Category Archives: Our (Ig)Noble Overlords

Governments big and small, domestic and foreign.

It has to get better

Bullying sucks.  In all shapes and forms.  There’s no need for it.  There’s no excuse for it.  Some might argue that you’ll find stronger animals preying on weaker ones throughout the wilderness.  But in human beings, bullies are inevitably those who have no true strength compensating for their insecurities by attacking the ones who are different – who are special.  It’s the weak lashing out at the vulnerabilities of the stronger in spirit.  Or to paraphrase Gore Vidal, it’s not that it’s enough to win; everyone else has to lose.  Schadenfreude gone wild.

You can tell by what’s been released about him since his suicide that Jamie Hubley was a special kid.  What’s burned most in my memory is the photograph of him in a dress shirt and bowtie with his father’s arm draped over his shoulder, both beaming with pride.  You can see the love there.  It could be a picture of any father and son.  What’s particularly sad about Jamie’s loss is that he was not someone who was passively taking his bullying, he was trying to make things get better.  He had tried to set up a gay-straight alliance at his school only to see his posters torn down by ignorant half-wits.

In the aftermath of Jamie’s suicide and the subsequent media coverage, a group of Conservative MP’s and senators released an “It Gets Better” video.  A lot of criticism and discussion resulted, questioning both the sincerity of the statements and the cheapness of the production, given that some of this party’s MP’s have gone on record with some pretty ugly homophobic remarks in the past, and that they would have likely spared no expense if this had been an ad attacking the Leader of the Opposition.  I suppose they could have done nothing at all.  But it is a bit rich to see a party who have made it a habit of governing by bullying now claiming that bullying is wrong and trying to tell kids that it really does get better – unless you’re elected to the House of Commons.

No one is born with hatred inside.  Like one’s ABC’s, it is taught – impressed upon innocent, unknowing children by parents or institutions who are sadistically cognizant that the only way to spread the flame of prejudice is to nourish it with a constant diet of fear.  “Those people aren’t like you.”  “They’re the ones responsible for everything that’s wrong in your life.”  “It’s your duty to attack them, to bring them down.”

Leadership starts by example and it is a responsibility vested in all of us.  What example are children to take when the next kid tries to start a gay-straight alliance in his school, and adults try to squelch such organizations on the justification that “we don’t have Nazi groups either,” as was the case with a prominent Catholic District School Board chair earlier this year?  Equating a club of teenagers trying to promote tolerance and understanding with the most genocidal regime of the 20th Century, no matter how “off the cuff” the remark, only reinforces and helps to spread attitudes that should have died in Hitler’s bunker.  Every ignorant remark by a grown-up creates another bully somewhere.

How do we stop it?  Sadly, it’s too late for Jamie Hubley, but the rest of us have to start trying a hell of a lot harder.  The answer is in, as my father once told me, finding the courage to break the bully’s nose.  It’s in the kid who sees the smaller kid being picked on and decides to step in instead of hurrying past, hoping not to be noticed.  It’s in the refusal of the silent ones to stay silent; it’s in their resolve to stand up for the victims instead.  It’s in not pretending that it will just go away.  It’s in not letting the bully win, ever – whether in the schoolyard, at the office or in the government.  It’s calling them out.  It’s shouting “I’m here, I’m special, and you can shove your taunts and your lies up your lily-livered ass.”

It gets better when we make it better.  Let’s make it better.

Ontario Election 2011: What Kind of Day Has it Been?

This is my final post for the Toronto Star’s Speak Your Mind, as published on their website this morning and reprinted here by their kind permission.  Please ignore the shameless self-promotion in the final paragraph as it was meant for non-regular readers of this blog.

In the City of Burlington, the more things stay the same, the more they stay the same.

In a result that surprised only the politically naïve, Conservative Jane McKenna maintained the PC’s 70-year hold on the riding by a few thousand votes over her closest opponent, Liberal Karmel Sakran.  The NDP’s Peggy Russell was a distant third, although she improved the NDP’s vote totals from 2007.  None of the other party candidates made a dent.  In the end, the status quo reigns.

