[Canada] Canadian Politics Redux

[crazy canuck]

Nothing like dismissing 100 years of financial exploitation and putting it all down to unfortunate geography.

[Grey Fox]

Maybe it's not corrupt institution in place that we should help & unite the gangs and complete their coup.

[Sheilbh]

Nothing like dismissing 100 years of financial exploitation and putting it all down to unfortunate geography.

The history and the financial exploitation are key, but they're not even past.

I think it is also fair to query if the proposal is to do it again and more if Western aid or development works. The sad reality is that I can't think of many examples of Western development expertise actually really helping countries develop, or Western natiton building that has built a nation.

It's not to say we shouldn't be trying to do those things - but I think maybe we need to look again at how. I hate to say it but from friends who work in the NGO and development sector - though in Africa (particularly South Sudan but elsewhere too) they are a lot more positive about the Chinese efforts in this area, though professionally of course they're very committed to Western/UN models.

[crazy canuck]

Fair point.

[Barrister]

Rachel Notley interviewed by Wells.

She is an impressive person - but I suppose she has to be to just exist as an NDP leader in Alberta.

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/can-rachel-notleys-ndp-govern-alberta-again/id1643176656?i=1000604285569

So what do you find impressive about her?  Honest question.

I don't hate her, certainly am not going to put up a "Fuck Notley" sign on my pick-up (note I don't own a pick-up), but I feel like she's often wrong in her political instincts.  She certainly knows she needs to plot a "middle of the road" course and is often at odds with the Federal NDP, which I appreciate.

[HVC]

What's the Chinese models?

[crazy canuck]

Rachel Notley interviewed by Wells.

She is an impressive person - but I suppose she has to be to just exist as an NDP leader in Alberta.

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/can-rachel-notleys-ndp-govern-alberta-again/id1643176656?i=1000604285569

So what do you find impressive about her?  Honest question.

I don't hate her, certainly am not going to put up a "Fuck Notley" sign on my pick-up (note I don't own a pick-up), but I feel like she's often wrong in her political instincts.  She certainly knows she needs to plot a "middle of the road" course and is often at odds with the Federal NDP, which I appreciate.

I think she is strong on policy.  Most importantly I think she is proposing exactly what Alberta needs, an energy policy that is saleable to both BC and the Feds so that the province's natural resources can get to market.

Alberta Conservative politicians can stamp their feet all they want and rant about independence, but that is not going to solve the problem.

Also, she is effective at eviscerating both the past and current leaders of the UCP, without being mean about it.  Just matter of factly pointing out how terrible they were and are.

[Sheilbh]

What's the Chinese models?

Basicaly turnkey physical infrastructure - often it's now tied to Belt and Road (but not always).

The criticisms have been that there's less conditionality which leads to more corruption and more authoritarian states. I think the evidence on that is mixed - there's no sign that China prefers spending aid on authoritarian states v democracies and it generally sends aid to relatively stable countries. Similarly there's not actually much evidence it's linked to resources (but does normally follow existing trade/commercial interests). There are issues around corruption and good governance though.

And China has moved in recent years on the other big criticisms. So one was around the lack of expertise after Chinese engineers left - that has been shifted and now all aid projects include (like most Western companies have if they're investing in Africa to build, say, a power plant) a requirement to train up African engineers. There's about 80k engineers from countries in Africa receing Chinese aid in China now, plus local training schemes on site. The other criticism is the debt trap that linked to aid are often interest free loans, or low interest commercial loans that have the infrastructure as collateral - I think that's more true of the B&R projects than Chinese development aid and my understanding is their model is shifting on that too so there's been some (limited) debt relief.

But speaking to friends who are in this sector in Africa they have said a lot of it is that they go to communities ask what they need and then tell them what they get which normally fits in with donor priorities - e.g. public health one year, malaria the next, climate mitigation the next. While the perception at least is that the Chinese go to a community get told they need a road and build a road - and in their view it's often difficult to say that actually all of the other stuff isn't a lot easier once the Chinese have been in and built some physical infrastructure.

I'm not saying it's necessarily right either but given consistent Western failure in actually helping the developing world I feel like we could maybe do with a bit of humility/thinking about what we're trying to do and how we do it.

[Barrister]

I think she is strong on policy.  Most importantly I think she is proposing exactly what Alberta needs, an energy policy that is saleable to both BC and the Feds so that the province's natural resources can get to market.

Alberta Conservative politicians can stamp their feet all they want and rant about independence, but that is not going to solve the problem.

Also, she is effective at eviscerating both the past and current leaders of the UCP, without being mean about it.  Just matter of factly pointing out how terrible they were and are.

So first of all let me concede that 99% of conservative feet stomping is performative and ineffective.

The thing is - so was Rachel Notley's "social license" theory.  It earned Alberta zero credit in BC or Ottawa.

[crazy canuck]

I think she is strong on policy.  Most importantly I think she is proposing exactly what Alberta needs, an energy policy that is saleable to both BC and the Feds so that the province's natural resources can get to market.

Alberta Conservative politicians can stamp their feet all they want and rant about independence, but that is not going to solve the problem.

Also, she is effective at eviscerating both the past and current leaders of the UCP, without being mean about it.  Just matter of factly pointing out how terrible they were and are.

So first of all let me concede that 99% of conservative feet stomping is performative and ineffective.

The thing is - so was Rachel Notley's "social license" theory.  It earned Alberta zero credit in BC or Ottawa.

How then did she manage to convince the Feds to put the pipeline through?  And btw social license was not her creation. It was well ensconced as a concept regarding what it would take to put a pipeline through BC, well before she took office.  She made the best of what she had.

