Justin Trudeau's Gentle Press Juggernaut

The Canadian journalists we rely on to handicap the horse races in federal politics underestimated Thomas Mulcair’s appeal outside Quebec and just as badly overestimated Michael Ignatieff’s appeal in Canada. Second-hand stories about Mulcair’s bad temper and second-hand stories about Ignatieff’s brilliance were unpersuasive.

Consequently, the national media today is playing a more modest role in the roll-out of the Liberal Party’s presumptive front-runner, Justin Trudeau. With that light touch the Canadian press employs for vacuous British Royal visits, they’re helping to turn a do-or-die contest for Canadian liberalism into a coronation.

The editorial pages of the Globe and Mail and the National Post tell us to be objective and set aside half-backed clichés. Readers are assured by the Post that Justin Trudeau isn’t an “untested political dilettante” because he won two elections in the riding of Papineau, Quebec. The Globe reminds young Western Canada to not judge him by what they were told about his father and that there is no ideal credential for political leadership. They conclude that before we oppose Mr. Trudeau’s candidacy, we should study his parliamentary record and “policy positions, once they’re announced.”

This is all too coy.

As a young backbencher, Trudeau has no Parliamentary record of his own. Inviting Liberals and potential liberal supporters to judge him, in effect, by policy positions churned out by party professionals will only confirm he’s a front-runner, not a competent future leader.  

Winning a riding in which the Conservative vote is under 5% hardly hints at his ability to offer a credible, sustained alternative to Stephen Harper, let alone rally progressive centrists who are now favoring Thomas Mulcair.

It’s not mean-spirited to ask the national press to give Justin Trudeau a rough ride—to be as hard on him as prudent Liberals must.

Justin Trudeau’s gentle press reception

The Canadian journalists we rely on to handicap the horse races in federal politics underestimated Thomas Mulcair’s appeal outside Quebec and just as badly over-estimated Michael Ignatieff’s appeal in Canada. Second hand stories about Mulcair’s bad temper and second hand stories about Ignatieff’s brilliance were unpersuasive.

Consequently, the national media today is playing a more modest role in the rollout of the Liberal Party’s presumptive front-runner Justin Trudeau. With that light touch the Canadian press employs for vacuous British Royal visits, they’re helping to turn a do-or-die contest for Canadian liberalism into a coronation.

The editorial pages of the Globe and Mail and the National Post tell us to be objective and set aside half-backed clichés. Readers are assured by the Post that Justin Trudeau isn’t an “untested political dilettante” because he won two elections in the riding of Papineau, Quebec. The Globe reminds young Western Canada to not judge him by what they were told about his father and that there is no ideal credential for political leadership. They conclude that before we oppose Mr. Trudeau’s candidacy we should study his parliamentary record and “policy positions, once they’re announced.”

This is all too coy.

As a young backbencher, Trudeau has no Parliamentary record of his own. Inviting Liberals and potential liberal supporters to judge him, in effect, by policy positions churned out by party professionals will only confirm he’s a front-runner, not a competent future leader.  

Winning a riding in which the Conservative vote is under five percent hardly hints at his ability to offer a credible, sustained alternative to Stephen Harper, let alone rally progressive centrist who are now favouring Thomas Mulcair.

It’s not mean-spirited to ask the national press to give Justin Trudeau a rough ride—to be as hard on him as prudent Liberals must.

Canada’s survival: what’s love got to do with it?

Activists who had an especially good time in the '60s often complain that young people now don’t have the passion that they had in the good old days, that with their smaller dreams big Canada will eventually disappear. The human heart and the lifespan of the Canadian federation has become a peculiar obsession of defeated Liberals, especially Michael Ignatieff.

While his suggestion to the BBC (Click on: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-17819102) that Canada will eventually fall apart out of “mutual indifference” has been scorned, his concern that that the old passion necessary to keep us united may be missing is taken seriously. In short, Ignatieff survives again as a thinker.   

John Ivison writes in the National Post, “Ignatieff tells it like it is on Quebec.”

“Love, we are told, is a mix of intimacy, passion and commitment. It seems to me there is no great love for Canada in Quebec - and, judging by the rising demands for autonomy in Alberta, the thrill has gone for many in the West.”

