The 2011 Gordon Osbaldeston Lecture
by Allan R. Gregg

“That above all – to thine own self be true; And it must follow as the night the day. Thou canst not then be false to any man”

Polonius’ advice to his son, Laertes in Hamlet

A Short History of the Erosion of Trust

Even someone with only a passing interest in current affairs would know our political leaders are in big trouble.

A few years ago, Seth Meyers of Weekend Update on Saturday Night Live developed a routine where he lampooned politicians by simply asking “Really!” …. no narrative; not even a snappy punch-line; simply a run a clip of a politician followed by an incredulous “Really!” Jon Stewart has taken this vein of comedy one step further where the joke doesn’t even require speech … just show the politician speaking; pause for a moment; and arch an eye brow. Both routines are invariably followed by gales of laughter. Not only is the joke on our elected leaders, it seems they are the only ones left on the planet who don’t get it.

And you also would not have to be a student of Canadian history to know that this condition is very different from the Canadian political culture of the past.

From William Kilgour’s description of Canada’s Peaceable Kingdom to John Porter’s Vertical Mosaic, we were taught that Canadians valued collective stability – peace, order and good government – over individual freedom – life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness – and that the nation was governed through elite accommodation where leaders benevolently led and citizens passively followed. And we looked to our leaders – and especially government – not simply to broker the public good, but if need be, to create and provide it. This Canada of the past was marked by deference to authority not belly laughs at their every utterance.

This orderly arrangement between leaders and followers was fuel by post War prosperity and a belief that progress was normal. The prevailing expectation in Canada throughout the 1950s, 1960s and the better part of the 1970s was that the next car would be faster, the next pay cheque fatter and the next house bigger. And that expectation was sustained, by and large, because it turned out to be true. During this period, the middle class grew, each generation surpassed the previous one and dreams were within the grasp of most. In short, Canadians felt they had a lot to be grateful for, including those who were charting the nation’s course.

This happy condition began to show cracks in the last 1970s when, for the first time in the post-war period, inflation began to erode real income. The recession of 1980-81 and accompanying 20% interest rates put home ownership out of reach for many; while double digit unemployment meant there would be no pay cheques for millions, let alone a flatter one. Ronald Regan tapped into this vein of anxiety in the 1980 presidential debates when he famously asked Americans to ask themselves …. “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” (as did Joe Clark, less famously in the 1979 federal election, when he asked Canadians whether they wanted four more years like the last eleven). For the first time in three generations the answer was “no”. And for the first time in three generations, North Americans felt they were falling behind – and they did not like it.

Jimmy Carter disastrously misread this changing mindset, in his ill-timed “Crisis in Confidence” speech where he derided Americans to renew their faith in the country and themselves. His miscalculation was that voters – whether in Canada or the United States – had not lost faith in their country or themselves. What they were losing was their faith in their leaders and their embrace of old solutions to problems that the electorate clearly believed to be new. In fact, Canadians viewed most of the problems they and their countrymen were facing at this time as aberrations; that they neither deserved nor should have to tolerate. Rather than change their beliefs about the inevitability of progress, they began to change their attitudes toward their political leaders.

Even in this disgruntled state however, about 6 in 10 Canadians still reported that their impression of politicians was at least somewhat favourable.

And then along came the recession of 1991-2.

The severity of that downturn traumatized many Canadians. For the first time – rather than believe progress was limitless and inevitable, many began to fear that opportunity – at least for some – may actually be shrinking. (Many of you may remember the Liberal’s famous Red Book in the 1993 election but my guess is that few of will recall its title. Tapping directly into the public sentiment of the moment, the Liberals chose the theme of “Creating Opportunity”). Not only were Canadians questioning their faith in the progress ethos, they were also zeroing in on the culprit who they believed was responsible for this shrinking opportunity – namely government, government deficits and government spending. This in turn became the fertile soil where Preston Manning planted the seeds of success for his Reform Party.

Never ones to miss or ignore a trend this large, governments responded with a flurry of activity to privatize crown corporations, slash transfers in social and defence spending and generally to reduce their size and scope of activity. The most obvious manifestations of this response, of course, were Paul Martin’s famous budgets of 1995 and 1996 and Mike Harris’ Common Sense Revolution around the same time in Ontario.

And lo and behold, for many of those who blamed government for this predicament, this retreat looked like it was working. The last half of the 1990s was marked by a growing economy, surging markets and shrinking deficits. In 2000, Stockwell Day, aimed his campaign at the very voters who were so furious with government’s incursion on individual opportunity almost a decade earlier, declaring it was “Time for a Change”. Their response? “Who are you kidding? We don’t want to change anything!”

But under this veneer of prosperity and apparent contentment, we saw another consensus beginning to emerge. In 1996, for the first time in our tracking, we had enough people volunteering “health care” as the most important problem facing the country that it warranted its own code. Their number grew the next year and in every year until 2000, when concerns about health care eclipsed all others and for the first time in three decades, social issues dominated the Canadian public opinion agenda.

Running parallel to an expanding economy, we were witnessing a growing number of Canadians coming to the conclusion that whatever prosperity might be available, it was not being equally shared. And even more alarmingly, that while the economy flourished, our social safety net was being left to unravel. By 2000, unhappiness with the status quo had shifted from essentially angry, white males a decade earlier, to the young, the old, the poor and disproportionately women – namely those who were most likely to feel prosperity was passing them by or who were most likely to fall victim of an unraveling social safety net. For many, it was “time for a change”. Day’s error was that he had aimed his message at the wrong audience.

This period therefore was marked by both a great divide and a great consensus in Canadian public opinion. The division revolved around the perceived proper role for government – many faulted government for doing too much but for others the blame was that government was doing too little. Both sides agreed however that government increasingly did not represent their interests or was alive to their needs.

Two decades after the 1981 recession, the number of Canadians holding at least a somewhat favourable impression of politicians had fallen in half.

The events of the fateful day of September 11, 2001 unquestionably seized Canadians attention, but to our surprise didn’t really change the public opinion agenda but merely added one more layer of concern to it.

As we entered the 21st Century, markets did not look quite so triumphant. As the decade unfolded, business no longer seemed quite so efficient or capable of using its invisible hand to guide the economy. And as liquidity froze and global stability was threatened by a three year credit crisis, governments don’t look quite as irrelevant as they did a decade ago.

Yet our faith in our political leaders continued to decline. In 2005, we asked whether Canadians believed politicians shared their view of what was the most important problem facing the country. Then, a shocking 62% replied in the negative. We repeated the question this year and that number had grown to 76%.

Michael W goes Acoustic and I Have a (Small) Epiphany

The roots of our mistrust clearly run deep, and during the 1980s and 1990s seemed to be directly linked to a cause and effect relationship where voters were wanting or expecting one thing and government failed to respond accordingly. In 1980-81, incumbent governments were viewed as tone deaf to public anxiety and new realities. The antidote was the election of “change agents”, like Ronald Regan, Margaret Thatcher and Brian Mulroney who promised a sharp departure from the past. In 1991-2, government activity itself was seen as limiting individual opportunity. Deficit reduction and spending cuts was the salve that was applied to that wound. In 2000, Canada’s most vulnerable felt abandoned as government sat idly as inequities grew.

