The Little Red Umbrella: politics

Ten Reasons You HAVE To Watch The British Election Tonight

The people of Britain are heading to the polls today. They'll decide whether to kick the ruling Conservatives — and their coalition with the Liberal-Democrats — out of power. If it's anything like the last election, it'll be a fascinating one for Canadians to watch. We fell in love with British politics back on election night in 2010. So we thought we'd share ten amazing reasons Canadians absolutely HAVE to watch as the election results roll in tonight.

BBC News will start streaming their coverage at 5pm Eastern Time.

1. It's, like, important and stuff.

2. They make all the candidates in every riding ("constituency," in British-speak) stand on stage while they read out the results, which means that some absolutely amazing things happen. In 2010, the newly-elected Conservative Prime Minister, David Cameron, was forced to stand on stage with a guy dressed as Jesus and an old dude in a big hat from the Monster Raving Loony William Hill party. And then the new PM had to give a speech with them all standing right there behind him. The Prime Minister is the guy in the blue tie:

3. They have a party called the Monster Raving Loony William Hill party. It was founded by Screaming Lord Sutch in 1963.

4. This is Screaming Lord Sutch:

5. All the candidates on stage wear pretty ribbons so you can tell what party they're from. Pretty ribbons!!!

6. British candidate names are awesome. A short sample of things that actually happened in 2010 as a result: Butt lost Tooting; Balls, in a swing constituency, held his seat.

7. The names of the constituencies are also British and therefore also awesome. Some samples: Berwick-Upon-Tweed; Brigg & Goole; Great Gimsby; Tooting; West Ham. And the names of the Welsh constituencies are even awesomer than the English ones: Vale of Clywd; Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney; Islwyn; Dwyfor Meirionnyd; Ynys Môn

8. The accents.

9. The celebrities. In 2010, the BBC interviewed a drunk Rolling Stone about Conservative policy. They interviewed two former winners of The Apprentice about electoral reform. They had people I've never heard of doing lame impressions of other people I've never heard of. And, to top it all off, they interviewed what's left of Joan Collins.

10. It's actually going to be really interesting, with lots of fascinating parallels to Canadian politics. The most recent projections have the ruling Conservatives (the blue team) neck and neck with the liberal Labour Party (the red team). Neither one is likely to win a majority. So it will probably come down to a minority government: a coalition with the balance of power held by the left-wing Liberal-Democrats (the yellow-orange team) and/or the separatists in the Scottish National Party. Which sounds an awwwwful lot like what might happen in Canada this fall. The major parties in Britain have already started trying to control public perception of what is and isn't acceptable when it comes to forming a coalition government — with little regard for the actual law, kind of like what Stephen Harper pulled off back in 2008. And the Queen has already made it clear that she doesn't want to get dragged into the mess (kind of like the Canadian Governor General was). It will be verrrrry interesting to see what happens as the dust settles at Westminster.

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Posted by Adam Bunch, the Editor-in-Chief of the Little Red Umbrella and the creator of the Toronto Dreams Project. You can read his posts here, follow him on Twitter here, or email him at adam@littleredumbrella.com.

Corporate Tax Loopholes & How We Should Close Them: Part Two by Umar Saeed

This is part two in a series. Part one is here.

Sharing is Caring

Reforming corporate tax laws and tax treaties begins with an important step — sharing information. In 2010, America passed the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FACTA), which asks all foreign banks to report data on American clients or else pay stiff penalties. This has turned into a witch-hunt. America is actively pursuing Swiss banks (renowned for their money laundering prowess), Spain is investigating football players, Italy and fashion icons, Britain and celebrities, and so on.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has begun its work toward a more transparent global tax system. So far, governments are picking the low hanging fruit. Reigning in high-profile tax-dodgers increases tax revenues and wins over the public. Information sharing isolates such delinquents, but it poses new problems. The article notes that while America has been quick to ask for information from other nations, it has been slow to return the favour. Some politicians may fear exposing their friends, or even themselves. Some nations simply may not be able to share information without parliamentary or public consent. What about security over this shared but confidential information? What’s an appropriate penalty for not sharing? How much of this information should be disclosed to the public? Despite these new questions, the move toward global tax transparency is promising and unprecedented. We must embrace the problems that come with transparency.

The more difficult part will be to eliminate corporate tax loopholes, as discussed in part one. Corporations cannot be shamed into doing the right thing the way a celebrity can. They don’t have to live in any particular place. A new global tax regime where corporations have no choice but to pay their fair share of taxes must be one that transcends public opinion and national boundaries. But this raises a fundamental conflict between harmonizing tax policy across the globe and national sovereignty.

Sovereignty

Countries that promise to adopt universal tax principles may ultimately find it difficult to change their own tax legislation. They must battle political opposition and lobbying groups. Most importantly, they may be giving up a government’s most significant source of power: the tax levy.

This is like European nations having their annual budgets being reviewed and approved by a central authority such as the European Union or the European Central Bank (ECB). The ECB would argue that, like any bank, if it is going to backstop a country’s borrowing, then it needs to know that the proposed fiscal plan is viable and that a country is acting sustainably. How can a country be sovereign if it does not have autonomous control over its own fiscal policy? If the elected representatives cannot affect fiscal policy, have we then circumvented democracy?

But maybe this point of view gives governments too much credit. Governments don’t control the global economy. Historically, bond markets change government behaviour faster than a screaming nation. Besides, governments negotiate trade agreements dealing with taxes and duties all the time. Perhaps a “unitary” tax system, where a higher authority calculates, collects and distributes corporate taxes is the ideal. Participating nations would of course come up with the formula to divvy up tax revenues.

At the moment, nations cooperate with each other to avoid double-taxation. Tax treaties are in place so that no person or company is left paying tax twice. But we don’t have anything to catch the avoidance of tax. This is precisely what a unitary system could do. For example, a company that makes all its money in the United States but is technically Irish, for tax purposes, is clearly not paying enough taxes in the United States. With a system based on sales (for example), most of its taxes would be owed to America. The company cannot claim that being an Irish resident exempts it of any tax obligation. A unitary system restores balance. The consumers that buy, the employees that sell, would be under the same tax regime as the company profiting from these very resources.

Political Prisoner’s Dilemma

Despite the political appetite to close corporate loopholes, most of the G20 and developed nations are mired in recessionary conditions and need to solicit businesses and spark employment. The reason why tax havens and large tax incentives exist in the first place is because nations compete with each other to solicit businesses and create jobs. As elections are always around the corner, it’s hard for politicians to think of a long-term harmonized solution.

