Category: New

At the recent Liberal thinkers’ gathering in Montreal there seemed to be no concern for the political realities. It was a surreal event in that, while purporting to be an examination of Canada’s future, it ignored the political needs of our country.

And yet, if we had learned anything over the last four years of minority government, it is that we have to restore more than just the economy. We must restore the confidence Canadians should have in their government and in their country.

First of all and most serious, we need to change the relationship between citizens and their government. It starts with each electoral district. It starts with how we run our political parties. It is recognizing that the party headquarters in Ottawa and regional offices cannot run the party. These offices must function at the service of the party. It is in understanding that the party leader is not the chief executive. The party leader leads the parliamentary caucus. The members of that caucus must be chosen and elected solely by their electoral districts. The practice over the past years of having the party leader authorize each candidate is destroying Canada’s political parties.

In these days of immediate and unfettered communication, a top-down political structure feeds itself failure. With policies and people flowing from the ridings to the party caucus, a party is supplied with constant renewal of ideas and leadership.

The most serious failing in recent years is the lack of understanding that once elected, a Member of Parliament is required to represent all the voters in the electoral district, not just those who voted for him or her. You cannot do that if you are always sending material to the news media and sending mailings to voters that are nothing but unfettered smears of your election opponents. Canadians have got to return to civility in the process of government.

A government has to serve the needs of the citizens, not just promote an ideology. Government is not a choice between left wing or right wing but the choice of people who reflect the needs and wants of their constituents.

The voters also have to recognize that there is more to politics than party leaders. The local Member of Parliament matters. The voters cannot send the village idiot to Ottawa just because that person supports the leader who makes the biggest promises. This destroys the very essence of what the parliament should be.

Parliament is a place for debate. It is a place where needs and wants of the voters can be brought forward and discussed. It is where matters of confidence in the day’s government may be debated and voted. Parliament is not a whim of the prime minister. It is a place where the prime minister can be brought to heel. It is a place where prime ministers can be defeated. There is no divine right of prime ministers to shut down parliament.

Certainly, in the fullness of time, we must change how we are governed. Canada has reached the stage where we can no longer have an unelected head of state. The British monarchy has served us well but needs to be left to antiquity while we devolve into the twenty-first century. Canada has to either abolish or elect its senate but before we elect it, we have to define its role.

Canada needs a constitutional assembly to redefine a modern country. We must decide: what is this country called Canada? The purpose is not to appease the disgruntled but to discuss equally, with all our partners, this wonderful land we share. There is no line down the Ottawa River that separates Canada. It only divides provincial jurisdictions in an inseparable country. We Canadians share a proud past and an unlimited future.

In the process of renewal, we Canadians need to reclaim the promise of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We must stop further abuse of our rights through the ‘notwithstanding’ clause. It is being used indiscriminately by lazy legislators.

In the same vein we must loudly and clearly restate the rights of men and women to their individual rights. Women must have full and unequivocal rights to control of their own bodies and their reproductive rights. We have a responsibility to ensure that all pensioners live without fear of poverty and the debasing of their standard of living. And once we have done that for pensioners, we have to turn our attention to the essential concern for a guaranteed annual income for every Canadian citizen. Only when we have taken that step will we know we are starting to achieve the promise of the land in which we live.

– 30 –

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

Helena Guergis, the former tory, former cabinet minister and soon former Member of Parliament, broke the cardinal rule of Canadian politics: Thou shalt not get caught. That might sound a bit arcane but it appears to be the only rule that matters in a parliament without principles.

It was about 45 years ago that the ink-stained fingers of Toronto Star cartoonist Duncan Macpherson produced the classic cartoon comment on political skulduggery: it was a charming rendition of then Prime Minister Mike Pearson playing the piano in a saloon while a keystone-cops gaggle of mounties raided the place. The caption was something about Mr. Pearson just being the piano player and not knowing what was going on upstairs. The cartoon was stimulated by a German immigrant who might or might not have been bedding certain cabinet members and quasi diplomats. It led to Canadian political parties choosing piano players as leaders ever since.

The poorest piano player was the Liberal’s Paul Martin. How he let himself get tarred by the fallout from Jean Chrétien’s sponsorship scandal never did make sense. Maybe he realized that he would be in worse trouble if he dumped on his predecessor. The one thing you do not do in today’s politics is try to stay above the mud-slinging and let the problem fester.

Mind you, it is not clear yet whether Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff can even play the piano. You could never sell tickets to a classical piano recital by Conservative Stephen Harper but he does do a reasonable honky-tonk. You expect that the Bloc’s Gilles Duceppe can fake it at the keyboard, like he does everything else. The NDP’s Jack Layton would demur as his Toronto Musician’s union card has probably lapsed.

Obviously the parties should have a requirement of a certain level of skill with the piano. If it can be a standard requirement for kindergarten teachers, why not make it a requirement for political leaders. Mind you, on that basis, Mitchell Sharp would have defeated Pierre Trudeau for the leadership of the Liberals in 1968. Sharp was by far the better piano player.

But, we digress. We were talking about the lack of principles in Canadian politics. After an impassioned speech to a group of political people the other evening about this lack of principles, I realized that if I was going to put my money were my mouth is about this issue, I am going to have to be more political and build my case. If you are going to build a case for reform, you also have to have a constituency. That also needs to be built. Which means: I need to make nice with people.

First of all I need to make nice with more citizens of Babel. That means simply: stop making fun of Babel. That is doable, with the proviso that I can still make fun of the mayor. After all, he is really funny.

It means I have to become a joiner. The rule is, you can never change things from outside. That means I need to join the Ontario Liberal Party and stop dissing Dalton McGinty. What I can do is pretend that old friends such as Gerry Phillips and Jimmy Bradley, who are still in the Ontario cabinet, are really running the Ontario government and I can support them because they are capable politicians with a deep respect for Ontario voters.

The new me and Sancho can then gird for battle with the windmills and windbags of politics to reform the degrading system of elitist governance we have been enduring in Canada since Confederation.

More to come in The Democracy Papers: Part II.

– 30 –

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]