But what is more curious is what has happened in the last decade. On one hand there is no question that the erosion of public trust in our political leaders continues its downward trend. But on the other hand, you are hard pressed to identify the same cause and effect relationship where government activity (or inactivity) could be credibly blamed for the public’s disquiet. In fact, if any aspect of public opinion has characterized the first decade of the millennium, it is how little Canadians expect or demand of their governments and how disengaged and unaffected they feel from and by the whole political process.

I was pondering this quandary the last time I was in New York, when I ventured onto Bleeker Street to catch the early sets at the seminal folk-rock venue, The Bitter End.

The opening act was a three piece alt-rock outfit, fronted by a bespectacled, baseball capped, singer-guitarist by the name of Michael W. To my surprise and delight, they were very good – not quite ready for the big stage, but certainly beyond competent. They played original material that had a Tracy Chapman/Ben Harper rhythmical, not-quite-rock-but-not-the-acoustic-singer-songwriter thing going on. The crowd responded to their first few songs with something between courtesy and enthusiasm.

It was all very pleasant when something completely unplanned and unexpected happened. A few bars into about the fourth song in the set, W’s electric pick-up popped out of his hollow-bodied guitar. Rather than stop the song and repair his now obviously dysfunctional instrument, he leaned over to his piano player and whispered (the club is intimate enough that you actually can hear such things from the audience) … “we have to go acoustic”. The keyboardist turned off his instrument, the drummer avoided the skin of his snare and merely tapped out the beat on the rim of his kit and W began to sing off mic. Within a few seconds, the normal ambient din of a rock club slid into absolute silence. Stripped of all reverberation, the cadence of W’s voice seemed far more assured yet nuanced, while his guitar playing was unquestionably more dynamic and muscular. Robbed of his instrument, the keyboardist had little choice but to move closer to center stage and he and W began singing to each other and produced some of the most beautiful harmonies I have heard in a rock club. As the last chord was struck, the room literally exploded with rapturous cheering, hooting and applause.

It wasn’t at all clear that the Michael W band fully understood what they had created, because with equipment repaired, they never again even came close to connecting with the crowd in the same way for the remainder of their workman-like set. But we in the audience knew we had witnessed something very magical and rare – unscripted, unrehearsed, naked authenticity. The band had ceased to “perform music” and instead had communicated with us and among themselves with a joy and passion, without artifice.
Reflecting on the profound disengagement between the electorate and our elected leaders, I couldn’t help but connect the two and think that maybe the remarkable effect Michael W acoustic mis-step had on the audience, might contain a lesson for our politicians.
Granted, citizens can point to plenty of grim and tangible evidence that their trust in traditional leaders has often been misplaced. They left religious teaching to the clergy only to discover that their children were molested by them. They entrusted their life’s savings and now find that it is not uncommon for bankers to put other’s money at risk by betting against the market, at the very same time they reward themselves with obscene salaries. And where they once looked to their elected representatives to broker differences and serve the public interest, they now believe politicians are out-of-touch and deaf to their real concerns.

While headline grabbing examples of malfeasance undoubtedly fuel our growing loss of faith and the anti-elitist sentiment we’re witnessing throughout the Western World, something else seems to be at work here as well. As egregious as the evidence of misconduct might be, the fact is that when it occurs, it is an aberration. The average clergyman is not a pedophile, your typical businessperson is not a crook and very few politicians are actually cretins. Given this reality, the defence against the abuse of public trust should be straight-forward – “It isn’t the whole barrel. It’s just a few bad apples”. Yet the public refuses to extend the benefit of the doubt to our leaders and instead, consistently holds the whole to account for the sins of the few. And the cause of this, I think is equally straight forward – even if reason might indicate that bad behaviour is the work of the few, citizens no longer believe that their leaders speak the truth. Therefore the defence is not credible because the defenders are not credible.

For whatever else our leaders’ shortcomings, this strikes me as their most systematic failure – they have not picked up on the electorate’s craving for authenticity nor adjusted their behaviour to conform to this new reality.

For most of my adult life, I have worked with political and business leaders and have never ceased to be amazed at how different they can be in private compared to their public personae. Time and time again, I have witnessed otherwise funny, thoughtful, caring men and women walk from the wings of the auditorium to the podium, only to be transformed into nothing less than a big, blustering (well, there isn’t a polite way of saying it) bullshitter – in effect, offering up a “performance” and a caricature they think they should be playing. Typically, these performances range from pillorying opponents with hyperventilated allegations of failings; feigned outrage at what others would consider modest grievances; taking exaggerated credit for accomplishments that are better shared; and avoiding any direct and honest engagement of difficult subject matter that has the potential to cause media controversy.

What made these performances unbearably grimace-making however, was not the content of the remarks so much as the speaker’s complete lack of self-awareness or appreciation that they were the only person in the room who found their narrative believable.

This tendency is new on the part of our leaders. In fact, most modern-day politicians are aping the behaviour of their predecessors who they continue to try to emulate.
But if hyperbole in politics hasn’t changed, everything else has.

Why We Crave Authenticity?

So if politicians haven’t changed, why have we evolved from a culture that was once deferential to our political leaders to one that is now disdainful?

First, it strikes me it is no coincidence that we have grown more distant form our leaders at the very same time as we have become linked to the world and each other in a way never imaginable even a decade ago. The first manifestation of an explosion of new technologies, digital media and social networks is that individuals now feel more knowledgeable, efficacious and in control of their personal lives.

If we need access to our bank account, we are no longer limited to “banker’s hours”, standing in line, waiting for a teller to deign to hand over our cash. We can now go on-line 24/7. If we want to watch a recent Hollywood release, we have video-on-demand (the more net-savvy – and larcenous – among us have even found ways to see movies still in the theatre by down-loading from sites such as Pirate Bay). While shrinking numbers still do, why wait for the 10 o’clock National News when you can chronicle current events in real time, throughout the day?

In short, if we don’t tolerate any guff from our bankers, cable providers or news makers, why would anyone think we would stand uncritically and passively by and accept the word of our political leaders as gospel?

Secondly, not only has this technology allowed us to take more control of our lives, it has also connected us to others in intimate and immediate ways, like never before. We now share our day-to-day activities and experiences with notional “friends” on Facebook. When we enter the Twitterverse, even the most introverted and solitary can gain “followers” who seem interested in our most mundane thoughts. And of course, if we want to know what’s up with the Kardashians, Snooky or the Real Housewives of Orange Country, they all seem more than prepared to expose their wicked temperaments and talents to us, week in and week out.