In the real world, politicians indeed act much in the same way as the prisoners do the classic prisoner’s dilemma thought experiment. Each politician assumes the other is politically weak and will renege on the commitment to close a loophole. But if the others are going to betray the agreement, why not betray it yourself? The tragedy of the prisoner’s dilemma is that while all parties are better off when they fully cooperate, lack of trust leads them back to square one.

Conclusions

Corporations have become too good at avoiding tax. Nations have treaties with each other to avoid double-taxation, but nothing is in place to secure a minimum tax is paid. A unitary tax solution (having a multinational or global tax authority apply a formula) could resolve this issue. More tax revenues would be collected overall. It may introduce an element of economic stability, as companies like Burger King may not feel inclined to move north of the border to save on its tax bill. But will sovereign nations ever trust a process that will not guarantee them more tax revenues?

This may be too idealistic for now. Nations will always want to retain the ability to hike or drop their corporate tax rates. But in the meantime, information sharing should help close some of the largest loopholes, where companies are avoiding tax altogether. Maybe when governments start to see all of this forgotten revenue, it may expand the political appetite for a more progressive tax system.

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Umar Saeed is an accomplished professional in finance and accounting. On his website (www.umarsaeed.ca), where this post originally appeared, he writes essays to explain the elaborate connections between people and money, without making your head hurt. You can follow him on Twitter @UmarSaeedCA. You can read the rest of his posts at The Little Red Umbrella here.

Image via Consortium News.

Sir John A. Macdonald, Drunk & In Flames by Adam Bunch

It's one of the best-known facts in all of Canadian history: our first Prime Minister drank. Like, a lot. Sir John A. Macdonald wasn't just a charming social drinker; he got the kind of drunk where you find yourself puking on a chair at the Governor General's residence. Or throwing up on stage during a public debate. There were times when he went on benders that lasted for days, too drunk to show up for his official duties. And on a winter night in London, England — right in the middle of the final negotiations over Confederation — it seems to have nearly cost him his life.

This was in 1866. Canada was on the verge of becoming a nation. All the biggest politicians from the Canadian colonies had already met at two big Confederation Conferences — first in Charlottetown and then in Quebec City — to hammer out the basic framework for a new country. Drinking had famously played an important role right from the very beginning. In Charlottetown, Macdonald and his allies from Ontario and Québec showed up with $13,000 worth of champagne. Boozing and dancing and getting to know each other socially became a vital part of the nation-building process. And by the end of the meetings in Quebec City, the delegates had agreed on a list of 72 Resolutions. Now, all they had to do was to turn those resolutions into a Canadian constitution and get it officially approved by the British parliament.

So they headed off to England for one last big push.

They called it the London Conference. And it got off to a very slow start. The delegates from the Maritimes arrived in July. But the others were nowhere to be found. They were still back in Canada — delayed, in part, by Macdonald's drinking. The strain of Confederation and other political stresses were taking a toll on the man. That year, his alcoholism got worse. "He was drinking more heavily, more continually than he had ever done before," Richard Gwyn explains in the first volume of his Macdonald biography, "at times having to grip his desk so he could remain standing in the House." It wasn't until November that Sir John A. and the others finally showed up.

Macdonald was no stranger to drinking in London, either. In fact, he'd already been made an honorary member of one of the most exclusive gentlemen's clubs in all of England. The Athenaeum Club is still there today, right in the middle of the city, between Downing Street and Piccadilly Circus. Many of the most famous people in Britain have been getting drunk there for nearly 200 years: members have included Darwin, Dickens, Churchill, Kipling, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Duke of Wellington, T.S. Eliot, W.B. Yeats, Thomas Hardy, Michael Faraday, Sir Walter Scott... the list goes on and on. It became one of Macdonald's favourite haunts on his frequent trips to the capital. And it was far from the only place where he drank when he was in town.

The London Conference was being held just a few blocks away: at the Westminster Palace Hotel, right across the road from Westminster Abbey. The delegates spent their days in a big room on the main floor, working out the details of the bill that would need to be passed by the British parliament. Macdonald, as always, led the way — one British official called him, "the ruling genius and spokesman." By the end of the conference, he was a celebrity in England, getting recognized on the streets of London.

At night, the delegates would head upstairs to sleep. Macdonald — whose wife, Isabella, had died many years earlier after a long battle with illness and an opium addiction — had a room all to himself.

So that's where he was was on a Wednesday night just a couple of weeks before Christmas, reading that day's newspapers in bed. He'd already changed into his old-timey pyjamas. A candle flickered on the night table beside him. And while there is, of course, no detailed record of just how much Sir John A. had been drinking that night, it seems very likely that alcohol helped lure him into an early sleep.

He woke to the smell of his own burning flesh. He'd passed out while reading the paper and the candle tipped over, setting the room ablaze. The curtains, the sheets and blankets, even the pillow beneath his head and the nightshirt he was wearing were all in flames. Just months before he became the first Prime Minister of Canada, Sir John A. Macdonald was on fire.

Suddenly awake, he leapt to his feet, tore the blazing curtains from the window and stomped out the flames. He ripped the burning blankets from his bed and doused them with water from a jug on his nightstand. Then Sir George-Étienne Cartier came to his rescue.

Macdonald and Cartier hadn't always been on the same side. During the Rebellions of 1837, Cartier had fought with the rebels in Québec while Macdonald stood guard for the Loyalist militia in Kingston. But now, Cartier was Macdonald's most important ally, bringing Québec into Confederation. His room was just next door. So as Macdonald's bed and curtains smouldered, the two most notable leaders of French- and English-Canada worked together to make sure the flames were all completely smothered.

It was only then that Macdonald noticed just how badly he'd been hurt. His hair, his hands and his forehead were all burned, but the wound on his shoulder was the worst. If it weren't for a thick flannel shirt he'd worn under his nightshirt, he admitted, "I would have been burned to death." Suffering from those injuries and a subsequent infection, Sir John A. would spend eight straight days in bed.

But he survived. And so would Confederation. Months later, the delegates' bill was passed by the British parliament. It was called the British North America Act; it came into effect on July 1, 1867. The Dominion of Canada was officially born.

