My latest Calgary Herald column looks at the moribund election campaign and puts the blame squarely on a lack of political courage on the part of the parties and party leaders:
It’s been noted many times that this election seems remarkably devoid of substance. I’d hardly be the first to wonder why so much of what’s passed for debate and discussion on the campaign trail has seemed trivial at best.
It’s easy enough to notice the shallowness of the various political parties, but what seems less fully explored is the reason why there is such an unwillingness to take tough – even controversial - positions on important issues.
However, the explanation may be as simple and straightforward as the observation itself: Canada is suffering from a severe dearth of political courage.
It might be tempting to blame ourselves for this. After all, the politicians who seem to have shunned political courage are after our votes; were Canadians demanding courageous politicians no doubt we’d see them in abundance. Mind you, Canadians haven’t really had the chance to reject courageous politicians, so cause for optimism remains.
It may also be the nature of the beast itself. We’ve got poll-driven election campaigns with politicians so fearful of anything perceived to be a gaffe that it’s become safer to say very little of substance. Much of that is media-driven; campaign coverage often seems pre-occupied with poll-watching and gaffe-hunting rather than exploring the substance of whatever ideas are proposed by candidates or parties.
We saw that in how the Liberals handled some controversial remarks from their candidate in the Alberta riding of Wild Rose. In fact, the Liberals seem to lead all others when it comes to political cowardice.
Take the whole area of law-and-order. There is much wrong with the Conservative approach, and the Liberals on occasion have pointed this out. They have also shown a remarkable tendency for going along with each crime bill the government brings forward.
The Liberals have made much political hay of the enormous costs that might be entailed though the Conservative law-and-order agenda. However, the Liberals have indicated they will not undo any of the Tories’ crime bills. In other words, the costs they are criticizing are costs they are prepared to swallow themselves – all because they lack to political courage to take a stand.
We see the same cowardice when it comes to the GST. Not that I’m clamouring for a restoration of the GST cuts, but there’s a solid case to be made that it was the wrong tax to cut.
The Liberals have certainly made that case, arguing that the GST cut deprived the government of needed revenue and contributed to the large deficit we now face. There’s a pretty straight downward line to be drawn when it comes to GST revenue.
I realize that in the midst of an election campaign, promising to raise the GST might not seem like brilliant political strategy.
However, if you’re going to criticize the government for cutting the GST then you’d damn well better have the courage to explain why the GST ought to be put back to where it was.
The Conservatives for their part have also shown a disappointing lack of political courage.
In recent days, for example, the issue of federal health transfers has come up on the campaign trail.
After the Liberals proposed an apparently endless six per cent annual escalation in annual health transfers, the Conservatives – rather than point out how reckless and unsustainable the Liberal promise was – simply promised the same thing.
As the chief economist for the Canadian Federation of Independent Business pointed out, a six percent annual increase in health transfers is one-point-five per cent faster than future GDP growth. In other words, we face a major crunch relatively quickly.
The parties’ health promises come just as a new paper was released by the C.D. Howe institute, co-authored by former Bank of Canada governor David Dodge.
The report warns that without major changes, our system is unsustainable, and that we need to have an “adult discussion” about what the report calls a “chronic health-care spending disease”.
One would like to think that Canadians are up for some “adult discussions” about a whole range of important issues. However, because are politicians lack the courage to start such a discussion, we’ll never know for sure.
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