A couple of lessons to take from this result – primarily, that the Blue Machine in Burlington remains formidable in its city-wide presence and get-out-the-vote efforts, and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future.  Despite the troubled and controversial candidate nomination process Team Blue underwent in the pre-writ, this riding boasts a solid bloc of Conservative voters who will remain loyal no matter whose name is on the ballot.  It is noteworthy to mention that what distinguishes Burlington from next-door neighbour Oakville, where Liberal Kevin Flynn was re-elected to his third term, is that most unlike Oakville, Burlington boasts a fairly large rural community.  Province-wide, the Tories cleaned up in the rural ridings.  Many rural voters are upset with Liberal policies like the Greenbelt, a swath of which dominates Burlington’s north, and a general feeling, justified or not, that their concerns are passed over in favour of the urban areas.  Those voters tend to be get-government-out-of-the-way conservatives and they always make it to the polls in large numbers.

And yet, the combined total of Liberal and NDP votes exceeded McKenna’s numbers by a considerable margin, suggesting conservatives are outnumbered in Burlington by a majority of generally progressive voters who could finally tip the balance if a single progressive candidate could rally their support.  Burlington’s council leans progressive and its mayor once ran federally for the Green Party, so it’s a misconception to assume that the city’s political leanings are as far to the right as say, somewhere in Alberta.  Despite the apparent Conservative lock, the riding remains poachable.

One of the things that the federal Conservatives are regularly pilloried for is to have their nominees or failed candidates acting as “shadow MP’s” in their ridings, establishing a community presence and visibility with an eye to the next electoral cycle.  More often than not, it pays off – witness their gains in the GTA on May 2nd – and there is no reason why the Liberals or NDP couldn’t do that in Burlington either.  Find a face and get out there at local events and rallies starting tomorrow – not to undermine the MPP, but to humanize an alternative, and to try and suck some oxygen out of the traditional charges levelled too often without response against Liberals and New Democrats.

That’s tomorrow’s challenge, anyway.  Right now we offer congratulations to Jane McKenna as she takes her seat in the Legislature and hope that Dalton McGuinty’s foray as the leader of a minority government is more productive than Stephen Harper’s – that McGuinty’s focus will be on governing, not playing political games and seizing every opportunity to make the opposition look bad.  McGuinty can solidify himself as a true statesman by making this minority work and proving that Ontario was smart in trusting him with a third mandate, that the unpopular choices he made were the right ones.  Who knows – if he is successful in shepherding Ontario back to economic prosperity, there might be another job opening up in 2013 he’d become the odds-on favourite for – one that is currently held by another Premier of Ontario.

I’d like to thank the Toronto Star and Speak Your Mind for the wonderful opportunity to share my thoughts about my hometown and this election with you.  I’ll be continuing to blog at www.grahamscrackers.wordpress.com if you’ve enjoyed what you’ve read here and would like to see more.  Or you can follow me on Twitter at @thegrahammilne.  In closing I’d just like to remind everyone that our democracy is one of the most precious possessions we have, one that is envied the world over and is yet the most fragile of gifts.  We have been entrusted with this flame and we are morally bound to keep it bright.  Because the road back to the worst of dictatorship and despotism begins when good people choose to stay home and close their eyes.

Keep them open.

Ontario Election 2011: Endgame on Brant Street

As published on the Speak Your Mind section of the Toronto Star’s website today and reprinted by their kind permission.

Six weeks.  Six weeks of hand-shaking, baby-kissing, promise-making, mud-slinging and it’s all down to this.  By nine tonight it will all be over and the work of digging Ontario out of its troubles will resume.  Democracy at its finest.

If you believe the polls, and who doesn’t on occasion, Dalton McGuinty and the Liberals are on the cusp of staging a political comeback almost unheard of in Canadian history.  Who would have imagined in the dog days of August when the McGuinty crew was 20 points down, that reporters would be predicting a third consecutive Liberal majority in Ontario?  For Liberals like myself, still smarting from the federal pasting we took on May 2nd, it may well represent a turning of the red tide – and a welcome reminder that we are still part of the conversation, that we haven’t had the fight beaten out of us yet.  But we’ll wait and see where things are by the end of the night before Team Red pops the champagne corks.

The question remains as to how Burlington will fare when the last votes are tallied.  The massive Forum Research poll conducted a week ago had Conservative Jane McKenna leading Liberal Karmel Sakran by nine points.  As I mentioned in my first post, Burlington has a long tradition of voting blue, sending a Conservative to Queen’s Park in every election since 1943.  Will the tradition continue?

