Since Lyndon Johnson launched “the daisy ad” – accusing Barry Goldwater of capriciously threatening nuclear war – negative advertising has become common place in politics.

So common place in fact that, almost half a century later, on the heels of yet another volley of Conservative attack ads against another new Liberal leader, Canada’s “national” newspaper, The Globe and Mail, is now exhorting Justin Trudeau to counter attack and “fight fire with fire or look weak”.

For decades, political operatives have defended the practice of focusing on your opponent’s weaknesses, rather than your strengths, as a legitimate part of democratic choice. The Globe echoes this sentiment … “Isn’t politics about showing why you’re a better choice that your opponent? That implies both the positive and the negative”. But the Globe goes even farther than the practitioners, with the claim that “…. the notion of rising above negativity feels false to what politics are really about …”. This view of “what politics is really about” and the role that negative advertising plays in it, is not only callow, it is dangerous and wrong.

Not just part of democratic choice, attack ads are also justified for the simple reason that they work. Of course they work. They play to – and I believe feed – the public’s general cynicism towards the political system and distrust of politicians. Sad but true, a message that states … “politician A is a crook” is far more likely to be believed than one that claims “politician B is a paragon of virtue”. But using this justification implies that the only practice of politics and role for politicians is to secure short-term electoral gain over your opponent.

If negative advertising is so effective, maybe the media and politicians should ask themselves why other big advertisers (who are far more experienced and savvy) do not employ these same tactics. Just like the electoral process, it is safe to assume that McDonald’s wants to take market share from Burger King. They also know that the quickest and most immediate way of doing this would be to launch an ad campaign that claimed their competitor’s product contained botulism. Burger King could neutralize McDonald’s advantage by countering that Big Macs are rife with e-coli. This attack and counterattack might “work” to the extent that it would affect market share but it is not employed by McDonald’s and Burger King because they know it will destroy the category and pretty soon no one would ever buy a hamburger again. In other words, they are smart enough to know that the business they are in is not just about taking market share from the other guy … it’s about making consumers believe in eating hamburgers.

So while focusing on your opponent’s weakness rather than your own virtues might lead to a short term electoral advantage, over time, it will create a cascade of political cynicism. If you say “politician A is a crook” often enough, it is only a matter of time before the public comes to believe that all politicians are crooks. That is what is happening now and these are the seeds that defenders of negative advertising are sewing.

We would be wise to remember that politics is not a blood sport and that “what politics are really about” is not bludgeoning your opponent until they cannot stand.

For good or ill, politics is the process by which we organize civil, democratic society. It is used to allocate a nation’s scare resources. Through it, we confer a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence. Because of it, we are able to represent the wishes of the majority and at the same time protect the rights of minority. And at bottom, politics creates a state that has the potential to do immense good or infinite harm and as such, we all have a vested interest that the best and brightest and only those who are motivated by the public good are encouraged to enter public life.

In the very same way, those who believe that this is “what politics are really about” have a responsibility to draw attention to its virtues and not just its shortcomings.

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.
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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.”
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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.”
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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.
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Having a variety of voices in the Liberal leadership race will be good for the party, but whoever wins will have to borrow heavily from the others to win back voters

As most predicted, the Liberal leadership contest has turned into a packed race. The absence of an obvious front-runner has excited the aspirations, ambitions and, in some cases, the delusions of contenders who otherwise might have stayed in the starting gate.

Listening to their early declarations, it is apparent that the regional, gender and generational diversity of the candidates is going to be matched by the strategies they hope to employ — first to win the contest and presumably, thereafter, the country.
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Today’s cynical voters actually care more about issues than yesterday’s partisans, so a campaign of ideas for the Liberal leadership could win some back

Scant weeks before Auditor General Sheila Fraser transferred her “outrage” over the sponsorship scandal to the Canadian electorate, private polling suggested that Paul Martin and his Liberal party were headed toward the largest electoral majority on record. Twenty-six months later, his term in government has been relegated to a modest footnote in Canadian history books, Stephen Harper occupies his office in the Langevin block and, as his former followers set out to elect his successor, the very future of the Liberal party has become a question mark.

