Cost of Keeping First-Past-the-Post Electoral System

Are you loath to upgrade to a new cell phone? I was and I regret it. My new cell has upgraded my life. This may sound exaggerated but it is not. My new cell’s space allows for audiobook downloads. Listening to them turns joyless boring chores into joyful interesting experiences. Its software supports a fitness app and its feedback inspires more steps and more sleep.

Image by Bruno from Pixabay

It is impossible to calculate the cost of keeping my old cell. What is possible to calculate is the years Canadians have been cheated out of an upgraded democracy. Before 1921, Canadian elections were between two parties. The 1921 election had three. This made our majoritarian electoral system of first-past-the-post (FPTP) undemocratic. Winning a seat no longer required a majority of votes. As the number of parties increased, our democracy decreased. In the 2021 federal election, the Conservatives won more votes but with FPTP the Liberals won 160 seats to the Conservatives 119. The Bloc won 32 seats with 8% of the vote compared to the NDP’s 25 seats with 18% of the vote. Not upgrading our democracy has cost us over a hundred years of distorted election results.

Since 1921, commissions, reports, politicians, and citizens have consistently and repeatedly recommended electoral reform with proportional representation (PR). Parties have promised it (and reneged after getting 100% of the power with FPTP). Other countries using FPTP have upgraded their democracy with PR. It is time we did the same. Support FairVote.ca, NationalCitizensAssembly.ca, and/or CharterChallenge.ca.

Guaranteed Annual Income and Obesity

When I indulge in an Egg McMuffin, I toss half the muffin. In my case, it is better wasted than waisted. What about a student from a food insecure family? They eat to stop the pain of hunger. If hunger remains, they will be consumed by thoughts of food and unable to focus on schoolwork.

In one decade, the price of whole food rose by 40%. The price of processed food? It dropped by 40%.

From A Place at the Table (2012)

Big Food’s mantra is processed food is fine if you have a balanced diet. The 2016 Senate “Obesity in Canada” report states, “low-income Canadians are often restricted to the foods that are available and that they can best afford, which are generally speaking, the least healthy.”

To stop hunger, parents stretch food dollars. Oodles of noodles, hollow cereals, and fibreless juices is an unbalanced diet. In urban food deserts and remote communities, whole food is beyond stretch and/or unavailable.

Processed food is calorie-rich and nutrient-poor making us and our children overweight and ironically, undernourished. Whole food is calorie-poor and nutrient-rich plus it has elements that tell our brain to stop eating.

Would guaranteed annual income (GAI) increase the amount of whole foods low-income families could buy? Especially for expectant mothers who set baby’s taste buds? If you would like to find out, take action. Contact your government representatives. Ask about GAI in leadership races and elections. Most importantly, promote the idea around your kitchen table with children, family, friends, and neighbours.

Guaranteed Annual Income and School Readiness

In Robert Munsch’s Murmel, Murmel, Murmel, Robin finds a baby in her sandbox. Declaring she is too young to take care of a baby, she searches for an adult. Her skills, knowledge, and attitude prove five-year-old Robin is school ready.

School readiness is different from academic readiness. To succeed academically (and in life), children need self-regulation, executive functions, and social-emotional skills. These abilities are wired in by parental attention. In Canada, one out of four children fail school readiness tests. (The failure rate is higher for Indigenous children—another criminal legacy of the residential school system.)

Imagine Robin found parents stressed by poverty. Our baby is less likely to develop school readiness. Economist Ha-Joon Chang recognizes children need more than “minimum nutrition and parental attention.” Dr. Gabor Maté appreciates “the parent’s brain programs the infant’s, and this is why stressed parents will often rear children whose stress apparatus also runs in high gear, no matter how much they love their child and no matter that they strive to do their best.”

Maté proves every baby needs parenting from a “reliably available, protective, psychologically present and reasonably non-stressed adult.” Would guaranteed annual income (GAI) increase the likelihood that parents would be non-stressed and better able to wire in school readiness? If you would like to find out, take action. Contact your government representatives. Ask about GAI in leadership races and elections. Most importantly, promote the idea around your kitchen table with children, family, friends, and neighbours.

Guarantee Annual Income and Parenting Altruism

"Negative income" is an oxymoron—a phrase that combines contradictory ideas. Does "philanthropic millionaire" qualify as an oxymoron? Author John Steinbeck thought so. He wrote, "One has only to remember some of our wolfish financiers who spend two-thirds of their lives clawing fortunes out of the guts of society and the latter third pushing it back." He then added "giving can bring the same sense of superiority as getting does, and philanthropy may be another kind of spiritual avarice."