Click on: www.nationalpost.com/Ignatieff+tells+like+Quebec/6520273/story.html

Margaret Wente writes in the Globe and Mail, “Michael Ignatieff was right about Quebec.”

“He’s right. Our generation embraced the French fact with passion. It was what distinguished Canada from the rest of the world. The existence of Quebec – the language! the culture! – made us feel cosmopolitan and sexy.”

Click on: www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/margaret-wente/michael-ignatieff-was-right-about-quebec/article2414217/is

On a quiet day, there is no denying that Canadians feel great pride, mutual benefit, collective security—but there's little love from shore to shore. Without feeling sexy extra-territorially, are Canada’s provinces, in Ignatieff’s words, merely parked as “way stations” on a road that leads to independence?

History and, surely, Ignatieff's liberal faith argue otherwise.

Free peoples are not destined to play national politics in units exclusively bound by love.

Otherwise, the lose federations of North America would have never matured in the first place—or survived the religious, language, and economic strains of the 19th and 20th centuries. (Both united federations have just spent ten years fighting an unpopular war in the Middle East, after a century of world wars at others' behest.) Also, Europeans would be electing national fascist governments again, if mutual self-interest and civility weren’t uppermost in people’s thinking.

Actually, Canada and the US are relatively easy to govern when their regions are rather indifferent toward each other. “Mutual indifference” has been successfully addressed by forceful leadership, compelling external challenges, and mutual self-interest.

While federations don’t impress romantics, they’re good at addressing great opportunities and challenges that loving little nations must leave to others.

Thomas Mulcair isn’t spinach, he’s appealing

The most popular pundit advice to New Democrats in today’s leadership balloting is: vote for Thomas Mulcair because he’s so mean he won’t even feel it when those mean Harper Conservatives launch their awesome negative ads in the next election.

This theory is borne of the gentle notion that the Liberal Party’s laughable performance in the last election was really not their fault. Rather, that they and their implicitly electable leader Michael Ignatieff were savaged by devastating negative ads by Stephen Harper’s Conservatives.

New Democrats would be well wise to vote for Mulcair for better reasons than that.

Harper and his team may or may not be their competition in three years, but we do know that there is absolutely no evidence that Canadians rely on advertising to decide what they think of Liberal and NDP leaders or that negative advertising now decides Canadian elections.

Here’s what was historic about last year’s Canadian election: the Liberal leader had the shortest public service résumé and obviously had less political talent than the leader of the New Democrats. For the first time, the Liberal leader ranked third in public approval polls and, on election day, the Liberals came in third.

Being as mean as Harper isn’t the task for New Democrats today. To New Democrats who are tempted to pick someone a little less overwhelming as Mulcair, think about Bob Rae’s ambition and the ego and savvy of the Liberal Party of Canada.

The first job of the fortunate new leader of the New Democrats is to stay ahead and offer leadership to other forces naturally growing in opposition to the government of the day.

Thomas Mulcair, above all the others, has demonstrated the initiative, confidence, and the ruthlessness to not let that work fall back into the hands of the Liberals or anyone else.

Michael Ignatieff: 9/11 and faith in the state

Michael Ignatieff has returned to academia after a battering experience as leader of the Liberal Party of Canada. His exclusive essay on the consequences of 9/11 demonstrates that he’s no less an academic today—and no less a political wordsmith either.

Click on: www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/americas/september-11/michael-ignatieff-911-and-the-age-of-sovereign-failure/article2160153/

He scorns the illusions and mistakes of a decade. His prose soars with eagles. It’s very hard, however, to figure out amongst all the game scurrying for cover below which exactly is his prey. The title offered by The Globe and Mail, “9/11 and the Age of Sovereign Failure,” is grand but fairly straightforward. His angle on what’s gone wrong, however, is anything but.

Ignatieff’s prize first sentence declares:

“One of the tasks we ask government to perform is to think the unthinkable.”

That’s possible, of course; the modern nation-state has the human resources to image anything. However, his complaint about 9/11 is brutally specific: on facing terrorist threats, Western governments (especially the US) should have been “not just hoping for the best but planning for the worst.”