Thirdly, the combination of a more efficacious and connected public, in turn, has directly reduced our reliance on and need for authority. Vacationers no longer need to turn to travel agents for advice, as they can now consult and review peer experiences on Trip Advisor. Chow Hounds offers more, and is considered a better source of restaurant reviews than is available through established food critics. The website Yelp rolls all of this into one and allows you to get citizen recommendations on everything from haircuts to auto dealers. Everywhere we turn, the evidence is the same – where traditional authorities have not been able to adapt and find a unique voice in this new discourse, they become functionally obsolete.

At one in the same time therefore, technology has disintermediated citizens from traditional authority and allowed us to plug directly into the world and an alternative social network. The by-product of our more distant relationship with authority and our more direct relationship with our peers is that we are now constantly enveloped with the pretext of intimacy and realism. Not only is our ever-more connected and plugged-in citizen confronted with realism in their day-to-day lives, he and she now demands authenticity from their leaders as atonement for the deceit they believe is being perpetuated upon them.

We crave authenticity then because, as individuals, we have become saturated with authenticity in our day-day-lives – we are informed, connected and can respond in real time, at any time. Yet as citizens, we are deprived of authenticity – we feel our leaders do not understand our concerns, share our beliefs and experience or speak a language we understand. In this new environment, truth has become the oxygen and artifice is the kryptonite of public life.

The Need to Restore Trust in the Public Sphere

Our dilemma as a society however is that while we may have cast aside our deference to authority for defiance, the fact remains that neither our friends, followers nor Kim Kardashian are much help when it comes to making sense of or having much impact on the big, scary world beyond our social network or reality television.

We may no longer revere, trust or follow our traditional leaders, but whether we like it or not, they still have their hands on the tiller of the ship that steers the real world.
So even if we are now less deferential to our traditional leaders, and more efficacious and cynical as individuals, it may also be that this cultural shift has rendered us more insecure and vulnerable to the larger uncertainties that we cannot control through technology and social media.

Given this fundamental fact of real politic – and if I am right about the public’s sense of vulnerability in our newly connected world – then surely, this insecurity should drive individuals into the arms of their leaders, however reluctantly.

Well, no. Because, while our politicians, clergymen and bosses may have noticed progressively lower rates of voter turnout, shrinking church attendance and falling union membership – some may have even embraced Facebook and Twitter – by and large, they continue to go about their business and behave pretty much as they always have.

Most often short of outright lies, our elected leaders seem to have become congenitally unable to speak the unvarnished truth – and everyone knows it. Like the travel agent, or restaurant critic, our leaders run the risk of becoming moribund because they have not been able to modulate their behaviour or find their voice in this new reality. Indeed, terrifying as it may be for some, I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that more people identify with Snooky from the cast of the Jersey Shore than Stephen Harper simply because she is more interesting and authentic than the Prime Minister.

The genuinely disengaged would probably respond to all this with a shrug and “who cares?”

Growing up on the Canadian prairies in a good United Church family, there was very little in my upbringing that indicated I would care about politics or government either.

That all changed one uncommonly wintery morning in October, 1970.

I was in my second year of a combined BA-LLB program at University of Alberta and was well on my way to being admitted into the bar before I was 22. As was my habit, in the gloom of that Edmonton morning, I swung by to pick up one of my class mates to drive him to the 9am Canadian politics course we took together. When he got into the car, without greeting, he asked … “So how do you like living in a country with no civil rights?” While I had been vaguely aware of the tensions that were occurring in Quebec over a political kidnapping, by and large, I had no clue what he was referring to. He patiently explained that the Prime Minister has just introduced the War Measures Act, functionally putting the country under marshal law and legally removing the right of habeas corpus.

While this new information had little direct bearing on the life of an 18 year old more interested in Woodstock than the National News, it did strike me as a bit outrageous that it was within the power of anyone to take away my rights.

When we got to class, my classmates were abuzz, with most talk centering around a belief that such action was necessary to “catch the frogs who did this” and “to restore order before things get even more out-of-control”.

The class was taught by a 30 year old graduate from Simon Fraser University, named Thelma Oliver. She was a self-professed socialist who drove an E-type Jag and was the most exciting and alluring person I had ever met. And she proceeded to give a lecture that still resonates with me to this day.

She re-affirmed my friend’s assessment that indeed we were now living under marshal law and that any of us could be detained without charge. Rather than explaining this development in terms of the need to “catch the frogs” or “to restore order” however, she made the case that this was one of the natural extensions of entering into civic society and allowing ourselves to be governed.

Drawing on classic political theory, Professor Oliver made the point that as part of the social contract rendered by being part of civil society, we implicitly give up our right to unbridled individual freedom in exchange for collective stability and safety. But to ensure that the balance of that relationship was never tilted dangerously against certain fundamental rights that were guaranteed by the state, it was necessary for citizens to be ever vigilant and prepared to remove those who abrogated rights – by ballot, preferably but by rebellion if necessary. She then went on to make the point that the skein that wraps the social contract and makes it function is the political process, which in turn, confers upon those who run it, a monopoly on the legitimate use if violence.

I thought … “a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence”… now that, is a very heavy –and scary – concept. And so I asked, “How can individuals rebel if we give those who run the political process a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence?” (A shorter version of) her response was … “You have identified the conundrum of democracy, my friend. Because when you give up some of your unfettered rights, you always run the risk of losing more. And there is a very bloody history of those who have fought to get those rights back. That is why the foundation of democracy is trust – that citizens must trust that their leaders will not misuse their power and leaders trust that citizens will find casting a ballot a more acceptable way of being held in check than a bullet”.

It took a while for the implications of Thelma Oliver’s lecture to sink in – and arguably a lifetime in politics to learn – but that day, it dawned on me that government wasn’t “them” it was “us”; that for good or ill, this is the way, as a society, we have chosen to organize and manage our collective affairs. That government has the capacity for infinite good and infinite evil, in equal measure. And because of that capacity, government can never be considered “irrelevant” and trust never taken for granted. It’s simply too important.

Can Authenticity Restore Trust?

Maybe I’m naive or perhaps it’s just wishful thinking, but everything I know about public sentiment tells me that authenticity is not only the glue necessary to repair this breach between our citizens and politicians, I actually believe that telling the naked truth, in today’s environment, can be extremely good politics.

And I would submit that there is growing evidence that I may not be wrong in this assumption.

How else do you explain a socially progressive, openly gay Muslim being elected the mayor of Cowtown; and at the very same time, a leather-lunged, no necked, know-nothing capturing the imagination of Canada’s cultural and intellectual epicentre? Not only do these victors and victories play against type, they also fly squarely in the face of traditional patterns of partisanship; where Torontonians for decades – both federally and provincially – have elected Liberals and New Democrats and Calgarians – for even longer – have consistently sent Conservatives to Legislatures.

The first part of the answer is that disengagement from the political process has meant that traditional patterns of partisanship matter little in determining voting choice any longer. Attachments to political parties are so weak that all elections have the possibility of massive volatility and now, personality can easily overarch traditional party loyalties. The larger part of the answer is that both Rob Ford and Naheed Nenshi represented the anti-thesis of what Canadians today typically associate with politicians.

