Tomorrow, September 1 the BC Government will present us with a new Budget.  This is the second budget of 2009, the previous one having been presented in February 2009.  In the meantime we have also had various “updates” from the Premier and the Minister of Finance.   These are all recognized by informed observers as something less than accurate.  Why has this been so?  Shouldn’t voters and taxpayers have the right to know the real numbers, the same as we now are demanding of banks and investment funds and corporations.  Shouldn’t governments in fact be setting an example?

The Premier has taken the lead in setting us straight on the real picture over the past nine months.  To follow his various assertions it is helpful to remember the basic neo-conservative rules of knowledge as set out by  Donald Rumsfield during the Iraq invasion, to wit: “ There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know”.

For the Premier, the past nine months have demanded close attention to these rules.  According to him, there has been a steady stream of unknown unknowns and unknown knowns over the past few months – many to do with the province’s finances.  In November, 2008 I warned that on the basis of tracking a number of key indicators, government revenues were at that point well below previous government estimates.  The Premier attacked me publicly, as he does when he is caught out, by claiming I did not actually know what I knew, and thus for not knowing what I was talking about.  Little did I know at that point the importance he placed on Rumsfield’s rules.  It became a little bit clearer when two months later he was to amend his position on the knownability of the numbers, stating that he did not know that the economy had tanked back then and thus that his numbers were not wrong but simply involved a case of unknown knowns as far as he and his government was concerned.

The one hiccup in this explanation was that it implied that he now knew the right number.  The problem of course was that he had to table a budget.  So he admitted that the right number  was closer to the number I had predicted than he had acknowledged. But he confessed not that he was wrong but only that the right number had previously been unknowable.  However it became apparent in due course that this did not entirely solve the problem of unknowable unknowns, since on budget day in February, he guaranteed a budget deficit of less that $500 million.   That much he knew for sure.

Unfortunately for him, the knowable knowns of others reviewing the numbers clearly established this as wrong.  But the Premier knew his unknowns by this time, and he was immovable in the budget’s defense.  The unknown, as it turned out, was so unknownable as to justify trashing anyone suggesting it could be known.  The most we could know was the number he put in the budget, which according to the Rumsfield rules, could not be put to any other than this existential test.

It seems we weren’t listening closely enough and we didn’t understand the Rumsfield rules in other respects.  His critics were claiming he was wrong.   But knowing something is wrong is different from knowing what it is.  And his critics didn’t know what it was and so they could be dismissed as not knowing what they were talking about.  So that was the line all through May and June.  Then no less an expert than Jock Finlayson of the BC Business Council informed him deficit would be over $2.5 billion. So on June 8^th he acknowledged that his knownables now included the fact that the deficit number was wrong.  But the correct number was not knowable.  And yes, he was aware of this earlier, but there was no need for him to have told voters this, because the correct number was unknowable then as well.  There was thus no knowable to reveal.  So being the truth seeker that he is, he told us nothing.  After all, being the Premier, he didn’t want to be putting unknownables out and about.

It is hard being Premier.  You can only talk about knownables and how could he, the Premier know the right number?   So he, poor man was  all through the winter and the spring, left to defend the unknowable, which is all he could know, if you follow.

To his dismay, some of the less enlightened felt there this was very close to lying.  The Premier was understandably dismissive.  Just as he has so carefully parsed the difference between the known, the truth, the unknown known, and the unknown unknown on BC Rail, Olympic over-runs and the like, the same rules applied when it came to the true financial situation of the province.

Which creates a bit of a quandary for the reader tomorrow.  A budget unfortunately has to contain some actual numbers.  It is unlikely that it will be accompanied by a readers guide as to which are known knowns, knowable unknowns, unknowable knows and unknowable unknowns.  Based on history to date, the most we can know is that the unknowns will catch up to us when they become knowns (hopefully after the next election).  And we can know that it ain’t going to be pretty.  But that will be then – not now.  Remember the Rumsfield rules.

So don’t rely too heavily on what you read tomorrow.  Only the taxes and the cuts will be knowable knowns.  The rest will be in one of the other three categories.  Which for ordinary folks all mean fiction.

Those who have been following these pages will know that I have been writing about elections in both BC and Afghanistan.  At first glance, it would seem preposterous to most readers to suggest fundamental similarities between the two.  After all, our province is an advanced industrial economy with modern sophisticated social and political institutions, and modern cultural standards and norms that ensure relative honest government and reliable politics.   Afghanistan on the other hand is a nation of warlords, Islamic fundamentalism, corruption, weak and ineffective government, compliant media, and low levels of education, with the result that democracy struggles to gain a foothold.