And Macdonald's battle with the fire in his hotel room wasn't the only life-saving event during his trip to London. Just a few days before the blaze, he ran into an old friend while walking down one of the most fashionable streets in the city. By the time they left London, Macdonald and Susan Agnes Bernard were married — celebrations included a breakfast feast at the very same hotel where Sir John A. had nearly lost his life. His new wife would prove to be unshakeable in her quest to curb his drinking. And while, in the end, it was a losing battle — there were still plenty of benders to come — one of Macdonald's biographers figures that her efforts may have added as much 20 extra years to his life. Enough time to spend nearly two decades as Prime Minster and leave a deep and lasting legacy — for better and for worse — on the country he helped to create.

So today, 200 years after Sir John A. Macdonald was born, he's still the most famous drunk in all of Canadian history.

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A version of this post was originally published on The Toronto Dreams Project Historical Ephemera Blog. You can find more sources, links, photos, and other information there.

Corporate Tax Loopholes & How We Should Close Them: Part One by Umar Saeed

Developed nations have a problem. GDP isn’t growing the way it used to. Job prospects have diminished for the young and middle class. That means government tax revenues aren’t growing either. But the public still maintains a high level of expectations for government programs and services. Nations are struggling to find additional sources of revenues to bridge this fiscal gap. They know that debt only defers the tax burden — it doesn’t eliminate it. How can governments raise more money when the overall economy is struggling?

This struggle to find tax revenues without taxing the public further has highlighted an old and often ignored problem: corporate tax loopholes. There is a great deal of political will to eliminate tax loopholes. The public is tired of hearing about corporations reporting profits yet somehow evading taxes. This isn’t about tax rates being too high or too low. This is about the profits that form the tax base, the very thing being taxed, somehow eroding when it comes time to pay Uncle Sam. But this won’t be easy. Corporations play this game too well to simply change one rule or another. If governments want to win, we have to change the game itself.

What is tax arbitrage?

On 29 June 2009, despite most of its stores and revenues being in Canada, Tim Hortons had officially repatriated back to Canada for tax purposes. So at some point after former NHL player Miles G. Tim Horton started the first “Tim Hortons Doughnuts,” in Hamilton, the company grew so large that it made sense to situate itself in Delaware for tax purposes. Tim Hortons was American. That was, until 2009 when it was again advantageous to move back to Ontario. This specific strategy is simply called “inversion.” The name stems from the fact that a company’s corporate presence is inverted from its primary place of business.

At a basic level, we all know what these companies are doing. Once companies get big, expectations of profit go up. Even something as simple as a coffee shop, once it’s big enough, spends a lot of money hiring tax lawyers and accountants to find strategies to “create value.”¹

The most basic tax arbitrage tenet is to recognize revenues in a country where the tax rates are low and then recognize expenses and losses in an area where tax rates are high. In other words, setup the books so the profits and gains show up in a low tax regime and losses get stuck in a high tax regime. Inversion is just one step. To go further, companies use something known as “transfer pricing.”

Large companies often structure themselves as parents with children. The parent might reside in a low-or-no tax jurisdiction. Its child will reside in a place that provides good market demand for the product being sold. There may even be siblings. In the end, all of these children are controlled by the parent. The parent can initiate transactions that will vacuum profits from its children to itself. For example, a parent might purchase supplies for its child’s coffee shop at $1 per roll. It would then sell these cups to its children for $5 per roll. By overcharging its children for paper cups, it is effectively shifting profits from a higher tax jurisdiction into its lower tax one.

Does there have to be a jurisdiction?

Apple, Google and others have created a more convoluted and aggressive corporate structure to evade tax. They have setup their parents in tax havens, a practice that is common among hedge funds and more sophisticated offshore investing. They channel their profits to countries where income tax is low or non-existent. The dad is American and holds an investment in a foreign mother. The mother is Irish, and holds rights to royalties and international profits from its children around the world, which may be taxed mildly in Ireland. Whatever profits make it to the father are treated as investment income, which is a most favourable tax treatment in America.

What is most disturbing of this strategy is that legally, the mother claims no jurisdiction for tax purposes. Irish law asks where a company is managed and controlled to determine its tax residence. U.S. law asks where the company was organized, that is, where the articles of incorporation were filed. If neither country regards a particular corporation as a resident, there is no treaty to force a jurisdiction on that company for tax purposes. This tax loophole resembles a black hole.

Closing the loops

An estimated 44 countries accounting for 90% of the world economy are on board with a plan to reform corporate tax laws and treaties. They have asked the OECD to tackle the basic issues above as well as treaty shopping (manipulating tax treaties), hybrid mismatches (double dipping on deductions in different jurisdictions) and patent boxes (favourable treatment of intellectual property income). As a big step forward, on September 20th the Group of 20 finance ministers agreed to proceed with free exchange of tax information across jurisdictions. This cross-jurisdictional transparency is imperative toward understanding the extent of tax evasion in the first place. This type of exercise may lead to, “oh, I thought you were collecting their taxes.”

But many remain skeptical about whether governments will actually go through with closing these loopholes. First, it brings up fundamental questions about a nation’s sovereignty. For example, shouldn’t a country and its elected leaders be in control of its most significant power — the ability to tax its own citizens? Second, politicians may not follow through on reforming loopholes because they are caught in a “prisoner’s dilemma” with each other. Exploring these two issues may actually lead us to a different path to solve the problem at hand.

Next time, we’ll address these two issues and whether the game can be changed — for good.

Continue reading with part two.

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Things That Happened At The ArtsVote Mayoral Debate 2014

With a full third of the theatre blocked off for press and the candidates staffers, Cinema 1, the largest in Bell Lightbox, has never felt smaller. As this seemingly interminable municipal election cycle enters its final throes, ArtsVote's debate between the three front-runners in the race, as well as 'fringe' candidates Morgan Baskin and Ari Goldkind, manages to draw enough people to fill both Cinema 1 as well as Cinema 2, where the debate will be simulcast.

Damian Abraham isn't your typical moderator. As the lead singer of hardcore band Fucked Up and the most recent and sadly, the final host of Muchmusic's recently-cancelled rock/indie show The Wedge, Steve Paikin he ain't. Genial and self-deprecating while maintaining a steady focus on the issue at hand, even as Chow and Goldkind attempt to slyly steer the debate towards transit, Abraham deftly keeps control over his charges.