McKenna has hit most of the key issues, promising to fund the expansion of Joseph Brant Memorial Hospital and pledging to keep the proposed Mid-Peninsula Highway – which could potentially cut an asphalt swath through the fragile Niagara Escarpment – out of Burlington entirely.  But some of the other promises made by her boss haven’t sat especially well here.  A small Burlington-based green-energy business held a protest on Monday morning against Tim Hudak’s plan to repeal the Green Energy Act, saying it would destroy emerging jobs in this growing sector.  And local municipal politicians are raising concerns over the potential resumption of downloading in service costs that took place under Mike Harris, warning that tremendous property tax hikes could result.

Karmel Sakran and the NDP’s Peggy Russell appear to have both run strong campaigns.  But as it did six weeks ago, the race remains Jane McKenna’s to lose.  The Conservative ethos is so entrenched in the voting population of Burlington it will take a tremendous surge in support for one of the other major party candidates to pry this riding out of their hands after almost 70 years.  Still, it’s noteworthy that Tim Hudak has made several visits to Burlington and chose to stop here on the final night of the campaign to shore up support – as if his internal polling is telling him something else.  We won’t know until tomorrow night if history will repeat itself, or offer up a big surprise.

Joseph Brant himself once said, “We are tired out in making complaints and getting no redress.”  It is crucial that whoever is fated to be Burlington’s next MPP hits the ground running as a committed advocate for our community.  We have seen too many of our representatives acting as invisible seat-fillers, and this great city deserves so much more.  It deserves a champion.  Someone who knows Burlington’s soul and can channel the spirit of its people – cheering the Teen Tour Band during Sound of Music and inhaling barbecue at Ribfest.  Perhaps those expectations are a little lofty for something as ostensibly pedestrian as a provincial election, but if you are selecting an advocate for 175,799 of your neighbours, there’s nothing wrong in aiming as high as you can.  The greater crime is to settle for less.

See you at the polling station, friends.

Ontario Election 2011: Waiting for Bartlet

Photograph by: Mark Blinch, REUTERS

As published on the Speak Your Mind section of the Toronto Star this morning and reprinted by their kind permission as always.

If you’re a political junkie, watching The West Wing spoils you.

Listening to imaginary politicians like Martin Sheen’s President Jed Bartlet lacerate their opponents with the inspired, honey-tongued erudition that is the trademark of writer Aaron Sorkin creates an expectation that real life should function the same way.  That our leaders should be able to articulate their arguments so clearly and incisively, that contrarians can do nothing but wither at the mere sound of the words.

Tuning into an Ontario election debate disabuses one of that notion.

I wasn’t able to attend the Burlington debate this week.  The organizers apparently did not count on much, if any public attendance, given their decision to schedule it during the Tuesday morning commute.  One of the highlights, it seems, was Conservative candidate Jane McKenna warning that Ontario’s economy risks going the way of Greece should the Liberals be re-elected.  The cradle of Western civilization, the birthplace of democracy and souvlaki, held up as the paradigm of governmental failure – by candidates seeking government office through democratic election.  One could write several college English papers on the levels of irony at work here.  What is less ironic is that McKenna probably didn’t come up with that insightful analogy on her own; it was likely scripted, shaped and poll-tested at Hudak Headquarters before being rolled out for Burlington’s ears on Tuesday morning.

A few thousand years before Greece’s economy collapsed, its scholars were shaping the fabric of democracy itself through their dialogues and discussions.  Our best literature is that which raises new ideas and examines them from all sides; thesis challenged with antithesis to generate a new conclusion.  We haven’t seen that in a political debate in ages.  Nowadays, debates are more like joint press conferences where each candidate recites his or her pre-approved script by rote and hopes not to stumble over the words they didn’t write themselves.  The one debate I was able to attend a few weeks ago, for a different riding, featured five candidates who barely acknowledged each other’s presence, let alone interacted or challenged each other to defend their ideas.  No minds were opened that evening, no fence-sitters swayed or opponents converted.  Deliver talking point, lather, rinse, repeat, snooze.

Indeed, the bar has been set so low that all a candidate need do is not knock over their podium to be judged as having given a solid performance.  It was amazing to witness the struggle with which columnists and bloggers attempted to ascribe victory to any of the contenders in Tuesday night’s leader’s debate.  Tim Hudak saying to Dalton McGuinty that “no one believes you anymore” was apparently a signature moment.  Andrea Horwath’s tale about her son being sent away from an ER with a bone fracture was another “winner.”  And the Premier garnered more ink for his animated hand gestures than for anything he actually said.

