Faster, Higher, Stronger – A Gold Medal Speech From the Throne?

Most Canadians are currently focused on the Olympic Winter Games, taking place in Vancouver from February 12 – 28, 2010. In the early going, Canadian men and women have already won this country’s first gold medals on home soil. Attention has been drawn to Canada’s attempt to “Own the Podium,” to go faster, higher and stronger (as the Olympic motto proclaims.) Canada is aspiring to bring home more medals than ever before - to be the best in the world.

But very shortly after the Olympics end, Canada’s Parliament will begin a new session, with a Speech From the Throne delivered by the Governor General. Prime Minister Harper prorogued Parliament, to the dismay of many, in order to “recalibrate” his government. The Speech From the Throne presents the first opportunity for citizens to judge if our government is now aspiring to become the best for in the world.

Canadians might be getting familiar with the Parliamentary pomp and pageantry of these Throne Speeches. After all, the Harper Government has presented three in less than fifteen months.

On November 19, 2008, the Speech from the Throne was entitled “Protecting Canada’s Future” and laid out the newly-elected government’s agenda in some detail. The January 26, 2009 Speech from the Throne, however, was only four pages long, and took the Governor General less than 10 minutes to deliver. The government’s intentions were revealed in more detail the next day when the economic stimulus plan was announced in the Budget.

One might assume that the March 3, 2010 Speech from the Throne will contain little of substance, since once again the government has promised to release a budget the very next day.

Here’s what CPJ would like to see, not as exhaustive, but perhaps as three signature commitments, in the next Throne Speech:

• Stronger economic action to defend vulnerable Canadians from the economic recession. The unemployment rate in Canada is still unacceptably high, at 8.5%, meaning that in December some 1.6 million Canadians, or one in every seven workers, were unemployed. Further action to strengthen the Employment Insurance system is urgently needed, since less than half of the unemployed are able to collect EI benefits, and some half million people who collected EI benefits in 2009 will see them expire this year when they are still without work. Improving Canada’s social infrastructure is important during a downturn, because Canadians are then more likely to require assistance. Although prudence may demand targeted redirection of some spending, the G-8 Finance Ministers and a majority of Canadian economists agree: now is not the time to reduce government stimulus spending overall, when so many families are suffering and economic recovery remains fragile.
• Higher environmental protections, starting with placing a price on carbon emissions. A made-in-Canada climate policy wouldn’t merely wait for Washington to act, or simply protect further development of the oil sands. It would actually lower Canadian greenhouse gas emissions. And, it would do so in a way that redirects resources to protection of the environment and defends the livelihoods of low income people. Ending subsidies paid to fossil fuel companies and regulating the environmental and human rights impacts of our extractive industries operating overseas would be instrumental. There is little justification for why the $1 billion increase to Canada’s military spending in 2009 eclipsed the entire budget of our Ministry of the Environment. Rather, Ottawa’s stimulus spending should decidedly favour ecologically-friendly projects (we note that the Obama Administration invested $80 billion in “green” infrastructure spending.) To invest in the new, green collar jobs of tomorrow is smart stimulus that can create a lasting, positive impact.
• Faster development and implementation of a national poverty elimination plan for Canada. Called for as recently as November 24th, 2009 in a unanimously adopted resolution in Parliament, it is now time to act. The two previous Throne Speeches of this government did not even refer to poverty – it is time we all made poverty a priority. A range of policies have been proposed and recommended in this regard, from increasing the Child Tax Benefit, doubling the Working Income Tax Credit, to announcing an Early Child Education and Care plan and moving toward a Guaranteed Livable Income – the list goes on. These investments usually create more jobs and defend livelihoods, and are most often spent in local communities rather than as foreign expenditures or imports of luxury goods.

CPJ is aware that the March 3 Speech from the Throne will be followed the very next day by the federal budget. It will be the budget that outlines how various government options will be prioritized. Watch our website on March 5th to see if Canada wins a medal for addressing public justice challenges.