The stated topics are four-fold; the role of a mayor as an arts and culture champion on Council, the creation and maintenance of affordable, accessible arts spaces, sustainable arts funding year-over-year rather than short-term, unreliable injections, and the fostering of committed partners in culture both inside and outside of downtown. There are also some pre-selected questions, some of which are read out by 'all-stars' from the arts community, like Katie Stelmanis from the band Austra and Piers Handling, the programmer and CEO/director of TIFF. No questions from the audience at all.

As a format it's a little rigid and doesn't leave much room for the candidates to banter back and forth. While this means a lot less bickering, it also seems to result in candidates repeating themselves often, and lots of statements go unchallenged. Morgan Baskin, who was the strongest and most sincere candidate on display here, unleashed one of only two major barbs in the debate, pointing out that Doug Ford has voted against most of the arts funding-related motions that have crossed his desk. He laughs this off. We move on.

Ari Goldkind has a lot of thoughtful points and is easily the most animated of the candidates, but a lot of his energy and time is spent exchanging with Abraham and, as mentioned, tried on at least two occasions (unsuccessfully) to bring up transit in an accessibility context and to put a green deck on top of the Gardiner. Both are ideas I'd personally support but are misplaced in a debate about the arts. That said, his position is otherwise fairly clear: the government has a role in arts-related policy but it should take the lead from the community and profit shouldn't be the only consideration. This, of course, plays very well with the crowd.

Baskin is the most thoughtful and passionate candidate at this debate. Possibly the biggest takeaway from her answers and statements is that she feels that art should be injected into the small places, and be considered in all or at least most of the design decisions within the city. She also hammers Doug's constant (and it is constant) references to the Austin City Limits Festival that he, Mayor Rob, Gary Crawford, and Michael Thompson attended last year. Her contention is that Toronto should be crafting its own cultural identity rather than lifting it from Austin, which is a great line and hit home for a lot of the audience — many of whom were, of course, local cultural creators and curators.

Doug Ford is uncharacteristically subdued, and has clearly been coached for this outing. He relies heavily on two points: the aforementioned trip to Austin City Limits with his brother and several councillors, and a mural he worked on with some local kids. The latter is talked about when Ford is asked about his 'most transformative experience with art' and while that answer is pandering and thin, it's better than anyone can expect from Doug at this point. The bar, folks, is pretty low.

John Tory and Olivia Chow both come out, naturally, as strong supporters of the arts and culture, and both provide specific ways in which funds can be allocated to these areas. There's not a ton of disagreement on these points and both advocate for stable, year-over-year funding and attainable, realistic targets. Tory has a neat-sounding idea about beautifying vacant storefronts and turning them into arts spaces. Chow calls on her experience with Artscape as well as promoting the awesome Remix Project.

And then there's the part you've already heard about. It plays out like the climax of Stephen King's prom-com gone wrong, Carrie. The bucket of blood teeters above Carrie's head, and there's a minute before it drops where you can't look away. Olivia Chow starts talking about her personal experience as an artist, and you think "hey, that's great, that’s the one thing she brings to the table here that no one else does."

Then the bucket drops.

Chow reaches into a folder and extracts a crude rendering of Tory's admittedly-flawed transit plan. The crowd groans. That other sound you hear? The faint hiss? That's Chow's campaign deflating a little bit. She is, sadly, a candidate in desperation mode and clearly throwing anything at the wall she thinks will stick. As someone who walked into Cinema 1 with Chow as my first choice, it's more than a little disappointing. Chow's latest poll numbers — keeping in mind that we're still a month away from the election itself — seem to reflect a downward trend that this progressive finds disheartening.

However, Chow's jab at Smarttrack is a valid point and should be the central issue for this campaign. We have seen how the ill-thought-out haphazard election year transit plan can leave us in stasis we can't afford, and throwing money down a hole created by yet another scheme will necessarily take needed funds from things like the arts. However, this was a mistimed stunt that shows a complete misreading of the crowd in attendance.

On a more positive note, Baskin emerged from this debate as — while not a front-runner in this particular election cycle — someone who should definitely be watched in the next few years, as a spot on Council and possibly the mayor's office is likely in the cards. She's articulate, extremely knowledgeable, and tremendously confident. If Baskin is the future of City Council and municipal politics, well, I think we'll be okay, Toronto.

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Credit to @ivortossell, @graphicmatt, and @goldsbie for their tweets.

This piece was written by Sachin Hingoo, a freelance writer when he is not working at an office job that is purpose-built for paying the bills while he works as a freelance writer. His writing has appeared on Mcsweeneys.net, the CBC Street Level Blog, Ohmpage.ca, and The Midnight Madness Blog for the Toronto International Film Festival. He has also been featured at Toronto lecture series Trampoline Hall (which is rumored to be excellent). His mutant power is 'feigning interest'. You can read all of his posts here.

Stephen Harper's War On Free & Fair Elections

"The jackasses at Elections Canada are out of control." Stephen Harper wrote that sentence back in 2001. This was in the days before he was the leader of the Reform Party. He was fundraising for the National Citizens Coalition, a conservative lobby group. At the time, he was pissed off that Elections Canada was enforcing a law banning the publication of election results before all the polls closed. But his anger at Elections Canada extends far beyond that. One Conservative who worked with him at the time claims that Harper's hatred for election officials is a "never-ending" "blood feud".

Of course, in truth, Elections Canada is one of the most respected electoral bodies in the entire world. They're the people who ensure that Canadian elections are free and fair. In fact, they're so good at it that they get asked to send observers to other countries — places like Iraq, Haiti and Afghanistan — to make sure their elections are free and fair, too. But to Stephen Harper — a Prime Minster vindictive enough to compile an "enemy list" and brand those who disagree with him on environmental policy as "radicals" and "terrorists" — Elections Canada officials are simply out to get him.

So maybe it's not all that surprising that the Conservatives have been breaking election laws ever since the beginning of Harper's rule. In the election that brought him to power, they illegally transferred money to and from local campaigns so they could get around spending limits. Candidates who refused to break the law say they were punished by the party.

More recently, a polling firm hired by the Conservatives made phone calls to voters in a Québec riding held by a Liberal MP, Irwin Cotler. According to the Toronto Star, "The company’s callers suggested to constituents — falsely — that Cotler either had or was about to quit as the Liberal MP for Mount Royal" and asked if they would vote for Harper in the "upcoming election." But Cotler was not resigning; there was no upcoming by-election. However, there's no law against misleading voters about make-believe elections (unless there's concrete evidence a political party was directly responsible), so Elections Canada couldn't do anything about it. Even the conservative National Post ran editorials accusing the Conservative Party of "arrogance and hyper-partisanship."

