What do merit pay, a carbon tax and Tommy Chong have in common?

Out to British Columbia again, where the candidates for the leadership of the BC Liberal Party have been busy lately talking policy ideas.

Kevin Falcon took a controversial position this week when he argued for merit pay for teachers and cash incentives for schools and teachers that improve test scores.

If he wins the leadership contest next month, Falcon said he would create a master teacher incentive program that would recognize exceptional and innovative educators and a model school incentive program that would reward schools for improvements in student achievement.

…his plan wouldn't rely solely on test scores. Rather, he said his government would work with teachers, administrators, parents and community leaders to develop criteria for identifying innovative educators.

Falcon’s proposal sparked a firestorm of criticism. The BC Teachers Federation, predictably, called it “a cockamamie notion” and his leadership opponent, former education minister George Abbott, said it would amount to cherry-picking one element of failed U.S. experiments in education.

Mr. Abbott said he was opposed to throwing “one experimental or trick shot piece out there that is drawn from the American experience and may not be applicable to our experience,” into education policy in this province.

Still no word, by the way, on Falcon's flip-flop on lowering the voting age from 18 to 16.

Abbott made his own major policy push yesterday, and it wasn’t without its own controversial policy positions. For example, remember the carbon tax? While it helped fell Stephane Dion, BC’s own carbon tax, while controversial at its inception, remains quietly in place in BC. The BC Liberals won the last election despite a concerted effort by the BC NDP to defeat them on the carbon tax. Still, Abbott wants to revive the issue with a referendum:

The carbon tax referendum would be held June 24, which is also the date Abbott proposes for bringing forward the provincewide vote (currently set for Sept. 24) on whether to extinguish the harmonized sales tax.

Abbott said many British Columbians are rightly proud of the trail blazing carbon tax, which is scheduled to climb to seven cents a litre effective July 1, 2012. But he questioned whether the province should continue with such a tax when, as he put it, "the rest of North American is not dancing with us on this issue."

So, rather that being an environmental leader and continuing with a carbon tax, the system increasingly favoured not just by environmentalists but even by the energy industry, Abbott wants to re-open the can of worms? It’s an absolutely horrible idea. I can only surmise he seems some political advantage if he can rile up people on the issue, but it’s both bad policy and bad politics in my view. It is (was) a dead issue. I agree with Falcon on this one:

But Falcon rejected Abbott's call for a referendum, saying, "we had a referendum on the carbon tax and it was called the general election."

While it didn’t get the attention of merit pay for teachers or a carbon tax referendum, I was more disturbed by Abbott’s senate musings:

He also said the province should follow the route of Alberta and begin electing senate nominees.

When one of B.C.'s six seats in the Canadian Senate becomes vacant, a provincewide election would be held. The winner's name would then be forwarded to the prime minister for appointment to fill the vacancy.

Sounds nice in theory, but in reality it’s bad for the Senate and bad for British Columbia. I’ve blogged about this at length in the past, but in short, BC is very ill-served by the current composition of the Senate.

While the Commons is representation by population (in theory), the Senate is meant to balance that with representation by region. The problem is, the current regional make-up of the Senate is outdated, and is based on a 19^th century view of confederation-era Canada. The Maratimes are vastly over represented. Dido Upper and Lower Canada. The West, meanwhile, is lumped together as one regional group.

This inequity, while grating, is less pressing while the Senate is composed of unelected sober second thoughters that, recognizing their constitutional illegitimacy, are loathe (well, usually loathe) to circumvent the will of the elected Commons.

However, if you elect senators as Harper and Abbott favour, then those elected senators will be able to claim a democratic mandate and will not hesitate to exercise their not insubstantial constitutional powers.

Creating elected senators without addressing the regional composition of the Senate and addressing the balance of powers between the house of parliament is a bad idea, and it’s bad for BC. I’ll say to Abbott what I’ve long said (well, blogged) to Harper: you shouldn’t do senate reform half-assed. It has to be all or nothing.

Meanwhile, Christy Clark yesterday launched a series of open government initiatives aimed at increasing public confidence and public participation in the democratic process. It included a promise to, as Premier, hold a dozen town halls each year with BC residents.

“The reality is that voters feel a disconnect with their government,” said the former deputy premier and education minister.

“These proposals are designed to reconnect people with government.”

Other proposals put forward by Ms.Clark include working with all MLAs to see more private members’ bills debated and passed as well as a caucus accountability committee with the party leader as member, and cabinet accountability sessions in the regions of B.C. at regional policy conferences or other special events.