Ignatieff concludes, “A sovereign failed that morning.” He seems to imagine that every morning the president and his busy court should stop dealing with the problems at hand and ask, “What conceivably could go wrong today?”

Then, he gets adult and offers a grace note for all of us:

“We have learned to live with that, to accept that there are 'black swans' – events so unthinkable that no one can prepare for them. So we accept a new vulnerability. But there is no hiding the childlike disappointment inside us all. Our idea of the sovereign included a child's expectation that it would keep us safe. We have had to grow up.”

But his child wakes. The Iraq War, Hurricane Katrina, the economic crisis of 2008, the debt-ceiling debate, the sovereign debt crisis in Europe—along with 9/11—all constitute sovereign failures and betrayals of the people’s trust:

“When you line these failures up in a row, one following the other, it is no surprise that people have lost faith in government everywhere, but especially in the United States.”

Faith, he insists, must be restored. Here, he’s a tad ambitious, combining the illusions of his resilient child and the perfectionist standards of a tenured outsider:

“Sovereigns matter. And rebuilding their legitimacy, their capacity and their competence is the political task that matters most.

“Competent doesn’t mean bigger. It may even mean smaller, nimbler, more digital, less bureaucratic and more responsive in the face of the ceaseless ingenuity of greed. But whatever form sovereign government takes in the future, it has to mean government that prepares for the worst and regulates to protect the public from greed, violence and environmental ruin.”

Ignatieff’s nimble Leviathan isn’t granted a blank check:

“If terror challenges democracy, the answer is more democracy, not less, more accountability and openness, not less.”

Ignatieff says he doesn’t care what form his state should take. So, he doesn’t try to explain how more nimble airport security and less bureaucratic-enhanced interrogation protocols will keep us safe, our faith alive and our consciences clear. He doesn’t reconcile how an all-knowing regulatory regime will allow businesses to make necessary business mistakes or how the savvy regulator will not be seduced in the process of regulating the animal spirits of others.

A Liberal critic can demand that government be on top of everything and not our master. But a liberal scholar ought to try to explain how we can be free and grant any-sized government sufficient power to keep our person, our property, and our economy perfectly safe.

Anyway, if officials and politicians were sure that what they were doing would always look "competent" the next day, nobody would need the elaborate machinery and checks and balances of Ignatieff's more perfect state.

He concludes by suggesting there are forces lurking in the US primaries in the grip of an “ideological fantasy,” imagining that America doesn’t need a competent sovereign. According to Ignatieff’s opening proposition, everything must be possible, even the idea of Rotary Republicans living in the wild making up their own rules. However, his essay and his concluding sentence are equally fantastical:

“And until they [sovereigns] stop failing us, we will not be safe, and our prosperity will not be secure.”

Faith in government goes hand in hand with too much faith generally. Before 9/11, we saw too much trust in all centers of power. American leaders in banking, in business, in defense, in intelligence, in accounting, in Congress, in the White House, and in the Federal Reserve all trusted that the others were competent and, together, that they were “masters of the universe.” Those illusions hurt millions of less proud, less powerful people.

However, the way ahead is not to try to construct a flawless state, but to get on with the grinding business of making improvements, punishing wrong-doing, and rewarding talent.

The paranoid style of Canada’s Liberal leadership

In 1964, Richard Hofstadter wrote the article “The Paranoid Style in American Politics” to explain the extreme and aggressive style of American right-wing populists. It was consciously a liberal insider’s analysis of political outsiders. Indeed, his article concluded on almost a sympathetic note:

“We are all sufferers from history, but the paranoid is a double sufferer, since he is afflicted not only by the real world, with the rest of us, but by his fantasies as well.”

Click on: http://www.kenrahn.com/jfk/conspiracy_theory/the_paranoid_mentality/the_paranoid_style.html

The Tea Party movement, the Birthers and Obama’s own musing about middle class angst brought the image of the right-wing paranoid back to help explain the dyspeptic nature of US politics today.

In Canada, conservatives are watchful but hardly driven by demons; they are in office in Ottawa, Toronto and most of western Canada and, otherwise, are making money.

