Ignatieff: A platform full of left-of-centre policies, reflecting the values of fairness and equality and stealing Liberally.
paul martin
Paul Martin's G20 wish list
Guess who gave his blessings to the Financial Transaction Tax (that would take a bitsy percentage of trading bets and make billions to address global problems) and firmly supports pricing carbon? The answer is Canada's most internationally acclaimed budget balancer, Paul Martin.
I got a chance to ask Martin some one-on-one questions at a Munk Centre event on global governance yesterday and was amazed to hear him sign on to two of NOW's key G20 wish list items for world leaders (see my story here).
Canada is a nation led by political managers, not leaders
Where are the leaders? It's a question I hear from people more and more.
People are looking for inspiration, hope, some sense that someone at least has some ideas of where the country should go -- not go this afternoon or tomorrow or next week but in the next 20 or 50 years.
Someone who is at least partly a visionary and not just a strategist and tactician. Canadians, I think, are desperately looking for someone who can demonstrate that they have done some serious and thoughtful thinking about what kind of country we want to build.
But political leadership of that kind seems to be a thing of the past. They don't make Tommy Douglases anymore or even Pierre Trudeaus. Why?
Governing as business
Two steps backwards for the Liberals
Once upon a time there was a Liberal party. The new party president, Mike Crawley, elected this past weekend at the party convention in Ottawa, thinks it needs to change. It is not enough to say "national" and "plan" every time we are confronted with an issue, he opined.
The Liberal party must move beyond its membership, the convention delegates decided on the weekend. From now on, anyone prepared to say they "support" the party will be able to vote in the next party leadership contest. Outsiders will be invited to discuss policy with Liberal caucus members, along with party members.
The death of public hope
Hope is indispensable in public and private life. I don't mean brainless optimism in the face of facts. I mean hope that finds a way to persist in honest awareness of how bad things are.
Take the economy. Everyone knows that the disaster of 2008, which has clearly not gone away, had nothing to do with excess government spending. It had/has to do with other things: loss of good jobs; wage stagnation; jumps in consumer debt to cover the losses; "financialization"; fraud; greed; lack of oversight -- blah blah blah. Any rise in deficits came mainly from bailouts to banks, or needless war-making. The point is: The catastrophe had/has no connection to government social or economic spending. Yet the only solutions proposed everywhere are public spending cuts.
2.jpg "David Climenhaga, author of the Alberta Diary blog, is a journalist, author, journalism teacher, poet and trade union communicator who has worked in senior writing and editing positions with the Toronto Globe and Mail and the Calgary Herald. His 1995 book, A Poke in the Public Eye, explores the relationships among Canadian journalists, public relations people and politicians. He left journalism after the strike at the Calgary Herald in 1999 and 2000 to work as Communications Director of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees, which with more than 73,000 members is Alberta’s largest union and Canada’s 10th largest. Alberta Diary focuses on Alberta politics and social issues. Contact: albertadiary @ gmail.com")