More on the specific proposals is available here. Some are more ambitious than others, but I like the monthly townhalls and more streaming video of legislative and committee meetings.

As for the BC NDP

While I don’t agree with all of their ideas, I have been impressed with the level of policy-focused debate we’ve seen in the BC Liberal leadership race. Meanwhile, over on the BC NDP side, Dana Larsen remains the only declared candidate. He has, however, secured a key endorsement:

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B.C. leadership round-up: Dana Larsen vs NDP bosses, and a Falcon flip-flop?

While the rest of Canada may have slowed-down for the Christmas break, with two leadership races underway on the left coast the wackiness continued as per usual in Supernatural British Columbia.

The BC NDP

* We’ll start with the BC NDP, and the slow to start race to replace Carole James. With potential candidates slow to surface, we finally had someone step forward and put their name into the race over the break, and it’s a familiar name: rabble-rousing marijuana crusader Dana Larsen.

Former West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast federal NDP candidate and marijuana advocate Dana Larsen announced Wednesday that he will run for the leadership of the B.C. New Democrats.

Larsen said he had no plans of pursuing a leadership role until Carole James stepped down from the position in early December, but said he decided to throw his hat in the ring because he wanted to offer "a fresh perspective" to party members and the B.C. electorate.

In an interview with The Outlook, Larsen said he hopes to take the B.C. NDP back to "grassroots" politics and re-establish the party as "unabashedly left wing." Renewed support for low-income and seniors' housing, he said, are two issues at the top of his agenda.

As Troy McClure would say, you may remember Dana Larsen from past scandals was forced to resign as a federal candidate over video of himself driving a car while high on LSD (actually, see update below), or banned from the NDP convention in Halifax by Brad Lavigne.

Yes, we first came to know Larsen as the NDP candidate in West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Really Long Riding Name in the 2008 federal election. Larsen was the first of three NDP candidates to drop out of the race in BC after YouTube video surfaced of Larsen “dropping hallucinogenic drugs and driving while smoking marijuana.”

He resurfaced the next year in the lead-up to the NDP’s 2009 federal convention in Halifax, when he offered financial assistance to potential delegates as part of his campign to pass pro-legalization policy at convention. NDP executive director Brad Lavigne viewed this as improper lobbying and had him banned from the convention hall on conference eve, creating somewhat of a martyr.

It seems Larsen still doesn’t have many friends in the NDP leadership. While Larsen wants to run for the BC leadership, BC NDP boss Moe Sihota is throwing cold-water on the prospect:

But NDP provincial secretary Moe Sihota said Larsen was declared ineligible to run for the party after the 2008 federal election campaign when he had to step down as a candidate in a Vancouver-area riding after videos appeared of him smoking pot and taking LSD.

Sihota also counted Larsen out on a technicality, which he said ultimately could prevent Larsen from running provincially at all.

"He's not a member of the party," said Sihota. "He was already deemed ineligible to run for the party federally and the rules committee, which meets on Jan. 6, would have to decide whether he would be able to run provincially."

It appears some of the confusion may have been addressed, and Larsen does indeed now have a membership, although he says he had, or should have, had one all along. I was interested to read Sihota’s characterization of Larsen’s departure from the 2008 race though. Sihota said Larsen “was deemed ineligible to run for the party federally” but the news coverage at the time made clear Larsen wasn’t forced-out but stepped aside voluntarily:

Asked about Mr. Larsen’s resignation Wednesday evening in Toronto, NDP Leader Jack Layton said he didn’t know why the party hadn’t done checks to find out about some of the candidate’s activities, which are posted on the Internet. He said the candidate submitted the resignation to the B.C. campaign team and that it was accepted.

“I don’t know a lot of the details of what’s gone on there, but he’s obviously taken the decision that he’s not a suitable candidate, and we’ve accepted that decision.”

* It could all be moot anyway, barring gender-reassignment surgery. Because it appears an arcane part of the BC NDP’s constitution requires the next leader to be female:

The next leader of the B.C. NDP will have to be a woman, unless the party's male president or treasurer resigns, according to gender rules in the NDP constitution.

The unique requirement, buried within the NDP's official rulebook, adds an extra layer of complexity in the race to replace leader Carole James.

The constitution states both genders must be represented in the jobs of leader, president and treasurer.

