Herald Column: Scrapping Gun Registry Has Taught Tories Nothing

My latest Calgary Herald column argues that on internet surveillance, the federal government has become much like proponents of the long-gun registry:

Having prevailed over those who fervently support the retention of the national long-gun registry, the federal Tories now run the risk of morphing into their nemeses.
Not that the government is about to reverse itself on the registry, but its approach to selling Bill C-30 - the new lawful access legislation - is quite reminiscent of how the gun registry has been defended.
Certainly there are parallels between the two pieces of legislation, in terms of the potential privacy violations, the potential vulnerability of huge databases of personal information and the potential impact on law-abiding citizens.
But the parallels go even deeper in the manner in which the defenders of both pieces of legislation are appealing to emotion rather than reason.
Just like the gun registry was, and is, so consistently linked to Marc Lepine's massacre of 14 women in Montreal - a tragedy the registry could not have prevented - the Tories are hoping to establish an emotional link of their own by naming their bill the Protecting Children From Internet Predators Act.
A lesson learned, perhaps, for supporters of the gun registry. I assume we can look forward to the Protecting Women From Homicidal Misogynists Act from some future government.
No doubt, the registry was intended to pose an obstacle to would-be murderers, just as Bill C-30 might well prove helpful in catching purveyors of child pornography.
But as we saw with the registry, and as critics fear we will see with C-30, the impact went well beyond the intended targets and had a considerable impact on law-abiding citizens.
In fact, in both instances, we see significant government intrusion with very weak justification.
A peer-reviewed study published last October con-firms that the gun registry was unnecessary. It found "no significant beneficial associations between fire-arms legislation and homicide or spousal homicide rates."
As it concerns Bill C-30, critics have noted that the government has failed to provide convincing examples of cases where these new sweeping powers were needed. Even if the status quo is in need of improvement, a strong case can be made for changes that don't go nearly as far.
When Public Safety Minister Vic Toews declared that the opposition "could either stand with us or with the child pornographers," there was justifiable outrage, but also a failure to notice that Toews was echoing the sort of rhetoric employed by defenders of the gun registry.
Toews was certainly more explicit - no one on the pro-registry side has gone so far as to declare, "you can stand with us or stand with those who murder women." That sentiment, however, has been implied many times.
Liberal MP Carolyn Bennett came close with her statement marking the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women in Canada on Dec. 6, 2011. Bennett declared that the Tories were "choosing to put the interests of fringe gun lobby groups ahead of victims of gun violence" - in other words, you can stand with the gun nuts or stand with the murdered women.
This sentiment was widespread on Dec. 6, when, for example, organizers of memorial ceremonies for the victims of the Montreal massacre told Conservative MPs to stay away. The week before, a survivor of the massacre said the Tories would have "blood on their hands" if they scrapped the registry.
Of course, one can certainly pay respect to the victims and oppose violence against women while still concluding that the registry was useless and unnecessary. But to acknowledge that means surrendering emotion as a tool.
In the end, though, per-haps the emotional rhetoric has been so overplayed that it's lost its potency. The elimination of the registry seems to have caused barely a ripple across the country, and the Tories are certainly finding that emotional rhetoric has failed to ward off a major backlash against C-30.
Given all these similarities, it is little surprise then that the first major poll on Bill C-30 finds the highest levels of opposition right here in Alberta - the same province where opposition to the gun registry was always the strongest.
The Tories deserve credit for putting an end to the gun registry, but unfortunately, it seems they've learned nothing in the process.

Herald Column: Alberta Doesn't Need Higher Taxes

My latest Calgary Herald column looks at the call for a "conversation" about taxation in Alberta:

A concerted effort is now underway to ensure that Albertans have a “conversation” about current levels of taxation.
Fair enough, but it seems that conversation is code for convincing Albertans that we need higher levels of taxation.
What this conversation will require, therefore, is a voice willing to make the case against higher taxes and to even go a step further and make the case for a shift away from the most damaging forms of taxation.
There are positive things that can be said for the status quo, and it is curious that the architects of the status quo are so hesitant to defend it.
The governing Tories don’t shy away from boasting about Alberta’s enviable economic position or their role in creating it, but now those same Tories are the ones who are suggesting that the status quo is no longer sustainable.
After tabling his budget last week, Finance Minister Ron Liepert spoke of the need to “move toward a more sustainable revenue base.”
Of course, this will all take place after the upcoming provincial election. Liepert says this “thorough conversation” about our fiscal framework cannot be done “in the space of a few weeks prior to an election.”
Yes, heaven forbid we should have a serious conversation about an important issue in the context of a provincial election campaign. After all, what would an election be without platitudes and demagogy?
The Alberta Liberals, to their credit, are not taking the coward’s way out. They, like the Tories, believe we need a more sustainable revenue base, and as such, their platform is calling for higher taxes.
The Liberals would introduce higher rates ranging from 13 per cent all the way up to 17 per cent for those earning over $100,000. The Liberals would also raise Alberta’s corporate tax rate from 10 to 12 per cent.
Such proposals are very much in line with those being advocated in a new ad campaign from the Alberta Federation of Labour and Public Interest Alberta.
The ads question why high income earners and profitable corporations aren’t paying more, and argue that we could easily ask them to do so and still have relatively low tax rates.
Of course, high income earners do contribute a great deal. According to Alberta Finance, the top 15 per cent of income earners in the province pay over two-thirds of income taxes.
We should also be careful about the assumption that higher tax rates would mean higher revenues and have no other impact.
Take Quebec, for example, which has some of the highest tax rates among the provinces: 16 per cent, 20 per cent, and 24 per cent. Presumably, those much higher rates should generate much higher levels of revenue. Except they don’t. In fact, Alberta’s 10 per cent flat tax generates more personal income tax revenue on a per-capita basis than Quebec’s higher rates do.
Moreover, increasing taxes on capital is going to have all sorts of negative impacts on the economy. So, too, will the removing of the simplicity and efficiency of the flat tax.
Raising corporate taxes could be even more detrimental. There’s no shortage of evidence showing that higher corporate taxes are associated with lower rates of growth, lower wages and lower productivity.
A study last September from economists Bev Dahlby at the University of Alberta and Ergete Ferede at Grant MacEwan University found that corporate taxes are the worst taxes for governments to raise. The most efficient way of generating revenue, they conclude, is through a sales tax.
Research from the University of Calgary’s Jack Mintz — perhaps the country’s leading expert on the subject — suggests strongly that Alberta needs to head in this direction.
Mintz estimates that an eight per cent sales tax would allow Alberta to cut income and corporate tax rates in half. That would provide a true sustainable revenue source and would provide the benefits that would come with shifting away from the most economically damaging forms of taxation.
Unfortunately, we remain stuck between those proposing harmful tax increases and opponents of tax increases who shy away from changes that could further strengthen Alberta’s economic position.
This “conversation” is off to a rough start.

Herald Column: What About "Safer Roads"?

My latest Calgary Herald column looks at the mysterious delay of Alberta's impaired driving legislation:

Given how intent the Alberta government was in pressing ahead with its new impaired driving legislation, word that the law will be delayed represents a remarkable turn of events.
After all, it was not long ago that Premier Alison Redford was suggesting that the tough new measures would be in effect by Christmas. Now we’re being told that the law may not take effect until after the expected spring election.
On the surface, the reversal seems to make very little sense.
The government’s urgency in passing the law — which involved invoking closure and extending the brief fall sitting of the legislature — was justified by the argument that lives were potentially at stake and that safer roads could not wait.
Well, it turns out they can.
The same government that was completely uninterested in hearing from anyone other than cheerleaders of the legislation, is now delaying the implementation of that law to consult with the very same people they did not want to consult with just two months ago.
What’s even more bizarre about this new outreach to industry, is that the industry was previously viewed by the government as part of the problem.
On Dec. 8, in response to a Twitter comment about the hospitality industry’s concerns, the premier’s chief of staff, Stephen Carter, replied, “When the industry says ‘Drink and Drive’ they do not reflect the people of Alberta.”
So in December, concerns from industry are derisively dismissed as encouragement to lawbreakers. Suddenly, now in January, concerns from industry are serious enough to warrant the dispatching of a senior cabinet minister and the delaying of a major piece of legislation.
Last week, Redford declared that consultations between the hospitality industry and the Transportation minister must come to a conclusion before the law could go ahead.
However, it remains unclear as to exactly what it being discussed or why the implementation of the law is contingent on these talks.
Ostensibly, this is all about bars and lounges implementing technology that would allow patrons to test their own blood-alcohol levels.
At one point, the premier stated that the consultations were centred solely on that issue, but at another point, she stated that it was “one of the issues” being discussed.
Certainly the hospitality industry has been outspoken about many issues, but the idea that bars must first be equipped with do-it-yourself breathalyzers does not seem to have been a top priority.
Mind you, if the government feels that such a system is crucial to implementing this law, perhaps it could have approached the industry much sooner.
One has to wonder, however, whether this is something the industry is really pushing for. Certainly if some bars would like to offer such testing, there’s nothing stopping them doing so.
On the other hand, though, there are many reasons why bars might have reservations. For example, if a driver gets a green light from the bar’s breathalyzer device, is the bar then potentially liable if that driver causes a crash?
From the province’s perspective, this could actually undermine what they say they’re trying to accomplish.
By making the blood-alcohol level of .05 per cent subject to new penalties, the government is sending the message that those on the low end of the impairment scale represent a serious threat, too.
However, there is the risk that offering breathalyzer readings to drinkers might mean more of them are inclined to get behind the wheel.
Defenders of the legislation often make the assertion that .05 is higher than people might think, and that even two or three drinks might not even put you at that level.
If so, it’s certainly conceivable that someone who has consumed two or three drinks and is then feeling tipsy enough to question his driving skills, might be reassured by a breathalyzer device that reads .03 or .04.
In the end, it’s hard to understand why the government’s mad dash to pass this legislation has suddenly stalled over an issue like this.
Given that we are on the verge of an election, however, the real explanation might lie in the backlash that this flawed legislation has generated. Score another one for political expediency.