Asked how often a typical politician would tell the absolute truth when making make public statements, 4 out of 10 Canadians claimed less than 50% of the time. 1 percent believed politicians are absolutely truthful all the time. Think about this. We are not asking what percent of politicians are brilliant or inspirational, simply whether when they speak, can they be believed? And 99% of Canadians are telling us that at some point in time they expect to be lied to by their elected representatives. Almost half of the population believe that any time a politician speaks single, they have a 50:50 chance that they will be told a lie rather than the truth.

The evidence suggests that Ford and Nenshi’s very uniqueness — and that they were not afraid to hide their uniqueness — made them seem more authentic and believable – basically, the message these politicians sent the electorate was … “what you see if what you get”. In Rob Ford’s instance, his very crudeness and unrefined nature made him seem “real” and signalled he was not trying to hide anything from voters. The fact that their candidacies horrified traditional power brokers also worked in their favour – basically, if the defenders of the status quo were afraid of them, Nenshi and Ford must be “for the people”.

And while these victories were confounding against the backdrop on conventional voting patterns, even more remarkable was what happened to voter turnout. In Calgary, the percentage of eligible voters who went to the polls increased from 33% in 2007 to 53% — almost a two-third increase in voter participation. In Toronto, the pattern was virtually identical – 35% in 2007, escalating to 53% in 2010.
This, as much as who was elected, offers testimony to the power of authenticity. In fact, it demonstrates that low turnout does not have to be the norm but instead is a rational voter response to choices that matter little. If politicians stand for nothing, represent only their own interests and avoid the truth, why would you go to the polls? When politics is made to matter by politicians who represent an authentic alternative to the other available choices, the evidence suggests that voters will engage.

This is the other side of voter cynicism that politicians seem to have completely failed to understand. Having concluded there are no longer any great men or women, the public now seeks out good men and women. The thirst is no longer for perfection but for the demonstration of character – of the real self and a “glimpse into the soul”. In fact, the irony of course is that – having concluded they are not deities – the public is now more willing to accept the human failings and shortcomings of their leaders… if they fess up and put them on display.

What Would Authenticity Look Like?

I love Rex Murphy. He is unquestionably one of the country’s most gifted and fearless wordsmiths. But what makes him a national treasure is that his million dollar vocabulary is matched with the sensibilities of the average person on the street. In the middle of the last federal election – obviously frustrated by the absent of meaningful debate – Rex unleashed a rant that elicited more response than anything else he as ever broadcast.

It was a message aimed not at the television audience, but at political leaders and offered the most commonsensical and practical advice on authenticity I have ever heard. His starting premise was that people would start to engage in the election when politicians stop being false. A shortened version of the counsel he offered bear repeating here:

1. Let’s put a stop to “political speak”: End all the bafflegab phrases designed to conceal meaning; all the apocalyptic rhetoric. It’s possible to talk about your opponents without making them sound like villains in a cheap B-movie.
2. Stop claiming to be the one exception: I don’t care which leader claims he or she is the only one interested in ordinary Canadians – as opposed to their rivals who are just power-hungry, slope-browed, greedy-for-vote-hypocrites – the claim a) isn’t true; b) doesn’t sound true and c) this is most important, gives sensitive people a pain in the guts.
3. Cancel all the prepared ads, all of them, every one: I cannot remember a political ad that is not tone deaf, unpersuasive, grating on the nerves and an insult to the intelligence of a cold rock.
4. Why is it so hard for leaders to say what they think in words they would normally use? Three sentences of what they actually, really mean, in their own voice and words – would change the style of politics forever.

In summary: Throw out the scripts. Talk to the people – really. Decide the three big issues and deal with them at length. End the ads. Stop sounding professionally pious. Speak from the top of your head and the bottom of your heart. And finally, tell us why your party is right, not why the others are wrong and evil.

So what would our response be if politicians – like the Michael W band – got “unplugged”; ceased their “performance” as politicians; and offered us their authentic self?

And if they did this not simply by speaking in a style that was believable, but also said things that they really believed.

What if someone stood up and said:

“Our treasured health care system is not sustainable in its current form. We have to move away from a hospital centric system, focused on acute care to a wholesale decentralized one that is geared to a continuum of care which will require a massive investment in information technology. Those funds are not going to come from general government revenues because the taxpayer would not tolerate the burden it would impose on house-hold income. Moving in this direction is not optional; it has to begin right away; and will mean that we will inevitably have to offer more services through the private sector and on a user pay basis.”

Or;

“We must invest in new environmental technologies and alternative energy but no one should expect this to be a panacea or a wholesale replacement for fossil fuels. This is the reality of our economy and a major part of a lifestyle that we have come to enjoy and expect. But if we are to take our responsibility seriously – as stewards of the planet and parents to our children – we must commit to reducing our carbon emissions. For the foreseeable future there is only one way to do that and that is to monetize and tax carbon.”

Or;

“If we value our reputation as one of the most welcoming and tolerant countries in the world, we have to stop patting ourselves on our backs for our past success in absorbing new Canadians into the fabric of our nation and take a hard look at our multicultural policy. This is a policy that was developed 40 years ago and designed for an immigrant population that was almost exclusively European, Christian and white. Nothing could be further from the case today. Today, first generation immigrants are falling behind, and compared to past generations, their children are significantly less likely to have a sense of belonging as Canadians. It’s time for a new Royal Commission on Multiculturalism to determine what is working and what is not and to develop new policies and programs for the parts that aren’t”.

Or;

“Canada has a productivity problem that – compared to the United States – robs every Canadian of approximately $10,000 per year. Our business leaders urge us to solve this by lowering taxes, offering more incentives to conduct research or to purchase new machinery and equipment. Well, the fact is that over the last decade, Government’s have spent billions of tax payer’s dollars on precisely these things and businesses have pocketed the cash and made no progress in closing our productivity gap. So it’s time to adopt a different approach. We should set national goals to eliminate the drop-out rate in High Schools; to make sure that single mothers never had to go on welfare; to reverse the fortunes of aboriginal youth and make it more likely that they would actually graduate from High School than become incarcerated; to commit ourselves to do more to integrate new Canadians into the economy so they would not be earning only 68% of what comparably qualified second and third generation Canadian’s make. And if anyone is worried about how to would pay for these productivity improvements, don’t. We will introduce a 65% marginal tax rate on all individual annual income over $1 million”.

I’m not qualified to suggest that these are policies we should actually be adopting. But I do think that we do a disservice to Canadians and our future if we fail to have blunt, open and honest debate over issues like these, where real choices are offered.

What would Gordon Osbaldesten Do?

So back to the earlier, unanswered question … “what would the response be if a politician stood up and said these sorts of things?”

Having been involved in the political process all of my adult life, I am fairly confident that anyone making these statements would be crucified and roundly pilloried by journalists and opponents alike. The press would declare that a grievous strategic error had been made. Pundits would declare that the speaker clearly was politically incompetent because everyone knows that Canadians will not countenance private sector involvement in health care; and that a carbon tax is tantamount to political death; and as a symbol of our national character, multi-culturalism is a sacred trust.

