of duties.

So it's probably fair to examine how the policies chosen differ from those voted in by members. Well, as you might expect, the results are mixed:


Policy Comparison

The four most popular online policies were all voted in by the Council of Presidents, although numbers 5 and 6 were not. Of the 13 winners from the online vote, 9 of them will be debated in Vancouver. The four "upsets" are:

In Agriculture - "Natural resources" (18.6% prioritized, third place) over "Supporting agricultural producers and expanding trade" (26.2%).

In Education - "Improving child care and parental leave for Canadians" (12.3%, third place) over "Creating a national system of early learning and childcare" (29.2%).

In Social Policy - "Reducing child poverty" (13.3%, third place) over "Poverty reduction & guaranteed annual income strategies" (32.4%).

In Health and Aging - "Aging with dignity" (9.5%, fourth place) over "Preserving high quality health care" (35.7%).

In Animal Rights - "A Ban on the Duck Hunt" (8th place) over "An End to Shark Hunting" (1st place). [sorry, sorry, but this policy stuff is just so dry otherwise...]


Now, just by looking at the titles, you can see that the general thrust of most of these is similar (big surprise - Liberals like child care and don't like poverty). The only really suspect choice would be "aging with dignity" but en famille users are probably a tad younger than riding presidents, so it's not too shocking.

More surprising are the four "bonus" policies that found their way to Vancouver. By my count, 17 policies that were debated in the 13 online workshops were prioritized...I'll plead ignorance as to the exact mechanism that led to this, but it did allow a few suspect policies to make it through, the most obvious examples being:

1. The "regional development" policy (general support for regional development), which gathered a whooping 0.8% of the prioritized votes in its workshop, and was only approved by 63% of all members who voted on it.

2. The "human rights commission" policy (it's a bit complicated, so read it for yourself if you're interested), which finished dead last in the Justice workshop, and was only approved by 51% of Liberals.


In Conclusion

Either way, it's probably not a huge deal since the policy process doesn't really lead anywhere in the end. But, because it's not a huge deal, you should be giving the grassroots a real say in it - especially when a thousand Liberals took the time to debate the policies and vote on an average of 25 policies each.

And, if you look at the results, fears that the online vote would prioritize a slew of "radical" policies like legalized marijuana or abolishing the monarchy proved to be unfounded.

There are a lot of changes that need to be made to the policy process for future conventions, and I would hope that giving the grassroots a larger say is one of them.

A Richer, Fairer, Greener Canada

Updates to follow once I get some free time, but for now:

Read the Platform

Globe Recap


A Richer Canada

The Liberal platform stays true to the Liberal legacy of strong economic and fiscal management, including commitments to:

Balance the budget: We will restore the $3-billion contingency fund abandoned by the Conservatives to give Canada’s government more room to maneuver in tough economic times.

Tackle the infrastructure deficit: We will work with provinces, territories and municipalities to implement long-term funding for infrastructure that underpins our economic competitiveness and quality of life. We will help to improve our transit, our water treatment, our roads and bridges and our sports and recreational facilities so we can raise our families in healthy, vibrant cities and communities.

Bolster the manufacturing sector: We will create a $1-billion Advanced Manufacturing Prosperity (AMP) Fund to help Canada’s manufacturing sector retain and create jobs as it transitions to a greener future.

Provide access to post-secondary education: We will help make post-secondary education accessible to every Canadian by boosting and simplifying existing support for students, and increase investments to support research to help more Canadians succeed in the 21st-century knowledge economy.

Promote Canadian arts and culture: We will restore the ideological cuts made by the Conservatives, defend artists from censorship, double the budget of the Canada Council for the Arts and provide needed assistance to both artists and institutions in an industry that fosters vibrant, livable cities and communities, supports innovation, helps us understand our past and imagine our future, and stimulates our economy.


A Fairer Canada

The Liberal platform also commits to building a fairer, more inclusive society by:

Implementing the 30-50 Plan to reduce poverty: We will launch a full-scale attack on poverty in Canada, with the goal of reducing the number of people living below the poverty line by at least 30 per cent, and the number of children living in poverty by at least 50 per cent.

Creating child care spaces: We will work with the provinces and territories to create new early education and child care spaces that are centered on the quality, universally-inclusive, accessible and developmental (QUAD) principles, giving families a real choice.

Investing in health care: We will work to clear the bottlenecks that are currently slowing Canada’s access to health professionals, so that more Canadians will get the care they need, with shorter wait times. We will also introduce a national plan for catastrophic drug coverage that would ensure Canadians living with serious illnesses can focus on their health instead of worrying about their finances.

Investing in new Canadians: We will reverse the irresponsible immigration measures introduced by the Conservatives last spring and invest a total of $800 million in new federal funding to deal with the immigration backlog, welcome more new Canadians, and ensure that they succeed.

Bringing back the Kelowna Accord: We will bring back the Kelowna Accord and work in consultation with Aboriginal Peoples and provinces and territories to improve Aboriginal health, education and housing outcomes.