But the Conservatives haven't shown much regret. When Nick Kouvalis, a partner in the polling firm responsible for the phone calls (he's also the guy who ran Rob Ford's campaign and has now signed on with John Tory) was asked about it, he wasn't exactly apologetic. "We're in the business of getting Conservatives elected and ending Liberal careers," he boasted. "We're good at it."

Nick Kouvalis

In fact, Kouvalis has co-founded a training school for Conservative campaign managers. They bring together people like Harper's ex-Chief of Staff, Conservative pollsters and Sun Media executives to teach those same very techniques. In 2010, a professor from the University of Victoria (a member of the Order of Canada) attended a session. He was appalled by what he saw. In one Q&A (which he stressed Kouvalis wasn't there for), Conservatives openly discussed ways to make sure Liberal and NDP supporters didn't get out to vote. That included pretending to be from one of those parties while making rude phone calls. "Instructors made it clear that robo-calling and voter suppression were an acceptable and normal part of winning political campaigns," he said. ""[T]he mood of the meeting was that this is war and that anything goes".

In the last federal election, Conservatives seem to have used those techniques more often than ever before. Thousands of voters received misleading phone calls on election day. Automated messages targeting non-Conservative voters told them the location of their poll had changed. The robocalls were reported in the vast majority of the ridings in Canada (247 of 308). In one riding alone, hundreds of people showed up at the wrong location. In some ridings where the calls occurred, the Conservatives only won by a few hundred votes. The calls have been traced back to a strictly-controlled Conservative Party database and the company whose system was used to make the calls, RackNine, held an exclusive contract with the Conservatives.

And it wasn't just robocalls and fake polling locations. Calls from live operators were also made. People working at one call centre say they were told to present misinformation about polling locations and to falsely identify themselves as Elections Canada employees. Another message was recorded, pretending to be from the Liberal Party, to be sent in the middle of the night in order annoy voters. It wasn't used, but others were: voters say they received late night phone calls claiming to be from the Liberal Party, along with rude phone calls, phone calls made to Jewish voters on the sabbath and phone calls made using racist accents.

Even Preston Manning, founder of the Reform Party, called the voter suppression tactics "deplorable".

When Elections Canada began to investigate the fraud, the Conservatives dragged their feet. Party workers were told not to speak publicly about the issue. Witnesses refused to be interviewed. The head of Elections Canada said he wasn't getting the help he needed from the government. (So far, only one campaign worker has been charged — and he claims he's being used as a scapegoat by powerful members of the Conservative party.) When private citizens took the matter to court, the Conservatives tried everything they could to kill the case. According to the federal judge who heard it, Conservative MPs "engaged in trench warfare in an effort to prevent this case from coming to a hearing on the merits... the stance taken by the respondent MPs from the outset was to block these proceedings by any means...'" The judge found that fraud had occurred, that the Conservative database was the most likely source, and that the fraud was serious enough that he would have to overturn the election results if there were concrete proof of the party's involvement.

Then, the Conservative MPs sued the citizens for more than $350,000 dollars.

The House of Commons

In response to the scandal, the House of Commons voted unanimously (238-0) in favour of a motion asking Prime Minister Harper to give Elections Canada more power to investigate the fraud. MPs asked the Prime Minister to move quickly — they wanted him to introduce a bill ensuring the next Canadian election would truly be free and fair, without the widespread fraud of the 2011 election.

That was two years ago. The Conservatives have now finally introduced a bill to change the election laws in Canada. But instead of giving Elections Canada more power to investigate fraud, it gives Elections Canada less power to investigate fraud. They've given the bill the Orwellian name of the "Fair Elections Act."

By all accounts, there are a few things to like about the bill. It creates a registry for robocalls. It will now be against the law to impersonate an elections official. But it creates more problems than it solves. Critics have raised deeply disturbing questions about what the new laws will mean when voters next go to the polls in 2015 — questions that suggest the Harper government is trying to rig future federal elections in favour of the Conservative Party.

No less of an authority than Sheila Fraser, the former Auditor General who uncovered the sponsorship scandal, calls the bill "an attack on our democracy".

Here are just 12 of the most serious concerns:

1. The "Fair Elections Act" makes it harder to vote:

Voters will no longer be able to have other people vouch for them as a form of ID. About 120,000 people used vouching as a method of identification when they voted in the last election. According to the head of Elections Canada, the "Fair Elections Act" means that many of those people "will be denied the right to vote" in the next election "even though they are citizens, qualified and perfectly legitimate." The change may very well be unconstitutional. Critics suggest the move targets Canadians who are less likely to vote Conservative: for instance, "people without fixed addresses, such as students, the poor and aboriginals".

The Conservatives claim they're trying to crack down on fraud by individual voters, but the report they keep citing doesn't present any evidence of fraud by any individual voters. The author of the report told the Canadian Press, "I never said there was voter fraud. Nor did the Supreme Court, who looked at this extremely carefully... The argument doesn't have any logical, factual grounding..." According to the CBC, he says "the government's efforts to prevent voter fraud are aimed at a non-existent problem." During a debate in the House of Commons, one Conservative MP claimed that he had personally witnessed voter fraud. Later, he admitted that wasn't the truth.

In fact, the report the Conservatives keep citing actually recommends making it easier to vote, not harder. It suggests that in addition to vouching, voters should also be allowed to use the voter cards sent to them by Elections Canada as a form of ID, which was introduced as a pilot project during the last election. Instead, the "Fair Elections Act" will kill that program entirely.

A good thing

2. The "Fair Elections Act" makes it illegal for Elections Canada to encourage voting:

The Elections Act currently gives the Elections Officer the ability to promote Canadian democracy by encouraging people to vote, especially "persons and groups most likely to experience difficulties in exercising their democratic rights." The Conservatives are getting rid of that provision. It will now be illegal for Elections Canada to encourage voting, despite the fact that in recent elections voter turnout has reached historic lows.

The Conservatives claim that's why they're making it illegal: because it's not helping. But studies show that non-partisan get-out-the-vote campaigns like the ones by Elections Canada do help to increase voter turnout. Without them, turnout might be even lower.