Seasoned political reporters disdain the idea of the “knockout punch,” like Brian Mulroney’s “You had an option, sir,” or Jack Layton’s “If Canadians don’t show up to work, they don’t get a promotion.”  They think it’s less important than staying on message, sticking to your platform, getting the facts out.  They’re probably right.  But the unabashed theatricality of moments like that is what makes voters not just choose a candidate, but fall in love with them.  It’s one thing to have a great platform and a solid message.  But we want to see someone alive on that stage, a true character – not a marionette who has to calculate all the potential political blowback of each word before he speaks it.

Today there is too much fear of fallout to risk letting the human being shine through – too much central control of the campaign, lest news cycles be lost to apologies, denials and explanations for rogue nominees going off-message.  The very process that selects candidates tends to weed out the most colorful, and only the blandest and safest survive the slings and arrows to make it to that podium.  Those that do rely on the same tactics – the tales of struggling souls encountered along the campaign trail whose concerns oddly happen to dovetail with the key planks of the party’s platform, the countless mentions of family, the interruptions, the use of “taxes” as a profanity.  You know what they’re going to say before they say it.  What I felt was Tim Hudak’s most clever line of the night, about rearranging his daughter’s alphabet magnets randomly to form the initials of every unnecessary Ontario government agency, was a little less fresh given that PC candidate Ted Chudleigh used the same line in the Halton debate a few weeks prior.  Or that Republicans were laying the exact same charge against the New Deal policies of President Franklin Roosevelt in the 1940’s.

Debates are a cornerstone of the democratic process.  That we only have one leader’s debate in an election cycle is preposterous.  We need more.  And just once it would be great if the debaters threw away the script.  If we junked those stilted “questions from average Canadians” and let the politicians have at it in a real sparring match of intellectual prowess, one that allowed us to distinguish clearly between which ideology we feel is best to guide us into the next decade.  To make our choice not for just the best policies, but for the best person; not a manager, but a visionary.

That’s how The West Wing got Jed Bartlet.  That’s how you pick a leader.

Ontario Election 2011: Lies, damn lies and statistics

As printed on the Speak Your Mind section of the Toronto Star’s website this morning and reprinted by their kind permission.

The redoubtable Homer Simpson put it best: “You can use statistics to prove anything.  Fourfty percent of all people know that.”

Three weeks into the provincial election and it’s all about the polls. Tim Hudak was up, then it was Dalton McGuinty, then Hudak again, now more or less a statistical tie with Andrea Horwath and the NDP biting at both parties’ heels. Pollsters are even attacking each other over accusations of fudging results to fit editorial opinion. Because there doesn’t seem to be much of a story otherwise.

The degree to which polls have come to drive our national narrative is disappointing but not surprising. Governing is not sexy, so instead the media prints the tale of the tape – columnists fill their required inches analyzing and debating how each mistimed message or on-camera gaffe might shave a few tenths of a percentage point off the support of a random sample of less than a thousand people, plus or minus three or four nineteen times out of twenty. Levels of relative political strength are gauged like box scores and each small aberration is a front page headline. When we start talking about our government in sports metaphors, when it’s no longer about who we are as Canadians or where we’re going as a country, it becomes all about our guys beating your guys. No one is emotionally invested in anything beyond the win. Small wonder then when, consequently, political discourse devolves into hooliganism and necktie-wearing adversaries trash-talking each other like louts in nacho cheese-stained jerseys soaked on their fifth Labatt’s Blue late in the third period. Even the Prime Minister talks about achieving a Conservative “hat trick” if Tim Hudak becomes Premier.

Except in the case of this election, it’s not even like watching the Leafs battle the Canadiens. It’s more like a cricket test match between Argentina and Cameroon.

Drive down New Street in Burlington and you’d barely know an election was happening. A handful of signs each for Karmel Sakran and Jane McKenna, on the lawns of the same diehards who brandish them in every election. Maybe one or two signs for Peggy Russell, but they’re as elusive as four-leaf clovers. “Conservative Corner,” otherwise known as Appleby & Fairview, is lined with blue McKenna placards, just as it was for Conservative MP Mike Wallace in the federal contest back in May. But that’s about it.

