Redefining Government

Those of us who followed closely the dark years of the Harper regime are well-aware of its ethos: government is an impediment and an intrusive force, foisting itself upon people who would be far better off left alone. The tax-cut policies of the regime, along with the creation of TFSAs, the underfunding of programs, the gutting of environmental regulation and oversight, etc. were all ample testaments to that philosophy.

The thick carapace of my cynicism led me to fear that far too many of my fellow citizens had accepted the message of the primacy of the individual over the collective. While a humbling experience, I am so glad that I was so wrong, a fact amply attested to by the results of our recent election.

Hope and goodness are alive and well.

In a recent column, Toronto Star publisher John Cruickshank makes some very interesting observations about what led Justin Trudeau's Liberals to such a definitive victory, and the word 'good' figures prominently in his assessment. He observes that the word was used during the campaign by both Harper and Mulcair as being synonymous with 'skilled', as in 'good leadership.' Trudeau, however, used it differently:

...when he used “good” as in “good government,” Trudeau often wasn’t speaking merely of skilfulness or efficiency.

He meant morally good. Virtuous. Right.

It was a little shocking to hear. It echoed the language of an earlier generation before the relentless Conservative assault on the size, scope and nature of democratic government impoverished our speech and slackened our hopes.

The kind of fatalism implicit in the Harper message, that we are controlled by global forces and markets that compel us to be either lean and mean or 'die', was challenged by Trudeau:

Trudeau called out both this fatalism and the pessimism about voters that underlay the Conservatives’ personal attacks and their scaremongering against new Canadians.

His promise to run a modest budget deficit for three years to restore public works and put more Canadians to work was above all a pledge to think differently and more confidently. Challenging current ideology, he said we could alter our circumstances.

Second, he insisted that inequality of wealth and opportunity was a moral problem as well as a technical one. The promise to raise taxes on the rich and reduce those on the middle class gave testament to his seriousness.

Raising taxes and running deficits have been considered political third rails. Despite the risks, Trudeau grabbed on hard.

Canadians responded by strongly endorsing a philosophy that says government can once more be a force for good, a notion constantly challenged and undermined by the neoliberal agenda:

And it was this enthusiasm for “good government” that decided the election.

It was a vote for a return of moral passion and a sense of purpose when we address our economy, our environment, the newcomers to our nation and our Aboriginal Peoples.

This kind of political talk was once much more common in Canada. Perhaps it will again be possible after this very broad and deep victory to engage Canadians in pursuing what another Liberal prime minister called the Just Society.

The message to all Canadians is that they are not alone in their struggles, surely one that can bring some solace to many. Let us now hope that message will find full expression in policies implemented with vigour and deep conviction.

Why So Much Ignorance In This Age Of Technology?

I have always thought it ironic that in this age of interconnectedness, when we have almost unlimited sources of information at our disposal, so many of us are abysmally ignorant of the things that should matter. The level of civic disengagement in North America, for example, has facilitated the devolution of so many of our democratic institutions into mere channels of undue influence for the minority, ensuring that the needs of the many are subjugated to the wants of the few. Inaction on climate change, the ongoing degradation of ecosystems, the ever-widening disparity of incomes and the erosion of social programs are but the more egregious examples of this decline.

John Cruickshank, the publisher of the Toronto Star, attributes this phenomenon to 'distraction.' In his paper, he writes about a recent Toronto Ted Talk (not yet available on the Ted site) in which he examined the problem through the lens of young people who, both in Canada and the United States, have a voter participation rate of about 40%. However, he points out that the lack of voter participation is merely the most obvious manifestation of the level of engagement:

Voting’s just the marker. More critical are civic interests, habits and knowledge: The debates in the lunchroom about taxes and spending or public meetings over a new airport or a mega-quarry. The less visible indicators of democracy’s vitality.

It’s no coincidence youth voting is so similar in the U.S. and Canada. It’s not a question of national culture. And don’t blame “the kids today.” It’s a decades-long shift. It spans generations and geography.

And it appears to be driven by the devices and content that now dominate and consume our waking lives — our smartphones and tablets, our laptops and PCs and, at least for a little while longer, our TV screens.

All of these devices, while potentially quite useful, also have a tremendous power to distract. How many times, for example, will you be at the computer when the email signal rings and you switch immediately to it? Or how about a link or a popup in an article that takes you far away from your intended purpose? (I'll just take a minute to watch that footage of George Clooney going to his Venice wedding. Oh yeah, now what was I just doing?)

All of which is to say that news has a far more tenuous grip on us than in days of yore. For Cruickshank, it becomes a simple equation:

No news habit. No engagement.

Those who have learned to pursue the news become politically active.

The drift away from substance actually began, he says, with the proliferation of cable channels that, for the less-than-committed consumer of news, offered a welcome alternative. Much Music, MTV, etc. had an allure that the nightly news didn't.

As soon as alternatives emerged, more and more younger people failed to learn news skills and habits.

They were looking for distraction, not information about the world.

But even if this population only reluctantly followed the news, their political behaviour was just like that of the most committed news junkies. They voted: 80 per cent of eligible voters went to the polls in the Canadian federal election of 1958 — the year the CBC television signal first went coast to coast.

Canadian citizens aged 65 and older were still voting at the 80-per-cent level in the federal election of 2011. But the participation rate of each successive age group Boomers, X’ers and Millennials were lower by a greater and greater margin.

Mirroring their increasing failure to develop news skills.

Cruickshank has some specific suggestions on how to reverse this terrible trend, which I will leave you to discover by reading his article.

You may also find these two brief videos about his Ted Talk of interest:

We Are All To Blame

Here is a letter from today's Star that puts responsibility for the proliferating problem of deceitful, inept, corrupt and demagogic political leaders where it belongs: on all of our shoulders:

Re: How to cover a deceiver without airing mistruth? Opinion Nov. 6

Publisher John Cruickshank’s wonderful piece addresses what should be a deep concern in our society: the prevalent and amoral use of “spin.” In the 1960s, when I was being raised in Toronto, we called “spin” what it was: a lie.

The temerity of many people in our society, most notably those with whom we should have the greatest trust — politicians and political parties — lie on a regular basis. While there are some individuals (in what should be a noble profession) who avoid spin aka lies, it has become all to common to lie as a means to an end. We have witnessed this in spades over the past six month, both in Ottawa and in Toronto.

Mr. Cruickshank makes an excellent point. By printing the spin, aka lies, the press is enabling this disgusting behaviour. He is absolutely correct in stating that quotes from people-who-lie become, de facto, truth.

These lies have become so much a part of our culture that some people accept behaviour such as that of Mr. Ford and Mr. Harper as “acceptable,” dismissing the lies under the umbrella of “everyone makes mistakes” or “he is saving me tax dollars.” How anti-social and self-serving.

While many politicians have lost their moral compass, so has our society. We, as members of civilized society, are complicit in allowing them to get away with spin aka lies.

It is time for us to take back our compass. For a start, let us call these people what they are: liars. Let’s not allow them to get away with it. Like bullies, spin-people cannot stand the light of day. They prefer to crawl around under rocks, in the slime and in the dark.

David Bourque, Scarborough