The sad irony of this inevitable attack is that the same people doing the pillorying know that our health care system isn’t sustainable; that monetizing carbon is the only short term way to reduce carbon emissions; that cracks are beginning to show in our multi-cultural fabric; and that productivity isn’t simply a question of graduating more Phds but also requires moving the marginalized in society into the mainstream. We know these things the same way we know that our treatment of Aboriginal peoples is a national disgrace; that we might “punch above our weight” in international affairs because of our military commitments but absent an equal emphasis on diplomacy and soft power, hard power will do nothing to secure a seat on the Security Council the next time one becomes available; and that we can’t solve the plight of major metropolitan centers by ad hoc offers of small bites of federal and provincial taxes. In fact, we know there is a whole constellation of policies that are not working optimally and require serious debate and review.

This is not an agenda that calls for complacency, inaction or timorousness, my friends. In fact, without bold and innovative ideas to tackle these problems our nation will inevitably drift and then decline, and trust in the public sphere will surely erode even further.

So if we know all these things, why has telling the truth become bad politics?

A number of years ago I was giving a talk to the Public Service’s Association of Professional Executives. My topic was innovation in public policy and how much of the unhappiness with government at the time was rooted not so much in a belief that government was incapable of solving national problems but that it lacked the creativity and innovation to tackle new realities in new ways. During the Question and Answer session, a bright, young civil servant asked me to expand on this idea and give him some concrete examples of what innovation in public policy might look like.

I began by demurring that I was not an expert in policy making but did recall how exciting and vibrant policy debate was when I first came to Ottawa in the early 1970s. It was a time when Jean Chretien had issued a white paper that called for the abolition of the Canada Indian Act; Marc Lalonde floated a trial balloon in the form of an Orange Paper about the prospect of moving to a negative tax system and a guaranteed annual income; the idea of tripartitism – integrating business, labour and government into the machinery of national decision-making – was seriously considered. I explained that none of these ideas actually came to pass but man, did their possibility stir things up and create a climate where you believed anything and everything was on the table.

When I finished my answer there was a prolonged and somewhat awkward silence, and then the no-longer-quite-so-eager civil servant, almost absent-mindedly said … ‘Boy, if we tried to do that today, would be ever get in shit.”

I’m no longer an insider but I do know that there is a prevailing sentiment in Ottawa that politicians are not interested in new ideas and certainly not provocative ones that might be misconstrued by their opponents or the press.

I’m here to tell you they could not be more wrong.

In anticipation of this lecture, I put a few questions on Harris-Decima’s weekly omnibus. One of them was …. “If a Canadian politician promised to be truthful 100% of the time and you were confident that they were going to keep that promise, how likely is it that you would vote for them?” The question attaches no partisan affiliation or policy position; simply the offer of a politician would spoke the truth. Three-quarters of Canadians reported they would vote for that man or women.

Speaking the truth is not bad politics. We may all have the right to our own opinions but we do not have the right to our own facts. And the idea that you can longer speak the truth with impunity; that government doesn’t matter; or that repairing trust in our public figures and institutions is an impossible or unworthy task is just plain wrong. And those who offer these opinions as fact must be challenged.

And it is also wrong for those who are tasked with serving our political leaders to offer anything less than the absolute best advice, based on the best analysis, whether they want to hear it or not.

Canadians my no longer expect much from government or their political leaders, but trust me, when things go seriously wrong, that is still where they will turn. For government to have the capacity and legitimacy to make the kind of decisions necessary to deal with situations that go seriously wrong, requires trust. I’ve tried to argue today that authenticity – truthfulness, honestly and transparency – is the means to that end. And authenticity begins by being true to one’s self and then speaking and behaving in a way that is consistent to that truth.

So what would a great civil servant like Gordon Osbaldeston do? My guess is that he would not hesitate to speak truth to power. Literally and figuratively.

Thank you.

1) It’s time: I have been in the public eye for over 30 years. My children have left home and I want to be free to pursue interests in travel, writing and teaching. The panel is the only thing left in my schedule that tethers me to a place and time. At this stage in life I also feel an increasing burden to “make a difference”. I worked in politics for 18 years and while I’m not proud of everything I did during that time, I’d like to believe I was drawn to the process by a belief in the duty and intrinsic reward of public service. While I have no desire to re-enter the partisan arena, I want the latitude to get involved in issues and causes and express my views freely and unfettered of “journalistic objectivity”.

2) I still have lots to say, but now I need more than 30 seconds to say them: I don’t know if it’s because I’m slowing down or that, with age, I’ve become more reflective but increasingly, I find it difficult to express my views in “sound bites”. I’ve become significantly more aware of the complexity of issues, personalities, events and our country and feel I need more time and space to reflect on these things. Unfortunately television isn’t the best medium for this (not to mention the fact that I am starting to look like the crypt keeper, which also suggests that I would be better off in a non-visual medium).

3) At the end of the day, it’s really not “my thing”: While politics and current affairs have always been a central part of my adult life, they have never been my sole interest or focus. I’ve produced music, television and videos, chaired film festivals, started businesses, written extensively on societal trends, hosted my own television show and delivered countless speeches on an array of subjects from demography, to business and culture. While it might sound vain, throughout my career I have tried to establish a reputation for eclecticism and not allow myself to be pigeon-holed. In the very same way that the panel has unquestionably raised my profile, I also think it has narrowed my band-width. Instead of striving to have a more Hitchens-like perspective on society and I the world, I fear I am being reduced to just another “talking head” yammering about todays headlines.

At the end of the day, it’s been a great ride. I will be eternally grateful that I have been part of the At Issue panel and in particular, I owe a tremendous thanks to my pal, Peter Mansbridge for the central role he played in making that happen… but it’s time to move on.

Review of Harperland: The Politics of Control by Lawrence Martin published by Viking Canada

Stephen Harper may end up being known for what he does not do more than for what he does.

For decades, academics such as Donald Savoie and journalists such as Jeffery Simpson have been documenting the concentration of power in the central structures of government around the prime minister. Some have attributed this centralization to political ambition, while others cite the more benign necessity of managing an increasingly fragmented and continuous news cycle. Invariably, however, this analysis has been accompanied by warnings that this trend poses a direct threat to our traditions of parliamentary democracy.

Now, with the publication of Harperland: The Politics of Control, Globe and Mail columnist Lawrence Martin has entered this fray and one-upped past observers by claiming that Stephen Harper’s Conservative government has taken “the politics of control” to an entirely new level—and in this case, the intent is most emphatically personal. For Martin, this tendency is no mere response to a more fractured and frenzied media, but a studied, long-term strategy designed “to break the [Liberal] brand.” The result has become “a Soviet-style monitoring maze” and “a vetting operation unlike any ever seen in the capital” that demands all aspects of government pay unwavering obedience to the Prime Minister’s Office.

It is surprising that Martin has been able to get this many insiders on the record.

