CCPA MONITOR ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL PERSPECTIVES Volume 21 No. 7 Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives December 2014 / January 2015 Maher Arar – Ten Years Later Still waiting for proper oversight of security and intelligence activities By Gar Pardy (Photo by Adam(Photo Scotti) Former ambassador and long-serving diplomat Gar Pardy delivered t has been a long day. It has been an even a longer the following speech to a conference in Ottawa on October 29 called week in the affairs of our country. The events, last week, Arar+10: National Security and Human Rights, A Decade Ileading to the murder of two members of the Canadian Later. The day-long event, co-organized by Amnesty International, Armed Forces, have provoked commentaries ranging from the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group, the Human Rights the ridiculous to the profound. Each in its own way provides Research and Education Centre, and the Centre for International a tragic backdrop to the substance of this conference. Policy Studies, brought together judges, lawyers, journalists and It is important we dismiss the idea that something called rights defenders to discuss the personal dimension of national Canadian “innocence” has been lost in the midst of these security–related human rights violations, challenges for the legal tragic events. Unfortunately, a Canada “innocent” from the profession, and ongoing concerns related to oversight of national troubles of the world is one of our national conceits that do security activities. Pardy, a self-described son of the Rock, was the head not withstand close examination. of consular affairs at the Department of Foreign Affairs at the time of A more telling observation may have come from an ad Canadian citizen Maher Arar’s rendition from the United States to in last Thursday’s Globe and Mail. Following several pages of Syria where he was detained and tortured for a year. In 2005, Pardy detailed and often inaccurate reporting of the events of the testified before the Commission of Inquiry into the Actions of Canadian previous day on Parliament Hill, we come across an ad for Officials in Relation to Maher Arar (the O’Connor Commission TD Canada Trust’s new Visa card program. In a full page, and below). Since leaving the public service, Pardy has been critical of the in large print, the ad suggested we should “Get out of town.” federal government’s response, or lack thereof, to Justice O’Connor’s To help us, the bank would provide 25,000 Aeroplan Miles. recommendations with respect to improving the oversight of Canada’s I do not believe the editors of the Globe and Mail meant the security activities and the need to properly screen personal information apparent irony—but it is one that the ancient Greeks would on Canadians before sharing it with other countries. (Continued on page 26) CCPA Monitor 1 December 2014 / January 2015 Surplus expectations CCPA Monitor ISSN 1198-497X wenty years ago this month, the household debt. Starting around the year CCPA Monitor is published 10 times a Monitor’s front page featured a teaser 2000, household debt as a percentage of GDP year by the Canadian Centre for Policy article on what to expect from the first climbed steadily, from about 60% to over 90% Alternatives. The opinions expressed T Alternative Federal Budget, out February in 2010. Between 2013 and 2014 this number in the CCPA Monitor are those of 1995. The project, a joint venture by the grew faster than the economy as a whole. the authors and do not necessarily CCPA and Winnipeg-based social justice In other words, the strived-for 2015 surplus reflect the views of the CCPA. coalition CHO!CES, was born of frustration was partly financed by personal debt. And Please send feedback to monitor@ with the 1994 Liberal budget, which cut the rest of it has come, as in the 1990s, on the policyalternatives.ca. $13.3 billion in expenditures and transfer back of significant cuts to public services, EDITOR: Stuart Trew payments to the provinces, and signaled both federal and provincial. the elimination of more than 50,000 federal The Conservative government claims EDITOR EMERITUS: Ed Finn public sector jobs, so that Paul Martin could its cuts are not affecting frontline services. slay the deficit “come hell or high water.” But this is not true. As David Macdonald LAYOUT: Susan Purtell The late Conservative finance minister Jim and Kayle Hatt explain in their November Flaherty reportedly studied these cuts a 2014 AFB technical paper, At What Cost: EDITORIAL BOARD: Bruce Campbell, Kerri-Anne Finn, Seth Klein, Kate year before his government announced, in The Impacts of Rushing to Balance the McInturff, Erika Shaker 2011, it would be pursuing a similar war on