[Jacob]

I don't know anything about how Notley uses the term, or how it figures into the Albertan political discourse but the concept of social license is well established and, IMO, pretty crucial to Alberta succeeding (or not) in getting pipelines built.

If the First Nations along the path of the pipeline say "we think it's a good thing this pipeline is being built, it helps our communities" that is going to make it more likely to succeed than if they say "as steward of our traditional lands, we think this pipeline is terrible and a threat and we don't want it".

Similarly, if the people of BC communities along the way believe "yeah, this pipeline is not dangerous to our communities, we believe any mishaps will be few and well handled, and we see the importance to our national and local economies" that's very different than if they say "no, this is awful and dangerous."

... and both of those are examples of social license as I understand it.

IMO and IMEX, viewing people whose consent you need to make progress as partners rather than obstacles to be browbeat into compliance is more effective in the long term. And when those partners represent broader groups (i.e. the electorate of BC, or the member of various First Nation bands) then some level of broad approval - that is, social license - among those groups matter.

I don't know if Notley has been effective in obtaining social license - and maybe she's using the term differently than I would - but IMO social license is a key component for Alberta to succeed when dealing with stakeholders outside of Alberta.

[Valmy]

It did, until France required it to pay at gun point.

Well it is more complicated. The reason the French were able to, and the Haitians were willing to agree, to these obviously outrageous demands were based on more than military threats. After all this is the 1820s, not the 1890s. The French didn't have battleships and machine guns, the Haitians were not all that afraid of them militarily. After all the Haitians had won in 1804 and this is Charles X not Napoleon Bonaparte. So no it wasn't that the French pointed a gun at the Haitians and they meekly complied.

The thing that Charles X was able to hang over the Haitians heads and draw out this deal was what Haiti desperately thought it needed: international recognition. Ever since independence there was this belief that if they could restore the old boom times to the Haitian economy if they were able to freely trade again.

That expectation was, after all, why the United States had been friendly to the Haitian revolution at first, because New England traders wanted to get in on the lucrative Haitian trade once the revolution was over.

The 20 years following independence had been tough, being a virtual pariah state with few friends and was poor and politically unstable. So when President Jean-Pierre Boyer agreed to pay off the French for recognition he thought that the good times would return and paying back the money wouldn't be that big of a problem. But he miscalculated and the boom times never returned. I am not some expert on international cash crops trading in the 1820s and I don't understand why Haiti's plantation economy never got going again but it didn't. The whole thing turned out to be a disaster.

And tragically Haiti's isolation was probably going to go away soon anyway with so many Latin American countries becoming independent from Spain around this time.

The Haitians thought this deal was in their national interest, not that they were afraid of French guns.

Of course as the age of imperialism and military technology went along eventually French and American guns were key in making sure the Haitians were held to this bad deal. So I guess there is that.

The other part of that question is if things had been dramatically better without this deal, would Haiti be in a better place? I don't know. Certainly a much different place and how much worse could it possibly be? But it wasn't like Haiti was enjoying a bright present or seeing a bright future ahead of it in 1825.

[Barrister]

I don't know if Notley has been effective in obtaining social license - and maybe she's using the term differently than I would - but IMO social license is a key component for Alberta to succeed when dealing with stakeholders outside of Alberta.

OK so during Notley's government she took several steps to get "social license" - she imposed a carbon tax and implemented a cap on total emissions from the oilsands.

But as I said, nobody outside of Alberta gave Alberta any credit for it.  Activists, BC, and Quebec were still all opposed to pipelines.  Keystone XL, Coastal Gaslink, Energy East all didn't go ahead.

I suppose you could argue that because one pipeline, TransMountain, is going ahead it meant Alberta did get partial credit.  But the thing is it's still going ahead after Kenney got rid of the carbon tax.  And remember it's just the refurbishment and enlargement of an existing pipeline.

I think there has to be more of a middle path - that you're willing to work with stakeholders where you can, but without giving certain interest groups vetos over any proposed project.

[viper37]

Nothing like dismissing 100 years of financial exploitation and putting it all down to unfortunate geography.

I did not such thing.

I said unfortunate geography was also a factor.  The Dominican Republic is on the same island and the geography is more beneficial to them than to Haiti, less prone to severe storms and major earthquakes on their side of the island.

The Dominican Republic has not been as financially exploited as Haiti, but it has not received as much foreign aid either.

Haiti's slavery reperations are substantial, to the tune of 30 billion$ in today's money, but not many countries have received has much direct financial aid as Haiti received.  And the numerous peace mission Canada was involved in.  Every time we go, we seem to only make things worst.

[crazy canuck]

I don't know if Notley has been effective in obtaining social license - and maybe she's using the term differently than I would - but IMO social license is a key component for Alberta to succeed when dealing with stakeholders outside of Alberta.

OK so during Notley's government she took several steps to get "social license" - she imposed a carbon tax and implemented a cap on total emissions from the oilsands.

But as I said, nobody outside of Alberta gave Alberta any credit for it.  Activists, BC, and Quebec were still all opposed to pipelines.  Keystone XL, Coastal Gaslink, Energy East all didn't go ahead.

I suppose you could argue that because one pipeline, TransMountain, is going ahead it meant Alberta did get partial credit.  But the thing is it's still going ahead after Kenney got rid of the carbon tax.  And remember it's just the refurbishment and enlargement of an existing pipeline.

I think there has to be more of a middle path - that you're willing to work with stakeholders where you can, but without giving certain interest groups vetos over any proposed project.

The fact that it was still going ahead after Kenney pulled his stunts has nothing to do with whether those steps were necessary to get the approval in the first place.  After the approval was given, it could not be taken away, no matter what Kenney might have done.