A Greener Canada

Building on the Green Shift plan, the Liberal platform contains measures that will:

Help Canadians go green: We will provide up to $10,000 in direct financial support, and introduce an interest-free Green Mortgage program for up to an additional $10,000 for homeowners making eco-friendly improvements to their homes.

Protect our health: We will introduce tough new measures to ensure Canadians have cleaner air, fresh water, non-toxic consumer products and safe food.

Preserve our natural heritage: We will create new National Parks and Marine Protected Areas to help preserve Canada’s cherished wilderness areas and biodiversity.


Canada and the World

Restore our independent voice of leadership: We will lead, not hinder, multilateral efforts to fight the climate change crisis and we will return to Canada’s traditional position of opposing the death penalty on the global stage.

Recommitting to development: We will increase Canada’s international assistance contributions and restore Canada’s special relationship with Africa which has been abandoned by the Conservatives.

Clarity and transparency on Afghanistan: We will unequivocally commit to ending the current military mission in Afghanistan in 2011 and will deliver the same message to our NATO allies who have been too often left to guess what the true position of the Conservative government is. We will carry out the remainder of the mission guided by the principles of accountability and transparency because Canadians deserve to know the whole truth about this mission.

(Citizen photo hat tip - CCT)

Guest Blogging: Liberal Education Policy

The Liberals released their PSE platform today and, since I think this is an important and often overshadowed policy area, I figured I should critique it. As luck would have it, an expert in the field sent me in his (rather lengthy) synopsis of it which I will repost rather than giving my own 2 cents because:

A. He knows more about the issues than I do
B. That saves me the time of typing something up myself

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Overall

From a student perspective it's close to a 9 [out of 10]. The feds can't lower tuition, but short of 100% grants for everyone, this provides a lot of support. Students (and a lot of the public) hate that the interest rates on student loans are so high.

From a policy perspective it's a mixed bag. The endowment is a serious investment and the grants will be helpful (although the conservatives already have their own grant plan). Turning back-end tax credits into cheques-in-the-mail is also great. It's a lot of spending though. I don't understand the need for BOTH a lower interest rate and a 2-year interest (and payment) holiday - that's alot of money. So, closer to a 7 on policy.


An upfront Education Grant payable to each student every three months at the same time as the GST rebate is paid to most students. This grant, when combined with the GST rebate received by most students, will be worth about $1,000 cash per student per year.

It is my understanding that this is replacing the education (and maybe the tuition?) tax credits.

Pros: Excellent idea. The current tax credits are quite regressive. You can only get nonrefundable tax credits if you are making enough income to pay taxes. Which for students usually means they either transfer them to their parents or wait until they are graduated and making good income. As a very much non-low-income earner once said to me “My son just bought a couch with his tax credits. Is that the best use of government money?” This will give money to students when they need it most. I haven’t done the math but hopefully this is budget-neutral. If it is, it seems like a great move.

Cons: Parents that currently get their kids’ tax credits might not be so happy. Hopefully these new grants won’t play havoc with the complicated needs-assessment system that is student financial assistance in Canada – will students have to claim this as income? This money could have been targeted better – either needs-based or aimed at specific students. But it’s good politics to have some universal assistance, and sometimes simple is better.


Creation of The Canada Education Endowment (instead of the Conervatives’ Canada Student Grant Program) in the sum of $25 billion, set up for 20 years. Quebec will have the option to not join the endowment. The Endowment will fund:
a) Research
b) $200,000 distributed annually in needs based grants (up to $3,500 each)
c) $100,000 distributed annually in access grants (up to $4,000 each) to provide financial assistance to help individuals who are members of groups such as Aboriginal Canadians and persons with disabilities that are traditionally under-represented in post-secondary education.

Pros: This is their way of saying “We will renew the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation.” A clear nod to CASA and the other groups that supported renewal. There are a lot of reasons why an endowment is a great idea. It is more stable and allows for a more flexible approach with the provinces. 20 years is a long time, though, and 25 billion is a huge amount of money! (I may have these numbers wrong, I will have to double check) Millennium was originally created with $2.5 billion for ten years and did some amazing things with that money.

It’s great to see research in there, as the current government has not indicated that it will do anything to replace the CMSF’s research capacity. Targeted access grants are great, so it’s good to see them keeping that aspect of the CSGP. Special status for Quebec will probably make Charest happy. And oh yeah, this will freak the CFS out.

Cons: While I think there are clear policy advantages to an endowment, I can’t say how it will play politically. I’ve been in the PSE bubble for far to long to be able to figure that out, but I’m interested to see the debate, especially how the provinces respond. A $25 billion, 20 year endowment is a huge spending pledge – will it garner that many votes? They are borrowing the money to create the endowment, I’m not sure how that will play out.