The current president is Moe Sihota and the treasurer is Bob Smits. James is stepping down later this month, and all those who have publicly said they are considering the job are men.

This is yet another example of why I think hard quotas are a clumsy way of achieving demographic parity, and are generally a bad idea. I might add that the BC Liberals didn’t need quotas to attract two quality female candidates in Moira Stilwell and the frontrunner, Christy Clark.

BC Liberals

*Over in BC Liberal land, meanwhile, we may have our first flip-flop of the campaign, on the proposal floated a few weeks back to lower the voting age to 16. When Mike de Jong first floated the idea, and Christy Clark quickly expressed support, Kevin Falcon did as well, in a statement that’s still on his Web site:

“Lowering the voting age to 16 is an interesting idea. One I am inclined to support, in conjunction with mandatory civics courses as a part of the high school curriculum. I should add that I am proud to be a member of a party that allows 14 year olds to become full members and commence their engagement as citizens before they get to vote.

“We need to recognize however, that lowering the voting age will not solve all the problems of lack of engagement with citizens. As it is, voter turn-out is unacceptably low in BC. What I am interested in is hearing from people about what we can do collectively to make sure that more people are encouraged to exercise their vote.”

However, just a week later, in a Dec. 21 interview with Harjinder Thind on Red FM, Flacon appeared to back away from that position:

Harjinder Thind: Are you in favour of increasing the minimum wage, or, decreasing the voting age?

Kevin Falcon: I am not in favour of decreasing the voting age because I think that we already are having trouble getting 18 to 24 year olds voting. But, I am interested in reaching out to those young people the way I have done through my leadership campaign by using social media and by using our website and Flicker and facebook and Twitter to connect with young people and we're doing that very successfully.

I hope Falcon will explain his apparent 180 on this issue. And I have to say, reaching out to the kids on the Twitter is nice, but if the message you’re tweeting is I don’t think you should have the vote, you’re missing the point.

*Back to gender, Keith Baldrey analyzes recent polling data and shows a strong shift of the female vote away from the BC NDP to the BC Liberals:

The NDP has long prided itself as a champion of the interests of women, and it even implemented an affirmative action policy to ensure more female candidates in the last election. But it is now seen as the party that undemocratically turfed a female leader, and it will undoubtedly elect a man to succeed Carole James.

In fact, it will be interesting to see if any women even run for the NDP leadership. If none do, it will be a stunning commentary about the party's true commitment to the interests of women.

Meanwhile, the B.C. Liberals couldn't be happier about this. The polls show the NDP's loss in support from women is in the double-digits, as many have gone over to the B.C. Liberals.

*Lastly, Christy Clark is talking about putting families first:

UPDATE: In an e-mail, Larsen clarifies that he did not drive while under the influence of LSD. There is a video of him taking LSD, and a separate video of him driving with an unlit joint. Media coverage indicates the driving video was while under the influence of DMT (dimethyltryptamine), but he says it had worn off before he drove. Says Larsen:

"Despite the media hype, in the two videos in question I am shown to be a responsible user of psychedelics. I do regret the brief segment which shows me driving with an unlit joint in my hand. I advocate for responsible use and don't support driving impaired."

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Make taxis Go Green

When it comes to turning environmental talk into environmental action, this seems like such a simple and sensible idea: the B.C. government wants all future taxi licenses to only be approved for hybrid or highly-fuel efficient vehicles:

B.C. government is putting pressure on taxi companies in its two largest urban areas to run greener vehicles.

The province has asked the province's Passenger Transportation Board to approve taxi licenses for only hybrid or other highly fuel-efficient cars, Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon said Monday. He also wants the 100 existing applications before the board to only be approved if they're for the greener vehicles.

In addition to the stick, the province also points to available carrots, including a provincial tax exemption of up to $2000 for fuel efficient vehicles, and a federal rebate of up to $2000 as well.

With the usual turnover cycle in taxi fleets, the province hopes B.C’s entire taxi-fleet will be green in time for the 2010 Games. I understand a hybrid taxi push is also underway in New York City.

Given the amount of cabs out there, and the time they spend on the road each day, making taxis go hybrid could make a nice impact on air quality.

Particularly on smog days like we’re having this week in Toronto and much of Southern Ontario. I’d have to think hybrid taxis would be a real winner here, and I’m surprised Toronto Mayor David Miller hasn’t done anything on the front yet. Might also be a good measure for Dalton McGuinty to jump on, with an election coming-up this fall.

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