Budget, the recent federal cuts are not only the federal deficit. undermining Canada’s economic recovery, CCPA NATIONAL OFFICE: Then, as now, the cuts were not just they were “made in areas where Canadians 500-251 Bank St., Ottawa, ON K2P 1X3 a money-saving exercise. There was no most heavily rely on their federal tel: 613-563-1341 alternative, we were told, in a globalized government,” including Veterans Affairs, fax: 613-233-1458 world with hyper-mobile finance. the Employment Insurance helpline and e-mail: [email protected] Government needed to be lean and mean. Let food inspection. The cumulative effect the private sector deliver more services. Cut of Conservative cuts by 2015-2016 will be CCPA BC OFFICE: back transfers to the provinces for health care, $14.5 billion a year. That number is (not 1400-207 West Hastings St., education and other social programs. Spend surprisingly) close to the $13.1 billion Vancouver, BC V6B 1H7 less time thinking about where we want surplus the federal government expects tel: 604-801-5121 the Canadian economy to be 10 or 20 years by 2019-2020, as announced in the recent fax: 604-801-5122 e-mail: [email protected] from now—what sectors or technologies fall economic update. we should be championing—and more on It is a lot of money, and it is over and CCPA MANITOba OFFICE: attracting foreign direct investment, even above the $5 billion this government will be Unit 205 – 765 Main St., if it was mostly mergers and acquisitions. spending annually on new tax measures like Winnipeg, MB R2W 3N5 The cuts worked, if you believe that income splitting for families with children, tel: 204-927-3200 balanced budgets are the Holy Grail of and the boost to the Universal Child Care fax: 204-927-3201 government financing. Within a few Benefit. End-of-year news programs have e-mail: [email protected] years Canada was back in the black and started to ask what we should be doing running healthy surpluses. But did the with the surplus. Everything is on the table, CCPA NOVA SCOTIA OFFICE: effort put us on a course for sustained, from faster debt repayment—the CEO’s P.O. Box 8355, Halifax, NS B3K 5M1 equitable prosperity? Based on so many preference—to infrastructure, new universal tel: 902-240-0926 indicators, from income inequality to services (child care, pharmacare), cancelling e-mail: [email protected] child poverty to the value-added content the post-2011 cuts to old age security and CCPA ONTARIO OFFICE: of Canadian exports (and many others), the health and social transfers to the provinces, 10 Dundas Street East, answer is clearly negative. Canada’s poor or introducing more boutique tax cuts, etc. P.O. Box 47129, Toronto, ON, M5B 0A1 performance cannot be blamed entirely on With an election less than a year away, tel: 416-598-5985 federal budgetary policy. But the ideological opposition parties are trying to carve out e-mail: [email protected] precedent set two decades ago, notably the unique and competing visions for the kind of obsession with fiscal deficits, has deprived country we want to live in, recognizing that CCPA SASKATCHEWAN OFFICE: us for too long of choices we could be the status quo—chronic stagnation, resource Suite G, 2835 13th Avenue, making to address this country’s social, dependence, high real unemployment, Regina, SK S4T 1N6 employment and environmental deficits. democratic malaise—is not an option. tel: 306-924-3372 Martin’s magical 25% debt-to-GDP target What better moment to be releasing our fax: 306-586-5177 was mostly a communications exercise, not 20th anniversary AFB, which has always e-mail: [email protected] necessarily a recipe for a healthy national seen beyond deficits and surpluses, to the CCPA web site: economy. In fact, as the CCPA noted in its 2014 role we can collectively play, through our www.policyalternatives.ca AFB, Canada’s persistently low federal debt- federal government, to reduce inequality, Canada Post Publication 40009942 to-GDP ratio is being paid for by growing end poverty, create good jobs and generally provincial debt and, more disturbingly, new improve lives? (Stuart Trew) CCPA Monitor 2 December 2014 / January 2015 HENNESSY’S INDEX Minimum Wage CONTENTS 4 – Number of decades that the average of provincial mini- ON THE coVER: Gar Pardy has faith in the courts, mum wages in Canada has remained unchanged in real terms. not government, to check security over-reach 26 $10.14 – The average of all provincial minimum wage rates in Editorial 2 Canada in 2013, which is about the same value as the 1975 aver- Letters to the Monitor 4 age of minimum wage rates ($10.13 expressed in 2013 dollars). New from the CCPA 5 1¢ – Hourly minimum wage gain for Canada’s lowest-paid work- Good News Page 25 ers over the past four decades: a single red penny.