Once again, critics suggest the new law is meant to keep people who don't vote for the Conservatives away from the polls. As the National Post reports, "Elections Canada's own data shows that youth... are likely to be on the losing end if it is forced to cancel programs promoting civic engagement."

According to the Elections Officer, Canada will be breaking new ground in the muzzling of its own election officials. "I’m not aware of any electoral bodies around the world who cannot talk about democracy," he told the CBC.

3. The "Fair Elections Act" makes it illegal for Elections Canada to tell Canadians when election fraud has occurred or an investigation is underway:

The same part of the bill that makes it illegal for Elections Canada to encourage people to vote also restricts what the officials can tell the public: they will only be allowed to share basic information, like where to vote. Critics point out that it will now be illegal for Elections Canada to blow the whistle and publicly warn Canadians when they believe elections fraud — like the Conservative robocalls scandal — has occurred.

One former Elections Canada lawyer believes that Harper's law may, in fact, keep investigators from ever being able to tell Canadians what they've discovered during the robocalls investigation.

Meanwhile, when there is an investigation into election fraud underway, Elections Canada won't be able to tell anyone without the consent of the people they're investigating. If a political party is being accused of election fraud and they don't want to the public to know about it, Canadian election officials won't be able to tell them.

4. But they would have to tell the person they're investigating:

While Elections Canada won't be able to alert Canadians when an investigation is under way, the "Fair Elections Act" will force them to alert the person they suspect of committing fraud. So, anyone who commits election fraud on behalf of a political party will be warned when an investigation begins, potentially giving them the chance to cover their tracks and hide the evidence.

The RCMP

5. Election officials will need the government's permission to investigate the government:

Under the proposed law, if election officials suspect the government has committed election fraud, they will have to get the government's permission to investigate. In the past, Elections Canada has been able to hire the RCMP or retired police officers as "consultants" to conduct investigations. Now, they will need the approval of a cabinet minister — the president of the Treasury Board — to hire those investigators.

6. The Commissioner of Elections will answer to the party in power instead of to parliament:

In the past, the Commissioner of Elections — the person responsible for investigating and prosecuting elections fraud — has been part of Elections Canada. They're appointed by the Chief Electoral Officer, who answers to Parliament. And so, fraud investigations are ultimately overseen by all of the MPs elected by all Canadians.

The "Fair Elections Act" will change that. The Commissioner will now be appointed by a civil servant and will be accountable to one of the government's own cabinet ministers (the Attorney General). So they won't answer to the entire Canadian Parliament, but instead to the party in power.

7. It will take longer to punish politicians who break the rules:

If, after all of this, a Member of Parliament is actually found to have violated election laws, the "Fair Elections Act" will allow them to delay the time of their punishment. In the past, they've run the risk of being declared ineligible to sit in the House relatively quickly; now, MPs will be able to stay in Parliament while they appeal the ruling. That can take years. According to Canada.com, "critics say some MPs could break the rules getting elected and then drag out lawsuits to hold their seats."

8. The "Fair Elections Act" won't fix the robocalls problem:

As the Ottawa Citizen points out, the Conservatives' new law would do nothing to fix the problem the act was supposed to fix: "nothing in the Bill would hold a political party to account for the unauthorized use of its database by those who have access to it." Andrew Coyne agrees in the National Post: "Frustrated by the slow progress of the investigation into the robocalls scandal the chief electoral officer had asked for greater powers... The act gives him none of these, responding instead by hemming in the powers of investigators on all sides..."

"Democracy"

9. The "Fair Elections Act" will increase campaign spending and the maximum donation limit:

In recent elections, there have been strict limits on the amount of money political parties can spend on their campaigns — including the money they spend on fundraising, which is a big part of the current expense. The "Fair Elections Act" would raise the limit by 5%. And it would exempt fundraising from the total: parties will be able to contact anyone who has given them money in the past (at least $20 in the last five years) without having to count it. That way, they will be able to spend millions of extra dollars on their campaigns. As it stands now, that would give the Conservatives an advantage since they raise more money than the other parties.

Not only that: according to the Times Colonist, it's unclear how Elections Canada would even be able to enforce the new rule. Political parties aren't forced to disclose the names of people who give them less than $200 — so there's no way of knowing who falls under the $20-over-five-years rule and who doesn't. In fact, the Chief Electoral Officer "has repeatedly asked for that power but the new bill does not offer it."

The "Fair Elections Act" will also allow wealthy donors to contribute more money to political campaigns. The limit on private donations will go up by 25% — from $1200 to $1500. And it will also allow donors to donate more often. This, too, seems designed to give the Conservatives an advantage: they currently receive more donations in the maximum amount than the other parties do.

10. But it won't oversee the parties' elections spending:

Local candidates in federal elections are forced to file public reports about the money they spend. But according to Canada.com, the money spent by the national political parties — which is a much bigger budget — isn't subject to much public scrutiny at all. In fact, the head of Elections Canada points out that federal parties still won't be required to submit any invoices or receipts in order to prove their claims are accurate.

11. It will be harder for new candidates and independent candidates to seek office:

As the CBC points out, the changes to the spending cap would also hurt independent candidates — as well as any candidates with a new political party. While preexisting parties will have preexisting donors to contact, new parties won't. "Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand warned that such an exemption could raise questions about ensuring a 'fair, level playing field' for all electoral contenders... A new party coming in, new candidates coming in would not likely have any contributors from the past, so immediately, they face a gap..."

Independent candidates would also face another disadvantage: while political parties can spend money at any time, independents will only be able to spend money once an election has been called and the candidate has been officially registered.

Pool supervisor, very different thing

12. Political parties will get to appoint poll supervisors:

In the past, poll supervisors in all ridings have been appointed by Elections Canada. The "Fair Elections Act" would make it so that the party who won the riding in the last election will get to pick the poll supervisor for the next one.

"It's completely inappropriate in a democracy," says the expert who wrote the report the Conservatives keep citing (he's the former chief electoral officer of British Colombia). In fact, his report recommends that political parties have less input into the staff at polling stations, not more. He says that most errors at polling stations are already made for partisans reasons and the "Fair Elections Act" could make it worse. In his words, it could "tilt the balance" of the election.

So, at very least, the "Fair Elections Act" clearly raises some serious questions that need to be thoroughly discussed and debated. In fact, in the past, when Canadian governments have changed election rules, they have traditionally consulted very closely with the public, the other parties and the experts at Elections Canada. It makes sense that everyone should agree that Canadian elections are truly free and fair.