But in both, recent elections raise some of the same kinds of issues about election practices, and in both questions arise about the effectiveness of rules and institutions in governing election practices.

In Afghanistan it now looks the Karzai will be re-elected.  Sadly it even looks possible that this will come in the first round with a little over 50% of the votes.  But if not the first round, such a result is almost a certainty in the second round.  In BC the Campbell Liberals were re-elected with a little over 50% of the legislative seats.  So in both cases a modest electoral margin will result in the return to power of existing governments.  In both cases given the structure of their governments both will have absolute power over their term of office.  Many will agree with me that in Karzia’s case, this is an outrage.   But how much more legitimate is the BC result than the Afghan one?

Both results have been achieved through electoral dishonesty of one kind or another.  In the case of Karzai, he has relied upon warlords and wealthy business interests to run a campaign of deceit and dishonesty.  None of the issues raised by a new and articulate set of political opponents were given much attention by a weak media and civil society sector accustomed to toeing the government line.  In BC, Campbell ran a campaign almost totally rooted in deceit about the state of BC and his plans if elected, with the financial and electoral support of powerful interests including large business.  The obvious dishonesty of the campaign was largely unchallenged by the media and civil society and continues so right up until the present.  In both cases there is the appearance of a general culture of subservience by these important components of society (although in the case of civil society one should not ignore the impact of election law prohibiting challenges to government claims, virtually all of which were lies of omission or commission).

But the elections are over.  The real question in both cases is whether the institutions of society will prove to be sufficiently robust to thwart the intentions of the formally elected governments to proceed as if the elections were legitimate.  It is hard to be optimistic in either case, even though in both cases the basic facts are clear.  Both winners pursued election practices that involved provable deceit and fraud at a level hardly seen in a modern democracy and both refuse to acknowledge what they did.  Both used the powers of official office and government to give a large advantage to themselves.  And both have systematically lied and withheld information about the true state of affairs.   And it appears that both will get away with it.

In Afghanistan, the media and civil society are sorrowfully underdeveloped.  They lack the capacity and independence necessary to act as an effective watch dog and check on the government.  The only hope is that the international community might call Karzai to account and force corrective action.

In the case of BC, there has been an absence of a sufficiently robust and independent media and civil society to play the role of watch dog and check on a government so necessary if elections are to work as a means of selecting who will govern.   The main tool that makes democracy work is the election.  And the main force at work in an election is criticism and the possible thwarting through challenge of a government that has crossed the line of dishonesty.  In modern societies this is mostly done by the media and the institutions of civil society.  But in the case of BC, it very much appears that attempts to call the government to account will largely be left to individual citizens and opposition political parties, just as it was in the election itself.  History proves that this is never sufficient on its own.  Robust and active media and civil society institutions are essential if the government is to be held to the truth and to act accordingly.

It is tempting to ask why in both cases there is a lack of sufficiently vigorous and robust media and civil society needed to make the essential processes of democracy work.  In the case of Afghanistan, the answer is fairly obvious.  Years of violence, corruption and underdevelopment have removed the oxygen and laid waste to the landscape of democracy.  In the case of BC, the answers are much more difficult.  The province has been observed by outsiders as having a culture of politics more akin to contact sports than to vigorous contests between clashing ideas and personalities.  This type of politics was common in most provinces a few generations back, but the others have all moved on to a more advanced state of debate and truth telling.  The BC media itself has seemingly lost interest in acting as a meaningful check on government, for reasons that are less than obvious.  The dominance of the Aspers as owners may explain some of it, although more disturbing is that reporters appear to have lost their edge and perhaps even their interest.  Thus it has been possible for the Premier to maintain a continuing stream of fictions and denials without any fear of effective challenge and pursuit by a truth seeking pack of relentless reporters.  The half life of any telling criticism of the government in the media is down to a few short hours.  Whatever the explanation, the BC media has lost its way as a robust check on government’s honesty.

BC civil society has been largely emasculated and discredited as well.  Unions, one of the traditional checks on government, attacked by media and academics alike over the years as special interests, no longer count as voices of ordinary citizens.  Universities have become defenders of conventional wisdom and the status quo.  Social and environmental organizations have, partially in pursuit of money but also in pursuit of credibility, fallen into a client state mentality.  Thus we had the spectacle of once powerful environmental leaders shilling for the government during the election.  And the business sector continues to see politics as class warfare and thus censors itself when it comes to criticizing a business friendly government.