There may be no authentic paranoid force in Canada. Nevertheless, many successful Canadian politicians appeal to irrational fear.

Ironically, the politics of paranoia is practiced as high art by the leadership of Canada’s Liberal Party. Of course, their best practitioners are highly polished; some may carry back packs, but none own Harleys. Liberals are generally highly educated, and survived with ease the financial collapse of 2008. They are not without influence. Nor do they believe that the majority of other Canadians are misguided and living in sin. Indeed, they’re sure that their thinking is utterly mainstream.

Nevertheless, they were thrown out of office five years ago and that still drives them crazy.  The US nut bar lost sleep over the so-called missile gap.  The Canadian Liberal can’t rest out of office. Their intolerable discomfort in opposition forced this election and their likely humiliation next week.

In Toronto, yesterday, Michael Ignatieff and former Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chretien put it all on display. The Toronto Star run the headline “Tories a threat to nation Liberals built, Chretien says.”

“What is important is, we built a country together,” Chrétien said. “I see you, you’ve come from all over the world to share our values of being a Canadian.

“But if you’re not careful, you might lose them one by one,” said Chrétien, who bounded onto the stage to shake hands with the assembled local Liberal candidates.

When he first entered politics in 1963, there was no medicare, no Canada Pension Plan, no Canadian flag, no national anthem and the Constitution was a British law, he told the crowd. And at that time there were no guarantees of individual rights through the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, he added.”

Click on: http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/981653--tories-a-threat-to-nation-liberals-built-chretien-says

Ignatieff broadened the net, dropping the pretence that he’s preparing to assume the responsibilities of office:

“On the issue of Iraq, Ignatieff said the thing he has learned in dealing with the United States “is you don’t believe what the American tells you.”

Click on: http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/981662--combative-ignatieff-says-tories-can-go-to-hell?bn=1

Really? It’s the Liberal Party, not a time-tested national consensus that upholds our national institutions? And protects us from lying Americans?

Ignatieff also insisted to the Toronto Star Editorial Board that the Liberal Party’s “tradition” is too unique to allow for a merger with the NDP.

The language of the American paranoid is laced with American exceptionalism. The rhetoric of Canada’s Liberal Party is exceptional as well.

Stephen Harper' campaign: changing circumstances re-make the man

How do you make a conservative economist—whose most treasured possession is competence, whose message is stability, and who can’t be bothered to raise his voice even when he’s called a dictator—into a compelling campaigner? Simple. You put a social democrat in second place.

Yet again, unwittingly, the people of Quebec are causing hearts to race across Canada. The so-called Quebec consensus for more government, according to a sheaf of polls, has pivoted in favour of Jack Layton and the New Democrats. With a little help from British Columbia, in particular, Layton is now literally running second  nationally. Indeed, one survey reported that over the last couple of days the NDP could have elected 100 MPs.

This week, Layton and his crutch will probably sustain intense scrutiny with grace.  However, the attention he’ll get will likely do magical things for Stephen Harper.

Harper has meticulously girded himself to defend and advance his economic vision. Bristling with weaponry, he has, nevertheless, looked increasingly overdressed, standing awkwardly without a serious adversary.

Michael Ignatieff hasn’t offered drama. You know in your heart he’s not equipped to fight for a new vision for the economy or, for that matter, any fundamental shift in Harper’s perspective on Canada’s federal and external relations.

His rhetoric is hot enough. However, you know, as a Prime Minister, he’d be pulled back into the centre by the Liberal Party and its abiding respect for the latest conventions of technocratic government in Ottawa.

An alternative Layton coalition government, however, would, at the very least, be highly suspenseful.

It’s every instinct would be to dismantle and move to the left of Harper’s five years of stewardship. In addition, its new base in Quebec and its old base in Ontario’s labour movement oppose Harper’s approach to taxation, environmental regulation, western economic expansion, business incentives, health and pension reform, and his overriding foreign policy priority—being the US government’s first and best friend.

Layton’s surging campaign could turn Harper’s business as usual “affordable” platform into the ballot question. In Canada, bland government is winning politics when it’s seen to be at risk.