We’ve become disengaged because we’ve lost touch with what government is supposed to be – a group of committed citizens working to better the lives of their fellows who have entrusted them with the mantle of leadership. We’ve come to think of government in terms only of the race, of the never-ending popularity contest where every minor shift in the prevailing winds moves forests worth of newsprint. Government has been reduced to a matter of numbers; our “leaders,” glorified bean-counters who usually can’t even count. Who governs us is apparently as of little consequence to the grand scheme as last week’s Jays game. If Tim Hudak becomes Premier it won’t be because he has articulated a compelling vision for the future of Ontario, it will simply be because more of his fans made it to the ballot box on October 6th than did Dalton McGuinty’s.

After your team loses, you curse the ref, shrug your shoulders, sleep off the Blue and forget about it within a few hours. Your government will be with you for the next four years, making crucial decisions that will impact your life beyond that four-year mandate. We owe it to ourselves to ensure that government is more than just a series of tax reforms and malaise about how we can’t really do anything because we won’t even try.

And 100% of the people should know that.

Ontario Election 2011: The dance of the angry grandpa

As published this morning on the Speak Your Mind section of the Toronto Star website and reprinted by their kind permission.

There’s an old saying that a week is a lifetime in politics.  Seven days in a campaign can change everything.

At the start of this campaign a week ago, fortune was smiling on Tim Hudak and the Conservatives.  Rob Ford was in charge in Toronto; Stephen Harper had his majority in Ottawa.  Bad press, an unpopular tax and general voter ennui were threatening to end Dalton McGuinty’s tenure as Premier of Ontario and propel the recession-weary province into the willing arms of a receptive Team Blue.  All Hudak had to do was keep his head down, carry out a tight campaign and stroll into his accolades.

But then a week went by.

To be fair, there have been cracks in the Hudak machine for some time now.  The extreme right flank of his party, emboldened by the blue tide washing over the GTA in recent elections, have begun airing, quite boldly, some of their less palatable points of view.  Old standard-bearers like longtime MPP Norm Sterling have been brushed aside for being not conservative enough.  It’s been too much for the Red Tory faction of the provincial party, with former leaders Ernie Eves and John Tory slamming the shenanigans publicly and loudly.  This week, Hudak himself walked into a big brick wall by denouncing the Liberals’ plan to offer tax credits for businesses who hire skilled new Canadians as a scheme to give jobs to “foreign workers.”  Wouldn’t you know it, little old Burlington got our name into the game when PC candidate Jane McKenna uttered this gem while trying to articulate her opposition as well:  “When did we become for immigrants?”

That sound you heard was a lot of jaws crashing to the floor.

I’ll give McKenna the benefit of the doubt here and assume that this was just a case of an inexperienced campaigner going up on her talking points.  She has since issued an apology, emphasizing that her statement did not reflect the official position of her party.  But it’s certainly not the kind of momentum Hudak needs at this point.

Campaigns are won and lost based on narratives.  After the first week, the narrative for the Ontario Progressive Conservatives is coalescing into that of the angry grandpa yelling at the kids to get off his lawn.  Which is great if you want to sew up the angry grandpa vote, and there are certainly a lot of those – but not enough to win government, particularly if you end up unwittingly motivating the “gentle grandma” vote to come out in droves instead.  Additionally, the Tories’ campaign plan to emphasize Dalton McGuinty’s record on taxes – usually a winning issue for any conservative campaign – has hit a bump in the shape of Randy Hillier’s outstanding debt to the Canada Revenue Agency.  While this will probably endear Hillier further to his supporters, it doesn’t help sway moderate voters who do pay their taxes on time and don’t enjoy the idea of a tax dodger winding up as Minister of Finance.

For McGuinty’s part, he must certainly be happy with the Harris-Decima poll published mid-week that had the Liberals at 41% support and comfortably in the lead over the Tories for the first time in many months.  While it was only one poll, and should be viewed critically given the small sample of only 650 voters, it was good for a few days of positive coverage.  McGuinty’s visit to Burlington this past Thursday afternoon to support Karmel Sakran, so early in the campaign, suggests that he believes this riding is poachable.  After this past week, it does feel like the momentum is back on the Liberal side.

But let’s talk again in seven days and see where we’re at then.  Because a week can be a lifetime in… well, you know the drill.

Ontario Election 2011: In service of our better angels

This post appeared on the Speak Your Mind site of the Toronto Star (http://speakyourmind.thestar.com) yesterday.  Reprinted here by their kind permission since, technically, they own it.