All of these point to conditions found in third world societies.  But why should these conditions prevail in BC today.  After all, BC is not a third world society.    It is obviously deeply rooted in structural conditions.  But beyond that it is hard to understand.  We need to better understand how a government has so successfully made itself immune from searching criticism. Hopefully some of the vast resources devoted to the academic community will delve into this through time.

In the meantime, the situation does not bode well for BC citizens.  One thing we have learned is that successful societies and economies require honest and effective government.  Free and fair elections are an essential element of this.  Many of us have wrongly assumed that these are guaranteed by modern norms and standards.  One of our commonly held assumptions is that we are much more advanced then places like Afghanistan.  A closer look leaves one feeling uneasy about that claim.

It may be time to look to legislation to set minimum standards.  It might also be that recall, at best a blunt and inefficient tool of democracy, needs to be called upon.  In our current dire state, if recall were mobilized, it might be that the media and civil society would step up and join in, if only to be part of the spectacle.  But  that would be okay.  After all, democracy can’t be too choosy when it comes to allies in defence of honest elections.

The BC Throne Speech this week is a strange document.  It is a defense of a complex web of deceits, a new and ever expanding litany of lies and an attempt at in your face bravado.  This is not the stuff of a normal throne speech that sets out a constructive plan for the future building on the promises of the just completed election.  In this case one is served up a tale of a disempowered government pleading to have us believe that it is a victim rather than the author of its own misfortune.

It is never edifying to hear the powerful speak of themselves as victims.

The speech is replete with claimed blameworthy targets.  An unpredictable economy, an unforeseeable federal demand to implement the HST, dishonest welfare recipients, the misguided BC Utilities Commission, selfish agencies of the government itself and shadowy political opponents have apparently all conspired to trap the government into measures it could never foresee the need for and presumably never liked until now.  In this vein it pathetically tries to explain the long list of dire measures never once mentioned in the election just two months ago.

Perhaps the saddest tale of woes is that of how the economy kept changing unexpectedly and with such little warning that the government couldn’t tell us the truth in the run up to and during the election.  Sure the recession was a surprise to many when it first revealed itself last fall.  The problem is that in a desperate attempt to get through the election the government piled lie upon lie in its reports to voters on the impact of the recession.  In the new year, when most including this writer accurately predicted that government revenue estimates were off by a number of billions of dollars, the Premier simply attacked the author’s of such reports as political enemies.  More unbelievably the government tabled a budget in February that was completely and deliberately false.  The revenue numbers were lies and the deficit estimates were a complete fiction.  Yet all through the election the Premier insisted they were accurate and based on the best information available.  Even its friends in the BC Business Council found that too much to swallow, and after the election began to prepare the ground for the truth to come out.

Then there is the HST.  According to the Premier this major change to taxation never even occurred to him until after the election. This is so preposterous that several pages had to be devoted to a pathetic plea to believe him.   Ditto with the claim that his pork barrel driven private hydro projects produce cheap power when it is needed when it was clear to all who looked including his own Utilities Commission that they produce their electricity in the spring when BC has a surplus of much cheaper power from its publicly owned hydro plants.

So the speech goes on and on attempting to build a defense for the continuing and prolonged deceit.  And none of it convinces at all.  It is simply a pathetic litany of the unbelievable and the preposterous.

Of course the story of adversity requires that the government step up and act to complete the narrative arc.  And so all of the things the government knew it was going to do but wouldn’t tell before the election are set out.  A record deficit, a new tax, cuts in programs, pay freezes, attacks on agencies, welfare baiting, emasculation of the BC Utilities Commission as retribution for trying to protect rate payers and other similar “initiatives” complete the story.  All responses to the victimization of the government by alien forces far and wide.

That is why of course the government has told such a tale of woe about the economy, trying now to make it so much worse than what it said earlier.  After all it needs a justification for all of these actions it knew about and planned much earlier but would not come clean about because of the election.

Of course all governments try to focus on the positive during elections.  What makes the Campbell government performance so reprehensible is the extensive and deep rooted web of lies and deceits that were involved.  It is one thing to promise a rosy future.  It is another to repeatedly lie when challenged and to construct an election program around a web of falsehoods and lies.

In BC, citizens have the means to punish such behavior.  It is time that recall is called into action and that government candidates answer for all of this.