It could give Harper his majority, and in securing that majority, force his progressive opponents finally to build a united, coherent alternative.

How not to win new friends in a close election

The leader of the Liberal Party Michael Ignatieff will be humiliated in next Monday’s election if he fails to beat the New Democrats decisively in the popular vote and in the election of MPs. Right now Jack Layton’s New Democrats are surging and so Ignatieff must respond.

In effect, he must play Stephen Harper on the left: urging voters to go with the familiar, the time tested. This is tricky. It’s hard to be interesting—to get Canadians to “rise up”—and settle down at the same time. And Michael Ignatieff does not see himself as boring. Consequently, he reaches for extravagant language:

“People have had a nice time with the NDP, it’s a nice little taxi to get on for while; but you better take a look at how high that meter is going because the price keeps going up and up and up and up and I urge you to go home,” Ignatieff told approximately 300 Liberal supporters in the Prince Edward Island riding of Egmont.

“This is no time for amateur hour here. We could have NDP amateur hour or we can have competent responsible government.”

Click on: http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/04/23/ignatieff-calls-ndp-numbers-purely-science-fiction/

There is no accusation more likely to inflame and re-double the fighting spirit of a New Democrat than being called an amateur by a Liberal.

New Democrats, since their founding fifty years ago this June, swore they’d learn all the tricks of the “old line” parties, keep their principles, and, someday, win. They haven’t won but they’ve certainly mastered modern campaigning and have been generally faithful to a handful of demanding principles.

They’ve governed competently in difficult times and in five provincial settings. Jack Layton is (horrors!) a career politician. He’s served in electoral politics for 26 years, more than half in city council decision-making in Canada’s largest city.

Their platform may not be as precise as Ignatieff’s “Family Pack.”  However, neither one will fly with voters who will vote their economic concerns first. Furthermore, New Democrats have shown, in the crunch, that they’re neither amateurish nor unreliable.

On the persistent--and legitimate--issue of coalition government only Harper and Layton have been straightforward. They, of course, disagree. However, Layton hasn’t hidden behind the “Westminster model” with vague allusions to in camera discussions. He’s reiterated publicly that he would participate in a coalition.

New Democrats haven’t tried to make the “survival of democracy in Canada” a ballot issue. However, when Michael Ignatieff was living from pay cheque to pay cheque in London, they stood alone in the Canadian Parliament against the invocation of the War Measures Act and the suspension of normal civil liberties by a crushingly popular Liberal Prime Minister.

The elusive will of the people in a Canadian election

With just over a week of campaigning left, fog has settled over the Canadian election. The leaders' planes should be grounded until it clears.

Thanks to civic lessons on the “Westminster model,” profiles on the Governor General, hypothetical questions and hypothetical answers about what combination of politicians should form the next government, Canadian voters have been put on notice: your vote is important, in a way; what you do on Election Day will be taken into account but we’ll decide how you’re governed.

Canada is in the midst of a $300 million election that was billed as necessary to renew our democracy and bring accountability back to government. Yet, according to today’s polls, we’ll be electing a Parliament even freer than the last to interpret and re-arrange the will of the people. Indeed, the constitutional experts don’t even want to go public because they want to be free to give their advice to the Governor General when it counts.

Stephen Harper’s case for a Parliamentary majority has been stretched unnecessarily by his recent argument that he and the opposition will not be able to compromise on his budget. This belies the man. He’s already the most successful compromiser to lead a minority Canadian Parliament. Nevertheless, at least, he’s campaigning for a concrete idea: give me a majority and I’ll implement my platform and manage a growing list of issues waiting on my desk. The Liberals have caste this as a grab for “absolute power.” The voters are free to imagine it as a return to a more stable past or a reckless leap of faith.

Michael Ignatieff is anything but straightforward. To his credit, he has allowed that hypothetical questions about the new Parliament are legitimate. However, he can’t give a straight answer with a straight face because the Liberal Party hasn't done its homework.

Consequently, the opposition leader—the insurgent, small l-liberal intellectual—is caught lecturing the electorate on the prerogatives of Parliament and the recently appointed Governor General, without any reference to the electorates role in the process.