Even though it has become a cliché to refer to Stephen Harper as a control freak, the power of Martin’s argument hits you like a jackhammer. Those of us who follow these things quite closely remember a number of occasions when the Conservatives have found themselves in hot water because of allegations of abuse of power, but we tend to forget just how frequently this has occurred and the myriad forms this malfeasance has taken over the last four and a half years. Crammed into a compact 301 pages, Martin’s book itemizes an endless series of occasions where Harper exercises his “Control Fixation”—obsessive secrecy often around inconsequential matters (like black bear mating habits), “clampdown strategies” aimed at squelching unwanted announcements (including a failed attempt to muzzle the auditor general), a “permanent campaign” of pre-writ advertising and ad hominem attacks on “enemies everywhere,” ignoring his own election laws and disregarding judicial and court rulings, dumping or refusing to appoint numerous heads of arm’s-length agencies and commissions who fail to “toe the government line,” defending policies and record not with facts or reason but by a constant refrain of “attack and obstruct,” and the imperious proroguing of Parliament—not once, but twice—for no reason greater than a desire to save his own political skin.

In total, Martin cites some 70-odd cases of these types of abuse and the combined effect is almost dizzying.

As if to make Martin’s case, the day Harperland was released (and before anyone could have read it in full), Harper’s mouthpiece, Dimitri Soudas, offered this reaction to The Globe and Mail: “the book should be read through the prism of Mr. Martin being a big-L Liberal sympathizer and columnist.”

But in Harperland, it is not just the quantity of abuse that sets the prime minister apart from his predecessors; it is the nature of his obsession for control that is qualitatively different as well. In other words, not only has Harper gone further than previous prime ministers in his efforts to centralize power, but the reason he is doing it is much different too.

In what is arguably the strongest part of the book, Martin sets out to describe Harper as “A Different Conservative.” Drawing upon numerous quotes from past advisors and intimates (given Harper’s reputed vindictiveness and disdain for insider tell-alls, it is surprising that Martin has been able to get as many insiders on the record as appear here), Martin endeavours to give real context and understanding to why the prime minister behaves as he does. He paraphrases a close friend who offers that “to understand Harper … it was necessary to understand that he’s an outsider.” Former chief of staff Tom Flanagan (who is now on the outs with Harper for his outspokenness) chimes in—“His first reaction to anything new is almost always negative. It’s a personality trait.” A former university colleague relates an evening of youthful revelry, where Harper would “be the guy in the corner, pen and paper in pocket, looking at us in a kind of condescending way.”

We are being led by an outsider who has always seen himself on the periphery.

In sum, Martin provides a not particularly flattering (or totally unfamiliar) portrait of a man who is awkward, introverted, cerebral, vindictive and controlling and who entered politics with a “drive to dominate.”

Martin also taps into David Emerson, Scott Brison and Keith Martin, each of whom sat on both Conservative and Liberal benches. All of them commented how, compared to others in public life, Harper and his brethren harbour “hate.”

While Martin does not put Harper on the psychiatrist’s couch or attempt a Laswellian study of power and personality, to his credit he does try to explore where this anger comes from and astutely concludes that it is an “anger born of a sense of exclusion.” Again, we see Harper the outsider: not merely an outsider lashing out without purpose, but one who is intent on “slowly [shaping] the country into something more Conservative.” And it is not just ideology that drives this ambition or fuels his hatred. Rather, Harper’s goal of reshaping the country is rooted in a desire to right and rebalance long-standing wrongs that have been perpetrated by Liberals and other insiders—the same people who looked down their noses at people like Stephen Harper and (as quoted by another chief of staff, Ian Brodie) “treated Conservatives as if we were un-Canadian” for believing the things they do. Draconian measures therefore are justified as necessary because these wrongs have become embedded in our political institutions and culture. As a consequence of this pervasive culture, the voice and wishes of all those Canadians who sip Tim’s coffee or take their kids to the rink on Saturday have been either unheard or unheeded by Liberal elites who have run Canada forever.

For Martin, this is what makes Harper a truly “Different Conservative,” because Canadians have never seen a (successful) politician like him. Rather than an elite from the mainstream, attempting to increase his base of support by appealing to the broadest common denominator, we are being led by an outsider who has always seen himself on the periphery and is now intent on giving voice to (what he sees as) a silenced minority.

As if to anticipate Dimitri Soudas’s allegation of the author’s partisan leanings, Martin seems to go out of his way to add balance, nuance and multi-dimensionality to his character sketch of Stephen Harper. For example, in addition to quoting David Emerson’s bewilderment at his new-found colleague’s anger and visceral hated for Liberals, Martin also relates the former trade minister’s preference for Harper’s “efficient” way of running Cabinet compared to the chaos marked by Paul Martin’s chairmanship. The author also discovers that Harper resisted advice to call an election in 2007 over Afghanistan because “he didn’t want a campaign that would be so divisive for the country.” (That is hardly the thinking of a vengeful ultra-partisan intent on winning at all costs.)

Harper has cowed the Liberals into a quivering shadow of their former selves.

Harper’s self-penned apology on the floor of the House of Commons to First Nations people for their shameful treatment at residential schools is described by Martin as “one of the most moving ceremonies in years.” And in foreign policy, the prime minister is credited with having “matured” in his views on China and India. Martin then quotes an unnamed senior bureaucrat in the Privy Council Office as saying that Harper is “the best-informed prime minister [he] had ever worked with.”

If covering the news amounts to creating the first draft of history, Lawrence Martin has given us a very good second draft of the four and a half years (so far) of Stephen Harper’s rule.

He has applied real journalistic rigour by digging deeper into the chronology of the Harper years than we could have ever hoped to get from a mere rereading of the news of the day. He shines light in places where few journalists are either allowed or choose to go. “A Day in a Life” gives us a real sense of the remarkable workload placed on our leaders. Martin has also sussed out a wide array of bureaucratic, political and backroom sources who normally are faceless and voiceless, even to followers of current affairs. And most importantly, he has attempted to provide context and understanding of Stephen Harper’s behaviour, which he readily admits “confounded analysts, who wondered how the prime minister thought he could profit from appearing so mean-spirited.”

As good a record as this is, however, Martin need not sit by the phone waiting for Bob Woodward or Mark Halperin to call and compare notes.

Whenever books are rushed to press to be as timely as possible, errors are bound to occur and Harperland is no exception to this rule. Probably the biggest gaffe is on page 93 where the Reform Party is credited (disgraced?) with producing and airing the “Chrétien Face” ad in the 1993 election campaign, when it has been clearly documented that this was a Progressive Conservative initiative. To say, as Martin does, that Harper’s first Cabinet contained “barely a single soul of distinguished pedigree” is to ignore that its membership included six former Cabinet ministers, hugely successful lawyers from both the West and Quebec (the likes of Jim Prentice and Michael Fortier), a former leader of a national party and a decorated member of the Armed Forces. He sometimes also sees dark (most often, wedge) strategies where simple blundering and miscommunication were a more likely cause of blow-ups—the abortion side-bar to Harper’s maternal health initiative being but one case in point. And for someone who is intent on building a comprehensive and seamless case for Harper’s politics of control, the book offers nary a mention of the hapless Helena Guergis, who together with her husband, was banished, vilified and humiliated by the prime minister for what now appears to be nothing more than a lifestyle that is frowned upon in Harperland.

