Parliament is going to get more attention than it has since Pierre Trudeau left Ottawa 20 years ago. Minority government assures it. For a start, the Liberals will be paying attention, as they practice counting to 308, and dividing by half.

The media will be watching to see who is dancing together, and who is off the dance floor looking for a partner.

With the prime minister needing allies, issues matter — agenda setting is no longer the purview of the governing party alone. And, issues matter to people, even if they don’t clue in, or pay attention at the time.

Jack Layton will be closely watched. His style matters, for sure, but observers will want to know also what he brings to Parliament: What questions does he raise, who does he speak for, and what particular attention does he give to the things that matter to citizens?

Investing in the American scheme for missile defence is a big issue for many Canadians. More spending on tanks is an obvious misallocation of resources. Canadians want a thoughtful alternative on foreign policy, and on a host of other issues.

One way to decide which of many issues need to be brought to Parliament is for constituency associations to hold open meetings, and listen to what concerns are raised. You get the attention of the wider public when you talk about what matters to them; you get attention in Parliament when you find the issues that resonate outside Ottawa.

Easy to say, tough to do.

People care about their quality of life; politics has a lot to do with how good things are for people. The trick is finding how to connect politics to quality of life.

Talking about the need for a decent standard of living for all working Canadians is a good place to start. Too many people earn barely enough to survive. A “living wage” law could stop Wal-Mart and its imitators from predatory pricing of labour, and killing off better paying service jobs. Let other parties argue for non-living wages.

The median income for an individual is less than $25,000. No one should have less than half that amount. Canadians used to have a sort of guaranteed minimum income under the Canada Assistance Plan or CAP. Parliament voted to pay one-half of the cost of provincial welfare payments, provided that the provinces met some basic criteria for eligibility, including having an appeal procedure. Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin killed CAP.

It was American economics that did in the Canadian poor. In the U.S., to take a job meant losing medical benefits available to welfare recipients. Thus the welfare “dependency” argument was born. Instead of introducing universal medical coverage, American economists argued for reducing access to welfare. Bill Clinton brought in the reform that Martin and Chrétien copied.

The NDP should bring the fight for a decent wage for a fair day’s work, and for an acceptable social minimum up to the front of a crowded agenda.

The NDP now stands alone against further North American integration. In the past both the Bloc, and the Reform/Alliance have called upon Canada to adopt the U.S. currency. The Liberals have quietly brought Canada ever closer to the U.S. economic model of low wages, privatized services and tax breaks for the wealthy.The NDP leader could signal party support for Canadian concerns about Canada adopting the U.S. economic model by making indecent wages the subject of his first question in the House.

Duncan Cameron

Duncan Cameron

Born in Victoria B.C. in 1944, Duncan now lives in Vancouver. Following graduation from the University of Alberta he joined the Department of Finance (Ottawa) in 1966 and was financial advisor to the...