Arguing that “discussions” and “informal arrangements” and “watering the wine” to make the Leader of the Opposition the next Prime Minister is the proper “Westminster” way to make a minority parliament work is incomplete and, as likely, dishonest.

The principal advisor to the Governor General is not the wise men of the University of Toronto’s Law School. It’s the Prime Minister. Only once in modern history has a Governor General unilaterally determined what’s best for the country. And that decision to invite the Leader of the Opposition Arthur Meighen to form a cabinet of “acting” ministers was soundly rejected by the electorate in the election of 1926.

There is, ironically, one scenario that could lead to the Prime Ministership for Michael Ignatieff even if he doesn’t get the most seats in the election. If the Liberals and the NDP together win at least as many seats as the Conservatives they could make a compelling case to the Prime Minister and the GG that they should be given a chance to form a stable coalition government. This proposal would be immeasurably strengthened if Ignatieff was honest with the electorate now.

He has no alternative to protect by being coy. It’s utterly delusional to imagine that New Democrats could support him in any other arrangement. Without any meaningful representation across Western Canada, the home of half the NDP, it’s unimaginable that the Liberals could form a cabinet without strong cabinet representation by New Democrats.

Canada’s English language leader’s debate

A few impressions that still stick in the morning:

—Jack Layton tossed in the meanest sly lines of the evening. Half way through the debate, he offered his crutch to Michael Ignatieff. By the end of the debate, Ignatieff might have appreciated the assist.

—Stephen Harper didn’t seem to be close to losing his temper and, for the first time for many, he was eager to explain himself on past economic, justice and parliamentary issues.

—Harper missed several chances to bring urgency to his theme that the recovery is “fragile” and that the country needs a stable government to create jobs. His government is in the midst of significant trade and border negotiations with Europe and the United States. He didn’t touch on the recent 5% appreciation of the Canadian dollar or the fiscal crisis in the US—they both threaten Canada’s recovery and export competitiveness.

—Ignatieff invested far too much time and goodwill in trying to rattle and upset Harper. And he relied almost entirely on extravagant language. The kind of language Harper doesn’t use and doesn’t seem to even hear.

—Ignatieff can’t stop using the word “cops” when talking about the police and justice issues. He should move on. The term is neither hip nor respectful.

—The most noteworthy unreported exchange was on multiculturalism. The Liberal and Conservative leaders reversed historic roles. While Ignatieff worried that we not “politicize” the question, Harper happily waxed on about the positive value of multiculturalism. Intriguingly, he went out of his way to defend multiculturalism in Quebec. This could loom large in the French Language debate tonight, and make waves elsewhere in the country. 

Canada’s 2011 election bubble

Mr. Harper, your best chance to win Tuesday’s debate and win a majority is to break out of this strange election and connect with the outside world—that’s what’s got our attention. We a not irredeemably bored with you, or your opponents. Forcing this election was bold and real news; holding each other in contempt finally seemed to mean something. Nevertheless, there is too much drama going on in the real world right now for us to cocoon with you, Michael Ignatieff and Jack Layton’s.

We do worry about our kids--and the future--and accept that most politicians do too.  Actually, it’s tiring to hear that all three of you want us to be a little happier, more affluent, safer and better able to provide for our kids,  the ill and our retirement. We can’t imagine anyone of you ever, in your long fortunate lives, wished any less for us.

However, it’s hard to get worked up about which one of you would make the best care-giver. None of you has identified any new money to make a real difference in our lives. Anyway, the provinces run health, education and other vital social services and the biggest ones will be having their own elections shortly. (If your opponents truly want to be “health” or “education” prime ministers they’d be after Dalton McGuinty’s job this October.)

These are not frustrating but alarming times in the real world.

Running alongside our election, an extraordinary drama is unfolding in the United States—the destination of 75 % of our exports and source of millions of Canadian jobs. While the three of you were laying out multi-year election platforms offering better times and no sacrifice, last Friday the US government nearly shut-down. The US was about an hour away from laying off another 800,000 jobs and jamming up the operating machinery of the biggest economy in the world.

It would be tempting for the three of you to crow about the relative maturity of our Parliamentary system. However, that’s not the end of the story.