Democracy is a pain.

Let’s begin by being honest with ourselves. To our detriment, Canadians look forward to elections with the same enthusiasm as they do a visit to the proctologist. They’d rather listen to Snooki whine about The Situation than suffer through another campaign commercial. And the people of Ontario are headed to the ballot box for the third time in less than a year.

But as any decent proctologist would insist, regular checkups are good for you. That pain is a minor inconvenience in exchange for a healthy government.

As the writ drops, we look to the next several weeks with both hope and cynicism – hope that the campaign will be a shot of democratic adrenaline, with compelling candidates, engaged voters and a substantive debate leading to a bold vision of the magnificent places this province can go with the best people leading it; and cynical expectation that events will devolve into the usual baseless accusations, sound bites repeated mindlessly and a pox on all houses as we shrug, pick the least of the worst and slouch back to our lives.

Burlington is not on anyone’s list of ridings to watch this election. Provincially, it’s been Conservative blue since before many of its eligible voters were born. Yet there are a few hints that it may turn out to be a true battleground this time – a chance to see real democratic engagement, rather than a slow, dispirited march towards an inevitable outcome.

Incumbent Tory MPP Joyce Savoline isn’t running again. For the first time in decades, the three main party candidates vying for the Burlington seat are all newcomers. The Liberals, who have not held this seat since the 1940’s, have nominated lawyer Karmel Sakran to carry their banner. Oddly, the nomination contest for the Conservatives unfolded like a season of Survivor, with one candidate after another dropping out of the race for what could have been, given Burlington voting habits, essentially a guaranteed job as MPP. Local entrepreneur Jane McKenna, the last woman standing, has the advantage of the PC brand but is coming off a fifth-place finish in the 2010 municipal election for the Ward 1 Council seat. NDP candidate Peggy Russell, a former school board trustee, will be looking to harness some Jack Layton magic after her own unsuccessful attempt to capture the Ward 5 Council seat last year.

The last three elections have seen the Conservative candidate come out on top by less than 2,000 votes. Savoline’s 41% of the vote in 2007 was the worst showing by a Tory in Burlington in years, but she still managed to eke out a win – and that was at a time when Premier Dalton McGuinty was far more popular than he is now. McKenna’s poor results in 2010 suggest that her campaigning skills might need some polishing, but there’s a huge difference between running on your own and running as a major-party candidate. Unless Tim Hudak’s campaign implodes it would be fair to say the race is hers to lose. McKenna’s greatest advantage is that sleepy Burlington doesn’t like change, and that its voters seem programmed to back Team Blue. Having said that, Sakran has an impressive CV, and with an inexperienced opponent and barring significant vote-splitting with the NDP, he has the best chance for a Liberal upset in decades.

But ultimately, that is just inside baseball. What will make the difference in this riding and in this election, is leadership – and not of the chest-thumping chickenhawk variety. True leadership is the gravitas of statesmen that comes only with experience, curiosity, humility, and the capacity to embrace and learn from one’s failings. It is the confidence in the nobility and decency of the people, and the genuine desire to do the very best for them. To appeal to their better angels; to unite them in a real society that celebrates our achievements and leaves no one behind. That’s what the people of Ontario should want. No matter who we support, that’s what we should all be voting for.

So let us take our medicine and embrace that cumbersome pain known as democracy. The reward – shaping our future – will far outweigh the cost.

Phase Two

On this, the first day of school, I find myself in reflective mode.  It’s been about a month and a half since I started composing these missives and firing them off into the void of cyberspace as though I were Carl Sagan at Arecibo blasting radio-encoded ones and zeroes at neighboring stars, hoping for a reply.  I daresay my luck has been a little better than Carl’s.  This has been a great experience.  While we’re not changing the world or really doing anything of great cosmic significance, it’s wonderful to see your comments and know that you’re enjoying reading my fractured takes on life - to any writer, that’s the proverbial manna from heaven.