But this time, the Conservatives haven't consulted with anyone. According to the CBC, the Chief Electoral Officer has complained that "he wasn't consulted before the bill was drafted, and asked why there was no consultation with Canadians before the bill was tabled." Instead of giving Canadians time to explore the new rules, the Conservatives have been ramming the bill through Parliament as quickly as possible. They cut off debate in the House of Commons. Then, they tried to cut off the debate in Committee, too — ending the meeting right in the middle of an answer to a question by the NDP. And they scheduled votes in the House of Commons for exactly the same time the Chief Electoral Officer was scheduled to give his presentation to a House of Commons committee (though he was eventually given his time to speak).

Even Stephen Harper thinks Stephen Harper's methods are undemocratic. Back in 1996, when the Liberals were in power, he argued that "using time allocation for electoral law, doing it quickly and without the consent of the other political parties is the kind of dangerous application of electoral practices that we are more likely to find in third-world countries."

In the face of overwhelming public opposition, the Conservatives have said they might be open to the possibility of changing some of the most controversial aspects of the bill. But instead of acting upon that suggestion, they've doubled-down, making personal attacks on the head of Elections Canada, claiming he wants more power — the very thing parliament unanimously agreed he should be given.

This all certainly makes it seems as if the Harper government is using its power to rig the next election in its own favour — and to settle old scores with Elections Canada. As John Ivison writes in the National Post, "The Harper government has no concept of magnanimity — the Prime Minister and his entourage are apparently unable to forgive an insult or injury; seemingly incapable of acting without vindictiveness." Andrew Coyne echoes him in his own column: "it fits with the broader Conservative theme, heavily reinforced to its own supporters, that Elections Canada is just another of the seemingly limitless list of agencies, institutions and organizations that are out to get them." Even Harper's own former Communications Director calls the bill an act of "vengeance".

As a result, according to a recent Angus-Reid poll, nearly two thirds of Canadians believe the Conservatives are using the "Fair Elections Act" to settle scores with Elections Canada. The percentage is even higher among those who are familiar with the bill.

So when Canadians go to the polls in 2015, it may very well be that everyone except the Conservative Party agrees: Canadian elections are no longer truly free and fair.

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Read about Stephen Harper's War on Science here.

The Best Rob Ford Interview Ever

Rob Ford, as we all know, has been known to smoke some crack cocaine. But that's faaaar from the only problem with his time in office. Even if he were stone cold sober, he would still be a terrible TERRIBLE mayor. He is a man pretty much completely untethered from reality. He makes wildly false claims about even the most basic aspects of his job. He invents make-believe statistics. He spreads misinformation at a breathtaking pace. In one 16-minute speech, Torontoist counted more than 50 "lies, half-truths, and instances of disingenuous spin." That's an average of more than 3 every minute.

And yet the people he allows to interview him have pretty much entirely let him off the hook. While they get caught up on the drug use, they miss the other issues, allowing Ford to repeat his false claims about his policies and "achievements". And it's not just the Jimmy Kimmel types. Even Peter Mansbridge, one of the most respected broadcasters in Canada, totally dropped the ball. Many Torontonians have been anxiously looking forward to the day when Ford would have to answer questions from someone who knew the relevant information and wouldn't let the Mayor off the hook with lazy lies and misleading "facts". And finally — finally! — it happened this morning on CBC Radio. Metro Morning's Matt Galloway had the Mayor in his studio for a 15 minute interview. And while Ford still manages to sneak through a few false facts, it is, hands down, the best interview of Ford we've seen since he took office.

You can watch it on the CBC's website here.

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Image via the CBC.

Posted by Adam Bunch, the Editor-in-Chief of the Little Red Umbrella and the creator of the Toronto Dreams Project. You can read his posts here, follow him on Twitter here, or email him at adam@littleredumbrella.com.

Ten Questions for Rob Ford (More Important Than The Crack One)

More than ten months have passed since the news of Rob Ford's crack video first broke. And while most of the world is focused on the Mayor's drug use, his drunken stupors and his bizarre viral videos, the police investigation continues. New court documents released this week are a reminder that while Ford finally did admit the crack video is real, he's still refusing to answer many of the most important questions related to the scandal. (He's even willing to violently plow through reporters in order to avoid having to answer them.) Substance abuse problems are just the tip of the Rob Ford iceberg. News reports and police documents have tied the Mayor's scandal to alleged kidnapping, home invasion, drug dealing, beatings, death threats, a killing, blackmail and extortion.

Here are ten of the most disturbing questions Toronto is still looking for answers to (many of them raised, of course, by allegations that have yet to be been proven in court):

1. Did you order Sandro Lisi to commit extortion?

So, you know, Sandro Lisi? Your former driver? The guy with a violent criminal past? The one who was recently convicted of making death threats? The one you hang out with in high school parking lots and stage elaborate package-drops with? Well, he's currently not only charged with drug trafficking and possession, but also with extortion. Police allege that in the first few days after the Star and Gawker reported the existence of the crack video, Lisi used "threats or violence or menaces" to get the video back. And according to the phone records, he started calling the guys with the video right after a phone call from you, Mr. Mayor, at the exact same time the crack story was breaking.

Police documents also allege that the man trying to sell the video was kidnapped two weeks later by members of the Dixon City Bloods: "They talked to Siad about 'the video.' Siad was crying, saying he destroyed the video and his family is in trouble. Abdi told Siad that if he saw him in Dixon he would kill him."

Did you order Sandro Lisi to commit extortion? Were you aware of, or involved with, the kidnapping and the death threat?

2. Did you order the attack at 15 Windsor?

Five days after the crack story was first published, someone broke into 15 Windsor, the alleged crack house where the video is thought to have been shot. The Toronto Star reported that "Fabio [Basso, the owner of the house], his girlfriend, and Fabio's mother were assaulted by an unknown attacker brandishing an expandable baton who broke into their home." They also say that Sandro Lisi had been seen there earlier that day. And the day before. According to a Star source, he confronted Basso on the front porch: "'Where are the guys who made the video, Fab,' Lisi said, according to a witness who was present. 'You know where they are.'"

Did you order that attack? Were you involved in the planning of it? Do you know anything about it?