While you’re in the home stretch of another election, the US Congress will be debating (bribing and blackmailing) whether to increase the statutory ceiling on US federal government borrowing—or precipitate a global financial crisis and another US recession. Furthermore, there is no reliable way to clear the air: neither party nor the President has a mandate to act decisively to protect America’s credit rating, implement a US federal budget for next year or make the tax and spending changes necessary to restore long-term fiscal balance.

(It’s not clear whether your case for a majority government is gaining momentum. Many students of comparative government tell us that minority government and “informal or appropriate” coalitions are more sophisticated. As a suspected continentalist, Mr. Harper, you should be consoled by the idea that Americans would probably like nothing better right now than a working majority in Washington.)

Instead of just debating paper promises and how to behave in Parliament, let’s spend a little more time thinking about how one of you will be leading after May 2nd.  One of you will be facing a series of problems well outside the scripts of this election.

The desperate search for an election issue in Canada

In a world of political distemper, Canadians find themselves in a strange and wonderfully unique position – being in the midst of a national election without a single big national issue. Everyone is trying. (“Rich corporations” and “majority government” are raised in every speech.) Yet, so far, nothing beats the wide-eyed news coverage of “scandal-ettes” and inside gossip. Big challenges make it into speeches. But none of the party platforms threaten to resolve any of them.

This weekend—on the eve of next Tuesday’s leader’s national debate—thoughtful Canadians who can’t garden yet or even those who work in campaign war rooms will feel under terrible pressure to find something important to argue about—a proposition on which ‘good’ people can strongly disagree and on which they can say “yes” or “no.”  

Corporate tax cuts could grow as an issue if the Liberals want to take on the inequities of capitalism rather than just empathize with the middle class. However, only western Canadians have ever elected (and re-elected) economic populist governments. And, today, the west is booming and enthusiastic about attracting foreign investment.

Harper’s call for a majority government has been framed as the safest way to keep the others out of power. It could take off as an issue if he discussed how a majority could be used positively. But many parts of the country may not want what it could produce—such as a re-organized House of Commons with seats strictly allocated according to where Canadians now live, or, unemployment insurance strictly defined by national labor market conditions.

The prospect of another trivial election determined by innuendo and advertising is embarrassing. However, looking too hard for that big issue could do more harm than good. The most menacing cry out there today is “let’s have an adult national debate about Canada’s health care crisis.” And, of course, every poll puts health at or near the top of people’s concerns.

This week, a well regarded retiring parliamentarian Dr. Keith Martin and the C. D. Howe Institute, with the help of retired Governor of the Bank of Canada David Dodge provoked fresh calls for “national” leadership on affordable, timely health care. As you’d expect, the retiring politician explicitly provoked the clamor.

“Our health-care system must be overhauled in order to fulfill its ultimate objective, which is to ensure that all Canadians, regardless of income, will have timely access to the quality care they need when they fall ill. During this election, political parties must not be allowed to hide from this, our citizens’ most urgent concern. Lives depend on it.”

Click on: http://opinion.financialpost.com/2011/04/06/we-need-two-tiered-medicine/

Let’s hope other politicians don’t bite.

The facts on the ground—not just wise federalist theory—suggest that Ottawa is the last healthy place to look for leadership on the efficient delivery of health care. Federal leadership, beyond the “power to convene” meetings as Michael Ignatieff describes it, is fueled almost entirely by “aspirational” targets and tens of $billions in transfers to the provinces.

There may be better ways to transfer the money, leaving greater flexibility to the provinces or greater say to their taxpayers. Amending the guidelines of the Canada Health Act may be necessary. However, going any further at a federal level would only cloud the issues and slow effective change.

The national government has all sorts of interesting responsibilities to impress us on. Healthcare, however, is emphatically a provincial problem that must be addressed by steady, gutsy provincial leadership. The province’s own most of Canada’s public healthcare system and raise almost 80 % of the taxes that pay to operate it. They should be encouraged to shift any of their responsibilities.

Premiers will win office or be thrown out on how they manage this issue. It isn’t an issue that should make or break prime ministers.