But probably what makes this a good but not great book is that Martin raises the many riddles that make up Stephen Harper, but often provides either meek or contradictory answers to what they mean for Canada and the future. For example, he seems to feel that the Harper Conservatives rationalize their tactics by believing they are pursuing a greater good. After reading Harperland, you know everything you ever wanted to know about these tactics, but it still is not clear what exactly this greater good they are pursuing is supposed to look like. Similarly, while Martin’s character portrait of Harper, the man and politician, is without question the best on record, the reader is still left not fully understanding what, as Prime Minister, his end game is.

Harper has revealed a vision that is no less clear than Diefenbaker’s un-hyphenated Canadianism, or Trudeau’s Just Society.

So, help me here. Are these a bunch of wild-eyed radicals who believe (as Harper has often been misquoted as declaring) that “when they get finished with Canada, we won’t recognize it” or are they merely a bunch of cynical nerds who, having finally bested the school bully, will now stoop to almost anything to stay in power? I am still not sure.

Martin does concede that Harper has been much more successful as a “basher than a builder.” In the same way that Margaret Thatcher claimed her greatest accomplishment was how she changed the Labour Party, there is not much doubt that Harper has successfully cowed the Liberals into a quivering shadow of their former selves. There is also little question that Harper’s legislative record is pretty skinny and pathetic for someone who has grandiose plans to redefine Canada. But how much of his Liberal bashing, as well as his anemic legislative accomplishments, is a function of operating a minority Parliament without any allies (a pretty fundamental difference from the Pearson and Trudeau minorities to which the Conservatives are so often inappropriately compared)? Even more tantalizingly, if Harper ever received a majority, would a different and more substantive agenda appear from the one we have witnessed so far, or would he continue to muddle along, making changes around the edges? Again, Martin resists the question, let alone a bold prediction.

Martin does offer some hints though. For him, Harper is an incrementalist, with an agenda. His accomplishments may be modest but his destination is distant, and he is a marathoner, not a sprinter. I suspect, however, it is the journalist in Martin that has brought him to this (albeit hesitant) conclusion. Because the Conservatives have only taken baby steps in most policy areas (the exceptions being the Arctic and the military), the journalist’s natural tendency is to report what can be observed. In Harper’s case, if there is a grand agenda (something Martin never really makes clear), it is tempered by political necessity and therefore, by definition, is incremental. As valid as this approach is, what it fails to consider are the things that do not happen and that therefore do not qualify as news.

Upon assuming power—and without a moment’s hesitation—Harper abolished an already-negotiated national daycare program and the landmark First Nations Kelowna Accord. Since then, not only has he refused to resurrect or replace these initiatives, but he has also made it clear that he has absolutely no plans for any significant reforms in health care or the environment. In his tenure, he has roundly turned his back on the tradition of federal-provincial decision making and has never bothered to call a single First Ministers’ Conference. In all these cases, Harper did not do anything. But in not doing, he has revealed a vision that is no less clear—and arguably more radical—than Diefenbaker’s un-hyphenated Canadianism, or Trudeau’s Just Society. Harper’s refusal to use his spending power to enter provincial jurisdiction suggests he is a BNA purist who sees little, if any, role for the federal government in social policy. He has no desire to sit cheek by jowl with provincial premiers because he has no intention of entertaining any act of national enterprise that would see governments actively intervene in the economy. In fact, it seems to me that this refusal to use government as a proactive tool of nation building is the central core of his vision. What makes Harper truly different, therefore, is not just his temperament or personality or even what he has done, but what he has not done—and will not do—majority or no.

The pollsters and the pundits were doing a lot of back peddling following the results of the New Hampshire Primary on Tuesday. At least eight polls released in the days before the vote showed Democratic candidate Barack Obama leading Hilary Clinton by anywhere between seven to thirteen points – all well above the published margin of error.

The cognoscenti not running for cover immediately began trotting out their theories to explain away these numbers. Principal among these was “the Bradley effect” – a notion first broached in 1982 when Tom Bradley, a former black Los Angeles Mayor, was given a nine to 22 point over lead in the run-up to the California Governor’s race, only to end up losing to (white) Republican George Deukmejian. The theory held that voters, responding to telephone surveys, offered a “politically correct” answer that they were going to vote for an African American candidate when in fact, that was not their intention at all.

Twenty-five years ago this theory was simply that – an unknowable and improvable supposition. Today, as pollsters begin to explore the differences between results obtained by telephone surveys, compared to those administered over the internet, we have empirical evidence to suggest that telephone research may systematically overstate “socially desirable” outcomes. Whether the question explores church attendance, extra-marital affairs, smoking pot or virtually any other behaviour or belief that carries a social stigma, these comparison have shown that voters contacted by telephone consistently offer a more socially desirable response than those answering the same questions (without the intermediary of another person being party to their views), via the Internet.

The confluence of American attitudes towards race and the social desirability bias of telephone interviewing therefore could account for some of the difference between the published polls and the actual results. But the very fact that this social interaction bias is inherent in telephone interviewing, means that these same polls cannot give us a precise measure of this effect, before election day.

Less frequently offered as an explanation for these “bad polls” is the very nature of small-state, US primary contests themselves. Notwithstanding headlines declaring record-breaking turnout, only about 250,000 voters cast their ballot in the Democratic race in New Hampshire – equal to what we might expect of a mayoralty contest in a mid-size Canadian City. Unlike the race for mayor — say in Ottawa — however, voters in New Hampshire are registered and their political affiliation is known, in advance, by the respective campaign organizations. Also, unlike municipal politics in Canada, Democratic candidates in the Granite State spent tens of millions – on mere, hundreds of thousands of voters – to identify and make direct contact with those individuals known to be most likely to support their candidates.

While we may try, polling cannot predict who will actually turnout and vote and who will not. In other words, voters might tell us they are going to go to the polls but if their babysitter doesn’t show up or if there is a massive snow storm or even if their favourite television program is on, the pollster has no ability to factor these circumstances into their findings.

Normally we don’t worry much about this and tend to ignore our own admonishments about the discipline’s limits when it comes to predicting turnout rates. And normally we can get away with this because, in general elections, no one Party’s supporters are more or less likely to turn out than supporters of the other Parties. In small population, big money campaigns however, where the spending and organization of one candidate can be superior to the other’s, differences – undetectable by the polls — in turnout can effect the actual vote result and make the polls look like they are in error.

Race and the idiosyncrasies of small state US primaries aside, the additional fact remains that, while rooted in scientific random probability theory, polling is, by definition, imprecise (ergo, the margin of error) and unable to replicate the very thing it purports to measure. Typically, pollsters will ask “how would you vote for if the election was held tomorrow” or “which candidate are you most likely to support in the election to be held on Date X”?

