Fixing Canadian Politics!
by S. Cosburn Mortimer,
research director of the Bankers' Alliance for Responsible Freedom
Canadian news has been dominated for the last few weeks by the Quebec sponsorship program "scandal." Tax money was siphoned from this program into the accounts of advertising agencies which supported the Liberal Party and which performed no services in the sponsorship program.
Much of the commentary has used the familiar word "corruption," and much time has been spent bewailing the federal government's supposed lack of ethics. The hypothesis that the current government lacks ethics would be more persuasive, however, if there had ever been a Canadian government which lived up to the ethical standards of the self-appointed ethical commentators of the day.
Even Sir John A. Macdonald was accused of scandalous behaviour. The Conservative government which preceded the current succession of Liberal ones did not exactly qualify as simon-pure to the guardians of public morality. And the governments in between also fell afoul of the "guardians of the public trust." Surely it is time to consider the possibility that if every government fails to meet our ethical standards, then the problem is not with the governments, but with the ethical standards.
As I pointed out in an earlier article, prevailing conceptions of public ethics have been formed without having to face private sector discipline. It is all very well to hold that supporters of politicians should selflessly provide their support without receiving anything in return, but who among us would provide services to our employer, for example, without getting something in return? The received idea seems to be that when we support someone, we get paid, but when they support someone, they should do it for nothing.
We know how long an economy run on those lines would last, but somehow we believe that those are the lines on which our political economy should run! And then when the political economy fails to live up to our saintly standards (for other people), we deplore politicians' lack of ethics!
A fundamental principle of ethics is that an ethical code which prescribes behaviour of which people are incapable will not work. Quite clearly our code of ethics for politicians has precisely this failing.
Our current code of ethics also has a psychological problem. If public service is not to have financial rewards, then it will be entered into by people who desire less savoury rewards – the ability to bend others to one's will, for example (Peterson F. Whalley will delve into this topic in greater detail next week).
Clearly we need to establish a political market. Instead of pretending that politicians do things for the good of others, we should finally acknowledge that they do them to receive more tangible rewards. Political parties, instead of conducting campaigns of propaganda in which the electorate's emotions are manipulated with the intent of working them into a moral frenzy which politicians persuade them only their party can satisfy, could go through a type of tendering process. In this process, citizens would be asked what amount of taxes they would be prepared to pay to achieve a political goal, and what percentage of the taxes would be paid to the political party in power to be used as it sees fit – to reward its supporters, for example.
For example, let's suppose some people want their provincial government to reduce class sizes in elementary school. The government could establish the cost of reducing average class size by one student, and then ask for bids from the public to pay through taxes for reductions of specified multiples of one student plus a commission to the party in power.
The bids would be made by organized groups of taxpayers. They would pledge to pay the entire cost through their own taxes. To ensure fairness, for each tender there would be a counter-tender. In the example, other taxpayers could also bid to increase class size. The most remunerative bid would be accepted and a binding contract signed.
Of course, some will start fearmongering about how corporations could use their large concentrations of funds to take over government – for example, it might be feared that auto manufacturers would pay to lower safety or environmental standards. However, since corporations now barely pay taxes at all, it is difficult to believe that they would rush to pay huge amounts of them. Furthermore, there willl always be a counter-tender, and an electorate in the millions is not without financial resources. Poor people would have little power under this proposal, but just as much power as they have now.
The system I propose would be transparent, fair, and, because it would result in the production of a legal contract, binding. Those are three characteristics not found in current politics, including the mythical ‘ethical" variety. Unfortunately, though, this system would also require the citizenry to put its money where its mouth is, something it is demonstrably loth to do. The dominant political idea of our time is that taxes should be reduced and services increased. Simultaneously.
If my suggestion proves to be too demanding for the Canadian public, some other means of preventing "scandals" like the current one will have to be found. Fortunately, the Canadian banking industry of which I am proud to be a part has extensive experience in preventing the misuse of funds. If you don't want public money to go to politicians' friends, put it in a big vault and hire people with guns to prevent anyone transferring any of that money to politicians' friends. That is certainly a more effective approach than trying to elect thieves with ethics.
February 2004
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