The government is already moving forward on the CSGP, so this would involve scrapping that work. That’s democracy though. I don’t like the 2:1 needs-based to targeted ratio, but it probably is a lot easier to sell than putting all the money towards low-income, students, etc.
Special status for Quebec will probably make everyone else unhappy.


Lowering the Student Loan interest rate to prime + 0.5%

Pros: About freaking time. While students aren’t directly affected by interest rates until they graduate, they are worrisome. High interest rates cause a lot of stress for recent (and not so recent) graduates.

Trust me, this is the number one issue people in general have with student loans. This will be popular for good reason.

Cons: Most people in PSE policy circles actually don’t like the idea of lowering the interest rate. Despite the common perception that rates are really high and that the government makes money from student loans, this isn’t true. When you factor in the interest subsidy (4+ years interest-free for university students) and the interest rate tax credit, ‘real’ student loan interest isn’t that high. This will be a huge cost for the government. There is a strong argument to be made that you could do a lot better with that kind of money.

I understand but disagree with that analysis. Despite the fact that ‘real’ interest isn’t high, that doesn’t change the fact that a student could graduate and (if they can get approved) pay off their
government loan with a private low-interest loan. That isn’t good for anyone. Politics and policy are sometimes about appearances and an apparently-high interest rate can be just as bad as a real one.


Re-instating the Student Loan ‘grace period’ to be interest-free (it used to be, but is no longer for federal loans) and extending it to 2 years.

Pros: You really shouldn’t call it a grace period any more if it’s not interest-free. The interest-free status just makes sense, as most students assume it is interest-free anyway. 2 years is a long time, this will play extremely well with students. It’s not clear if they are extending the time you wait to repay your loan to 2 years, but if they are that will make students, graduates (and probably parents) very, very happy.

Cons: Wow. Extending interest-free status to 2 years will be very, very expensive (see previous comment re: math). And if they extend the period you wait to repay your loan to 2 years, that will be incredibly expensive. Would there really be enough benefit from this to justify the cost? I seriously doubt it, there are surely better things that could be done with such a huge sum of money. This doesn’t seem to make sense if you are also lowering the interest rate. This will play well with students, obviously, but does the public really think university students should get a 6+ year interest-free loan?


Make all students eligible for guaranteed student loans of $5,000, regardless of parental income.

I’m assuming you’d still have to qualify for the loan, but most students will.

Pros: Well, I campaigned for the elimination of expected parental contribution for most of my time in student politics, so I should love this. This acknowledges that (most) students are adult learners, as the new language goes. This is a big issue for students and their parents. It addresses the belief/fact that middle-income families get screwed by the financial aid system. This will be popular and a big vote-getter.

Cons: I’m a bit torn on this one. I’ve always believed students should be treated like adults, and while grant funding should be targeted at low-income students, almost anyone should be able to borrow to finance their education. These are subsidized loans though, and they do cost the government quite a bit. There is the risk that people who no not really need the loans, or who get money from their parents, taking advantage of them. The last thing you want to hear about is the BComm student who takes out a $5000 taxpayer-subsidized interest-free loan every year to buy GICs.


Increasing support for the Indirect Costs Program to $500 million a year which will represent an increase of over 60 per cent above current levels.

Pros: Universities will love this. It is a good policy, which lowers university overhead.

Cons: Students won’t see a dollar of this, directly or indirectly. Does the public care about the specifics of research funding accounting?


Increase the annual funding levels of CIHR and NSERC to $1.275 billion from their current levels of $960 million. Increase the annual funding level of SSHRC to $450 million from the current level of $320 million.

Create a new Interdisciplinary Sustainability Fund of $100 million. This fund will be available to scientists, researchers and graduate students for projects that reach beyond the barriers of their discipline.

Make the Science, Research & Experimental Development (SR&ED) Tax credit 25 per cent refundable through the Green Shift.

Pros: Research is good - especially when you are trying to stimulate the economy and improve productivity. Interdisciplinary research is also good. Universities, and probably industry, will love this (no talk of commercialization for industry though).

Cons: I’ve never believed research is much of a vote-getter. SSHRC who?


Extend the time period that individuals have to repay their student loans.

Design new student loan programs that will increase access for under- represented groups such as Aboriginal Canadians.

No real details on these two points.


Overall this is an impressive platform. A lot of significant policy proposals that will improve the PSE system. Students should be pretty supportive of this, and CASA will be very happy, I wager. It’s expensive though, and not all the money is well-spent. I’m interested to see how this plays out. Although issues haven’t’ really been playing-out in the campaign thus far, so it probably won’t matter…

A Few More Tricks For This Pony

The fear among a lot of Liberals I've talked to is that Dion will run on the environment and nothing but, during the next campaign. Given that putting all one's eggs into one basket, no matter how eco-friendly that basket is, likely isn't a great strategy, today's speech by Dion is certainly a little reassuring. Some economic policy, money for innovation, money for education...sounds good to me. Obviously you don't give away the specifics now (gotta get headlines during a campaign, after all), but at least it shows he's thinking about more than Kyoto.