Tomorrow, we’re kicking it up a notch.  I hinted at this a few days ago on Twitter but now the curtain lifts and all shall be revealed.  I’ve been lucky enough to have been chosen by The Toronto Star as one of their “Speak Your Mind” Community Bloggers for the 2011 provincial election.  I’ll be offering commentary specifically on the race to succeed Joyce Savoline as MPP for Burlington.  This is the first race in quite a while where there is no incumbent and while Burlington is traditionally a safe Conservative seat, the local PC riding had some bumps choosing a candidate and as a result, this year all bets are off.  It’s gonna be a lot of fun covering this race and I hope you’ll enjoy reading my updates.  It won’t be all politics all the time of course, I’ll still have lots to say about what’s going on in the rest of the world and plenty of West Wing references for the new readers who found their way here thanks to the awesome Rob Lowe.

In this day and age, writing about politics is difficult without veering over the line into cruel snark.  I have my own beliefs and my own thoughts on the outcome I’d like to see, but I intend to write as fairly and as balanced as I can (unlike a certain U.S. “news” network).  What I want to see is candidates talking up to us, not down; raising the debate, not driving it into the sewer with canned sound-bite, sarcastic answers to complex questions.  I want to see this election as a contest of and for smart people.  If I think someone’s crossed the line, if I think they are trying to cruise into office on a tide of smears, no matter which party they’re in, I’m gonna call them on it.  Above all else, I will remain true to the three principles I outlined in my very first post – humanity, heart and hope.  Our politicians are only partly to blame for the state of the public’s apathy towards government today.  As writers who want to get them engaged again, we have to give them a reason to tune in other than scandals and shouting.  That’s my plan and I’m looking forward to the challenge.  Hope you are too.

Allons-y!

By their fruits shall you know them

In the aftermath of Hurricane Irene, Republican presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann suggested to a crowd of her supporters that both the hurricane and last week’s earthquake were signs that God is angry at America.  She pivoted immediately to suggest that God’s anger stems from too much government spending.  I recall when this sort of politics & preaching was the exclusive domain of Pat Robertson, the late Jerry Falwell and the execrable Westboro Baptist Church.  But here we have someone who, as nuts as she can sound to a liberal, has a decent shot at winning the nomination – to say nothing of front-runner Rick Perry, who held a massive prayer rally before jumping into the race and has suggested that global warming is a lie, evolution isn’t real and Social Security is a giant Ponzi scheme – this from the man who had insurance companies take out secret policies on retired Texas teachers and then cash in huge when said teachers ‘passed their finals.’

Excluding weddings and funerals I have not attended a regular church service in 20 years – but I would not go so far as to say I am completely non-spiritual.  I have my questions and my doubts, and in my quiet moments I am given to ponder the meaning of existence.  If there is a grand design to the universe, I have to believe it is bigger than anything that can be codified in language or filtered through the voices of intermediaries.  I don’t know what that is.  I don’t presume to be smart enough to understand it.  But every day, I’m trying.  My faith, as it were, is that the journey to uncover the answer is likely more meaningful than the destination, the answer itself.  And that works for me.  It probably won’t work for you or anyone else.  I’m not going to try and push it on you – it’s not my place.  Much as I would ask you the courtesy of not forcing your beliefs on me.

However, not being religious doesn’t mean sticking your head in the sand and pretending that it isn’t worth learning about other faiths.  Growing up in an overwhelmingly Christian community at a time when you still had to recite the Lord’s Prayer following the national anthem at school every morning, you still retain a lot of this stuff.  And as an adult I’ve read the Bible and other texts about Jesus and his message.  I’m not quite sure if it’s Matthew, Mark, Luke or John where he says that senior citizens should die in poverty while Wall Street loses their retirement funds.  Or if it was on that extra tablet of Commandments that broke in History of the World, Part I, where it said “Thou shalt cut taxes for the rich.”  One should never make the mistake of assuming that all Christians are rabid right-wing, small-government conservatives.  I’d go so far as to say that despite their protestations to the contrary, most of these rabid right-wing, small-government conservatives aren’t really Christian – at least not in the way I understand the Biblical Jesus Christ would want them to be.

I respect people.  I don’t murder, steal or cheat on my wife.  It’s not my business to dictate how two consenting adults should love one another.  I think women should control what happens to their bodies.  I think evolution is a fact.  I think no one should have to fear going bankrupt if they get sick and that higher taxes are a pittance for a clean and beautiful planet.  I’ve made mistakes and hurt people in the past, but overall I’ve tried to lead a good life.  Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann would probably think I’m going to hell.  But they wouldn’t say that because they truly believed it.  They’d say so to win votes – which is the most cynical exploitation of faith.  And they know it too.  In the States you can lock in a solid bloc of the electorate simply by repeating “Jesus” and “tax cuts” ad infinitum – and the votes you’ll win are from the people who are most in need of charitable help and most likely to be wounded by the loss of government programs those tax cuts will entail.  Michele Bachmann says that God is angry at the United States – I suppose it never occurred to her that He might be angry at the politicians dropping His name to win elections.