Without doubt, this massive change in fortune underscores the incendiary impact of the Gomery inquiry. In no small measure it probably also reflects tactical and strategic errors that Mr. Martin’s Liberals made while in government and over the course of two federal campaigns. Much more telling however, Mr. Martin’s descent reflects a political culture where attachment to partisan choice is so tenuous that no political party’s fortunes can be guaranteed beyond the next calendar year.
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Our outrage over a dwindling sum of abused money is damaging Canadians’ perceptions of politicians and public servants

Justice John Gomery’s first report provides ample opportunity for those who wish to add their voices to the howls of outrage over “the biggest scandal in Canadian history” (according to Opposition leader Stephen Harper).

However, Judge Gomery offers another service that should cause blood to flow, not just into our throats, but also to our heads, for the complete picture he paints now allows us — for the first time — to give more precise measure to the scandal that has been seizing the political imagination for almost two years.

That there was something amiss in the communications-contracting operation of Public Works was known for some time. An internal audit in 1996 was followed by another in 2000 that discovered continued “administrative irregularities” in the tendering and payment of sponsorship programs.

Alerting her fine nose for unearthing dirt, the audit drew the attention of Auditor General Sheila Fraser who turned her flinty gaze to the department in her 2003 report. Obviously not garnering the attention she was seeking — and notwithstanding the fact that the RCMP had already been called in to investigate criminal wrongdoing in the case — Ms. Fraser chose to report on the scandal in more detail once again in February 2004, this time adding her editorial “outrage” about the breaking of “every rule in the book.” This seemed to have the desired effect and the political agenda has been cast in the shadow of Adscam ever since.
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Even Albertans and Quebeckers are showing a profound commitment to the nation, say politicos Peter Donolo and Allan Gregg

From the Manitoba schools question in the 1890s to the 1995 Quebec referendum, Canada’s peaceable history has been punctuated by regional conflicts that threatened to tear the country apart. Such tensions are evident to this day and often dominate the national agenda. Whether it is Newfoundland’s Premier, Danny Williams, banishing the Canadian flag to protest Ottawa’s “betrayal” over offshore resources or Alberta Premier Ralph Klein telling the rest of Canada to “keep your hands off” his province’s oil, regional grievances have come to be accepted as a permanent part of the Canadian condition.

It’s high time Canadians see past the clichés and recognize that when these grievances surface, they are often a function of self-serving sabre-rattling rather than a lack of commitment to the nation; a misconstrued stereotype rather than any deep animosity by citizens in one region toward those in another.

A good example is the most recent survey we conducted for The Globe and Mail and CTV, released last week. It reveals a reality — particularly regarding Alberta and Quebec — that is much more nuanced than the rhetoric we often hear from politicians and political commentators. The results show a level of commitment to Canada by those provinces that belies the long-held view of Quebec and Alberta as the “crybabies” of Confederation.
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Out of the otherwise horrific news reports of the Indian Ocean tsunamis disaster, perhaps the most optimistic news was found in the headlines of Wednesday’s Globe and Mail. Above the fold, in XX point type, Canada’s national newspaper declared that “Donors Swamp Charities”. Within the body of the story, readers were told of the “phenomenal response” of Canadians. Rarest of all, a spokesman for Medicins sans frontieres declared the amount of money they had received had exceeded their ability to deploy it.

There is no question that the shear magnitude of the catastrophe – upwards of 150,000 lives lost, untold devastation of once arable land and an escalating risk of disease and water shortages – at least in part, accounts for this outpouring of generosity. But this “phenomenal response” goes beyond the disaster itself and reflects the times — and the place — where we live.

At bottom, the public’s engagement with this event and their empathy with the victims can be explained by the nature of media today. In 1976, even more lives were lost in an earth quake in China. But this was before 24 hours news television, digital cameras or the Internet. Accordingly, the ramifications of this calamity were largely out-of-sight and unknown. Today, we are inundated with real time accounts of virtually every grisly detail that occurs, as they unfold.
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