As if it needs to be said, these are hypothetical questions that are not asked to voters as they stand over their ballot, preparing to cast their vote. Yet we know (from post-election research conducted in Canada, the US and virtually every other jurisdiction in the Western world) that between 8 and 13 percent of voters claim this is exactly where and when they made up their minds. In fact, exit polling conducted by the New York Times when New Hampshire voters leaving the polling stations showed that among those who claimed to have made up their minds “in the last week”, Obama had a 15 point lead, but among those who decided “today”, Clinton was ahead by three percent. Clearly there was a significant shift towards the New York Senator at the last moment that went undetected by the polls conducted in the days – and even the day – before the actual vote.

What went on in those voter’s minds as they stood in the ballot box? Were they thinking about Hillary’s emotional outburst in a restaurant the day before? Were they balancing the merits and demerits of race versus gender politics? Or were they thinking about their favourite television program that was going to be over if they didn’t hurry up and make up their mind?

Over my career, I have conducted surveys in over 50 election campaigns in three continents and I have never – and as far as I know, nor has anyone else – conducted surveys while voters were in the polling booth. So the honest answer to the question of what goes through the minds of voters in this private moment is that we do not have a clue….and in this regard, I am 100% confident of the pollster’s inability to absolutely predict election outcomes, 20 times out of 20, with zero margin of error.

New Hampshire should remind us all of us in the prognostication business that we are not god-like clairvoyants, but in the words of The Godfather of modern-day polling, George Gallup, merely taking a “snaphot in a particular point in time”.

In 1905, from his small cubicle in a patent office in Zurich, Albert Einstein issues four papers that forever change our understanding of theoretical physics and the functioning of the cosmos. In the same year, Henri Matisse launches an exhibition of garish colours that shocks Paris and spurs Pablo Picasso to move into cubism. Meanwhile, sent by the Royal Geographic Society, Robert Falcon Scott sets off to explore the most remote and formidable corner of the planet – Antarctica.

It was called a “miracle year;” but in many ways, these world-altering feats did not happen miraculously, but as part of a pattern that has been repeated throughout modern history.
(more…)

A continued presence in Afghanistan is very unlikely to win the federal Conservative government new converts, but it could very well cause the Conservatives to lose the next election. So the status quo is probably not an option for the government.

A cynic – or a student of public opinion – might have predicted that Canada’s Afghanistan mission was politically doomed from the start.

Since Lester Pearson was awarded the 1957 Nobel Peace Prize, Canadians have had a 50-year love affair with their self-image as “honest brokers,” “a middle power,” and (the most prized and emotionally charged of all) “peacekeepers.” Launching a combat mission in a country that posed neither a tangible threat nor opportunity for Canada and Canadians simply did not resonate with that self-image – indeed, the very act of fighting affronts our notion of Canada as “the peaceable kingdom.”
(more…)

Allan Gregg returns to CBC News At Issue Panel from openflows on Vimeo

THE UNFINISHED CANADIAN
The People We Are
By Andrew Cohen
McClelland & Stewart,
270 pages, $29.99
REVIEWED BY ALLAN GREGG

As the title suggests, journalist turned academic Andrew Cohen sees Canadians as “unfinished,” a species whose insularity and self-satisfaction have prevented us from achieving our full national potential.

So that we can “become a more confident, more accomplished people,” he offers a plan. To become “future Canadians,” we need to rediscover our past by establishing national standards for teaching history and celebrating historic occasions. A more “mature” relationship with the United States, in which we would no longer fear absorption but harness our mutual interests to our mutual benefit is also prescribed. Our sense of civic-mindedness and creed could be strengthened by placing a higher value on citizenship: making it harder to come by, setting more rigorous standards for its attainment and doing more to integrate new Canadians into our host culture.

Some of Cohen’s medicine would be easy for Canadians to swallow and relatively simple for inspired governments to implement: Honour past and present achievement and achievers; create a culture (and presumably a tax regime) that encourages charity; restore historic buildings, monuments and sites.

Others might be greeted with more controversy and cultural resistance: Become more accepting of both the foibles and importance of our politicians; call on all taxpayers to invest in the national capital region; launch a 21st-century project of national enterprise to spark the collective imagination, as did the building of the railway.

If guiding us to be a better people and a more enriched nation was Cohen’s sole purpose – and if he were prepared to take the time and space to catalogue how we might reach this destination – this would be a laudable and worthy journey. For example, instituting a national historical curriculum would be a worthwhile and appealing initiative, though education is squarely in provincial jurisdiction.

In the same way, the evidence of increasing isolation from the mainstream among Canada’s foreign-born is alarming, and any bold, new thoughts on how to reverse this trend would certainly get my attention.

Sadly, though, Cohen has chosen not to turn his keen mind to these challenges; indeed, re-imagining “the future Canadian,” and offering how we might get there, warrants a scant 19 pages. He dedicates the vast majority of his analysis to tilting at the windmills of Canadian myths and lecturing us about “the people we are.”
(more…)

A few years ago, as part of my TV Ontario program, I interviewed Naomi Klein and I asked her how it could be that her contemporaries and generation, who were so obviously connected to the world they lived in, showed no interest – in fact actively eschewed –politics, parties and parliament. Her answer rocked me on my heels. She replied that in her entire adult life, she could not think of one, single initiative that had emanated from government for which she was proud.

My generation associated government with grand initiatives of national enterprise — adopting Medicare, introducing pension and income security reform, repatriating the constitution and enshrining a Charter of Rights and Freedoms or debating the possibilities of guaranteed annual income or using tri-partism to vitalize democracy.

I realized that her generation had no such touchstones and therefore no frame of reference to consider government as our central agent of societal advancement. And they had no such frame of reference not because they were disinterested, anomic slackers, but because there weren’t any.

Right there and then, it dawned on me that public cynicism towards politics and politicians may actually be rational.…that the population has been persuaded that government is bad because for a generation we have been receiving bad government. That by lowering their performance to correspond to the public’s cynical expectations, we have offered ample and concrete evidence that governments are unable (or, as I will argue later, unwilling) to be productive agents of the public good.

(more…)

There is a general consensus that Canada has a productivity gap. Yet the issue refuses to capture the public’s imagination or to take a higher priority on the nation’s political agenda. Claims that the sky is falling run contrary to public confidence that the economy is buoyant and resilient. At the same time, there is a widespread view that while prosperity is abundant, it is shared unequally and that in the face of unprecedented growth, the same advocates of productivity stand idly by and allow our social safety net – our health care, education and quality of life in our cities – to unravel.

For most people, increasing productivity involves little more than working harder or personal sacrifice. The perceived beneficiary to increased productivity is business, and therefore it hardly seems like a fair bargain or worthy of pursuit. Even those in government who might recognize that dealing with productivity is good policy are loath to advance the topic with any vigour.

I have moderated Microsoft Canada’s CAN>WIN conference on this topic four times since 2001 and watched some of Canada’s and the world’s brightest minds work their way through this dilemma. The consensus solutions to Canada’s prosperity problem are at once simple and deceptively complex.
(more…)