I do like the following quote from the Gospel of John:  “If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?”  And this one, Ephesians 4:2:  “Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.”  I don’t see a lot of that in the Republican front-runners for the presidential nomination, or in the people who support them – they seem to be a little mired in Leviticus.  I suppose that they are perfectly entitled to hold those opinions and run on them, as objectionable as I and other liberals might find it.  But for Perry and Bachmann to be claiming God is speaking through them and that they alone have the wisdom to interpret natural disasters as endorsements of their platforms makes them seem less like legitimate presidential contenders and more like the guy on the street corner with the warnings of doom on his cardboard sign.  That they have a better than ridiculous chance of being elected should give everyone – including Christians – reason to pause, and give some serious thought to that timeless question – what would Jesus do?

Jack’s Goodbye

Acceptance of inevitability does not diminish the sadness of loss.  When Jack Layton told Canadians his cancer had returned and he was taking a leave of absence to concentrate on fighting it, it was painfully evident based on his gaunt appearance that he was not doing very well.  But it still came as a tremendous and deeply cutting shock when he passed away early yesterday morning.  Agree with his politics or not, Jack Layton was one of those people you thought would always be there.  Better scribes than I have already lauded his legacy as a public servant and I suspect there is little appetite on your part for a half-assed elegy from me, someone who never voted NDP in his life and who to be perfectly honest was a little peeved with Jack more than once for some of the choices he made.  Be that as it may I can only admit to one personal encounter with the man, watching him speak at the Green Living Show in Toronto in 2007.  One of only two of the five federal party leaders at the time to appear in person – Elizabeth May was the other – Jack’s address was a little of that uniting “we’re all in this together” mojo that Barack Obama would wield so skillfully a year later.  I don’t recall him once pitching for votes during that speech – it was the expression of a vision, of the things people can do when they work hard and work together.  I wasn’t all surprised to see that same sentiment expressed in his final letter to the Canadian people.

Written as the end neared, it’s a beautiful farewell and one that has been Facebooked, Tweeted, shared and re-shared all over the country.  And yet it was not 24 hours before someone on the opposite end of the political spectrum felt it necessary to print a detraction – mocking the media coverage and accusing Layton of using the moment for political advantage.  It is highly cynical to suggest that the thoughts of someone in the last hours of his life are consumed with electoral math.  Lee Atwater, the Republican strategist whose lasting legacy is the elevation of the political smear campaign to levels undreamed of by Richard Nixon’s gutter crew, spent his final days writing letters of apology to men whose careers he had destroyed.  At the time, Atwater was criticized much in the same vein, that he was just doing political spin to the very end.  Maybe it was nothing more than trying to latch on to a shred of dignity, but I don’t think it’s fair to assume anyone’s state of mind as death approaches.  We can’t possibly know it until we face it ourselves.  Where someone like Lee Atwater, who spent his life spreading darkness, deserves credit, is for his ultimate recognition of something that Jack Layton knew all along – that one should go out in the light and with hope for those left behind.

Jack Layton’s letter is the final instructions from a great political leader to his party, which many assume will have a difficult time in the years ahead without his guidance – but he is leaving them with the confidence that they already have all they need to triumph without him.  It is the last testament of a father to his children, hoping that they will find successes that outshine his own achievements in ways he cannot even imagine.  No one should have expected anything else from him to his loyal troops.  And yet the letter bequeaths to all Canadians a positive vision of the incredible possibilities that can come from cooperation and unity – a message revealed by its viral spread to have surprising resonance in a country grown cynical of government and the motivations of politicians.  It reminds the pessimist and the cynic that most of our fellow human beings are fueled by the same desire to create a positive and progressive place to live.  At times we are scared, we are confused, we don’t know who to listen to or which direction we should turn, but we have a common dream.  And it is our responsibility to take the parting wisdom of men like Jack Layton and use it to shape our home into somewhere that no one else will have to only long for on a deathbed – we can all live it for real, starting today.

Slán a fhágáil, Jack.  And thank you.