While millionaire and billionaire philanthropists may feel a sense of superiority, researchers have found giving, or altruism, is hard-wired into the brain and produces a sense of belonging. A sense of belonging is a universal human need.

We have crushing proof that tax loopholes, limited liability, financial (de)regulations, outsourcing, and automation are powerful claws.  They are gutting the 99% of us and the environment.

The Latin origins of “parent” means “bringing forth.” We need to parent the idea that we can skip the wolfishly clawing of fortunes and go straight to altruism. By cultivating empathy in ourselves, others, and especially our children, we can declaw wolfish corporations and individuals.

Would guaranteed annual income (GAI) reduce the need for philanthropic zillionaires? If you would like to find out, take action. Contact your government representatives. Ask about GAI in leadership races and elections. Most importantly, promote the idea around your kitchen table with children, family, friends, and neighbours.

STC U-Turn

I stood witness to the last Saskatchewan Transportation Company (STC) bus leaving the Prince Albert depot on May 31, 2017. It was bittersweet.  Sweet because I have private transportation and could stand in solidarity with the employees.  Bitter because people without public transportation are at increased health and safety risks.

Final bus from Prince Albert depot 31-Jun-2017.

How many people are now experiencing distress around getting to their next medical appointment? How many people are now risking their lives by hitching rides? It may be coincidence, but in the first week of June, I counted seven hitchhikers at intersections on highways north of Prince Albert where I normally see one or two.

The bitter has turned to blister.  I learned that the provincial government did not ask for Saskatchewan's share of federal transit funding.  It was reported to be $640 million—7.5 times the funding estimated for 5 years of STC operation.

The STC is a public transportation system cost-shared with riders.  John Thornton's investigation showed the government was headed down the right road early in its mandate. It increased ridership by lowering fares.  Then my university daughter found the STC an affordable ride home on weekends for family celebrations.  Now it is pricey.

Our government courageously admitted its mistake with the cuts to libraries.  It recognized the cuts reduced our quality of life.  Eliminating our STC may reduce the quantity of life at risk for our most vulnerable riders.  Let's tell our government to courageously slam on the brakes and pull a U-turn before we lose our wheels.

Nancy Carswell
Shellbrook, Saskatchewan

Physical or Psychological Bear?

Your brain is well-adapted to survive a bear attack--but are you really being attacked by a bear? Charlie Stewart survived a bear attack.  He credits divine intervention but it was brain intervention.  When your life is at risk, your amygdala responds with a fight-flight-or-freeze response.  Charlie says, "Next thing I know I was running again." During his response his slower thinking brain turned off so his faster feeling brain could instantaneous Fight! or Freeze! or in Charlie's case Flee!

In safe parts of Canada, we rarely need our fight-flight-or-freeze response.  Yet, there are daily possible triggers. This is problematic because our amygdala does not differentiate between physical and psychological bears.

Take this brain response to a farmyard near Biggar, Saskatchewan on August 9, 2016.  Did Gerald Stanley have a fight response to a psychological bear?  This makes him no less culpable but it does suggest a solution. We can practice priming.  When we meet individuals who are negatively portrayed in the media and elsewhere, we can intentionally think of positive examples. 

The practice of priming requires self-regulation.  Self-regulation is best wired into our brains early. Every child needs a primary caregiver who practices attunement.  Attunement is being "in tune" with the child's emotional states so they feel understood and accepted.  It is through attunement that we learn to regulate our physical and psychological states.  Once self-regulated, our thinking brain has a better chance of outrunning our feeling brain when it sees a psychological bear.  

Libraries and Librarians Feed Hungry Minds

Are you familiar with the award-winning children's story The Very Hungry Caterpillar? Another story I heard could be called The Very Hungry Mind.  There was a 12-year-old in Regina who spotted a rare bird.  When interviewed, Nick Selinger sounded perplexed when asked how he knew it was a Eurasian Tree Sparrow.  He knew because his birding book confirmed his observations. 

Like the hungry caterpillar, Nick had a hungry mind.  He became interested in owls after reading a fiction book.  He read all the owl books but he was still hungry.  He read all the raptor books but he was still hungry.  Then he started to read all the books about birds.  His local library and librarian had a central role in feeding his hungry mind.

As fields of knowledge grow, hungry minds begin to make connections that lead to innovations.  While we credit a particular innovation to a particular innovator, history shows that commonly others were making the same connections and the innovation was inevitable.    

Libraries and librarians are organized to feeding hungry minds in a way the internet cannot. The Saskatchewan government cuts to libraries risks cutting innovations.  The low hanging fruits they thought they were harvesting are the seeds we need for future innovations. Visit your local library or the Action Centre http://savesasklibraries.ca to learn how you can help reverse the cuts.