3. Did you order a jailhouse beating?

You are currently being sued by your sister's ex-common-in-law partner, Scott MacIntyre. He says that back in 2012 you ordered one of your former football players to attack him while he was in jail. According to the Toronto Sun, the lawsuit alleges that the attack "left him with a fractured left leg, facial cuts and dental damage. Four or more of his teeth were sheared at the gum line". MacIntyre claims that you ordered the attack in retaliation for his threats to go public with your drug use and criminal connections.

He also claims that he wasn't transported to the hospital until 36 hours after the attack. And that he didn't receive dental care until almost two months later.

Did you order the jailhouse beating of Scott MacIntyre? Did you use connections inside the jail to pull it off — and to keep him from receiving timely treatment for his injuries?

4. Who did you threaten to kill?

In one of your many videos, Mr. Mayor, you are seen threatening to kill someone. "I'll fucking kill that guy," you shout. "I'm telling you, it's first-degree murder... No holds barred, brother. He dies or I die, brother... I'll rip his fucking throat out. I'll poke his eyes out... I'll make sure that motherfucker's dead..."

After the video came out, you admitted that it was "embarrassing" and that you were "extremely, extremely inebriated". But you refused to answer the most important questions.

Like, for instance, who were you threatening to kill?

5. What do you know about the killing of Anthony Smith?

You famously took a photo with alleged gang members outside 15 Windsor. Two of those men — Anthony Smith and Muhammad Khattak — were later shot outside a nightclub on King Street. Smith was killed in the shooting.

Police documents suggest they have found no link between the crack video and the shooting, but there have been many questions raised about the suspicious timing of Smith's death. And you've failed to answer them fully. Back on May 30, the Edmonton Sun wrote, "There is now widespread belief Smith was killed for his phone, which may have contained the video." The CBC reported that "some friends" of Smith believed "he might have had the video stored on his cellphone." And your (now former) chief of staff, Mark Towhey, later revealed that he heard a similar rumour in the days immediately following the first Gawker and Toronto Star reports about the video: "There were a lot of phone calls coming into the office from people... One of our staff received some information from someone he trusted that we didn't know... that [the video] might have been the motive for a murder."

What do you know about the killing of Anthony Smith? How did you meet him? How well did you know him? Did you believe that he knew about — or even had a copy of — the crack video?

6. How did you get your cellphone back?

Last April — a few weeks after Smith was killed and a few weeks before the crack story broke — your cellphone went missing. The National Post reports that you told your staff you lost it while you were cleaning up a park, that you must have left it on the hood of your car and driven off. But police wire taps tell a very different story. They suggest you were doing drugs at 15 Windsor that night. And that your phone was taken by alleged members of the Dixon City Bloods.

Sandro Lisi seems to have tracked it down. According to phone records released in the ITO (court documents submitted by police) last November, he called your cellphone 19 times over the course of 45 minutes in the wee hours of the morning. Later that day, he called Liban Siyad — one of the alleged gang members — and accused him of stealing it. According to the wire taps, he said you were "freaking out" and that you would "put heat on" the Dixon Road apartment complex if they didn't return the phone.

The wire taps suggest that Siyad and his friend ("The Juice Man") agreed to return the phone. They also said they had a photo of you smoking a pipe and had you "in a lot of fucked up situations." According to those wire taps, Lisi agreed to give them a quantity of marijuana in exchange for your phone.

Police also say that Siyad is one of the men who may have been targeted by Lisi's extortion over the crack video a few weeks later.

Did you order Lisi to get your cellphone back? Did you instruct him to exchange drugs for it? Were you willing to use your position as the Mayor of Toronto to "put heat on" a neighbourhood in order to keep your drug use and criminal connections a secret? And, while we're at it, were you ever blackmailed over the cellphone? Or the photo they mentioned? Or the crack video?

7. Have you used your power as Mayor in an attempt to obtain confidential information?

The police say that back in August, you realized someone was following you. They think you and your friends spotted their surveillance vehicle while you were hanging out in your old high school parking lot. Five days later, they say a member of your staff phoned the police to tell them you thought you were being followed. They gave the cops a license plate number that was just one number different from the plate of their surveillance vehicle. The police say they offered to speak with you directly, but you never followed up.

Instead, they say that your new chief of staff, Earl Provost, gave them a call; that he asked them for the registration information of the vehicle. That's confidential information — and the police told him so. According to the ITO, Provost said you were angry with him for not being able to "give him what he wants."

The police claim those actions "clearly indicate that Mayor FORD is utilizing his position and the powers of the Office of the Mayor, to obtain information not available to regular citizens... I believe that Mayor FORD was trying to get the registration information for the vehicle that he and LISI observed on August 18th, 2013."

Is that true, Mr. Mayor? Were you trying to abuse the powers of your office?

8. Have you been paying the bills at 15 Windsor? Or helping the owners get special treatment from the City?

In the ITO, police describe a notebook. They believe it belonged to you or one of your staffers, and say that it contained entries relating to the alleged crack house at 15 Windsor along with the water department and outstanding bills. The police document suggests, "One possible explanation for these entries could be that the Mayor is dealing with house maintenance and bill payment at 15 Windsor Rd."

According to a report by the Toronto Star, a city official told them that in January 2013, a member of your staff "called the city's water department on behalf of resident Fabio Basso regarding a sewage issue at 15 Windsor Rd."

Were you paying bills for a crack house? Did you use your power as the Mayor of Toronto to get them special, expedited treatment for their sewage issues?

9. Did you order a hacker to illegally delete the crack video?

According to a VICE source, at the same time the police say Sandro Lisi was busy with his extortion, one of your current staffers (who was working for your brother, Councillor Doug Ford, at the time, and who has recently stepped aside for cancer treatment) tried to hired a hacker to delete the video off a website. The source claims the hacker was able to access the account, but couldn't delete it.

Do you know anything about that? Did you or your brother order someone to illegally hack into someone's account and delete the video?

10. What was in those mysterious packages?

In the ITO released last November, police surveillance shows you going to elaborate lengths to hide the fact that you were picking up packages from Sandro Lisi. In the ITO released this week, they say that your communications with him are "indicative to that of drug trafficking". The Globe and Mail has also detailed reports of your family's history with drug-dealing, which claim your friend and former staffer David Price and your brother Doug Ford sold large quantities of hash together during the 1980s.

So what was in those packages? Drugs? Nothing else? And if so, do you simply purchase drugs from Lisi? Or is there more to your relationship?

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Photo by the West Annex News (cropped, via the Wikimedia Commons)