Canadian
politics, alas, tends to be low on hyperbole and weak on dramatic content. That’s why unless you’re a CanCon political
junkie or a Conservative researcher, you probably missed the little piece of
Liberal drama that played itself out last week.
Like the best dramas, this tale began on a hopeful note, spiraled into
conflict and has now moved into intrigue.
It started off
innocently enough, with Justin Trudeau giving an impassioned speech heralding
his entry into the Liberal leadership race.
Rather boldly, he laid out a vision that reached beyond the scope of the
Party and included our entire political system.
Canadians, he suggested, are hungry for a vision of Canada’s future “grounded
not in the politics of envy or mistrust.”
Trudeau’s stated goal is to bring values like honesty, integrity,
respect and cooperation back into Canadian politics. “When,”
he asks us, “was the last time you had a leader you actually trusted?”
Voters are
cynical about politicians, and rightly so.
Our current Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, ran on the promise of
ushering in a new era of accountability and transparency. On the heels of the Sponsorship Scandal,
that message appealed to the average Canadian.
Since gaining power, however, Harper has been neither accountable nor
transparent. He has moved to limit
public access to committee debates, has stifled
information flow to the media – his government has even denied
information to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, a position of their own
design.
If we’re wary of
politicians, we’re downright suspicious of the people who work behind the
scenes for them. We know that Harper’s
hired guns aren’t interested in strengthening democracy; they themselves tell
us as much. Nick Kouvalis happily states
that he
gets paid to end the careers of liberal politicians, while Tim Powers
readily admits that the Conservatives are happy
to misrepresent the facts if it allows them to keep the Opposition on the
defensive. At the end of the day,
does it really matter what a Leader says, when it’s folk like this pulling the
strings?
For this reason,
engaged Canadians are increasingly paying attention to the people behind the
curtain. If we’re going to invest in a
Party to drive our country forward, we want to know something about what’s
under the hood. Perhaps it was in
recognition of this that Team Trudeau agreed to an interview with Michael den
Tandt, skirting traditional political wisdom that suggests political staff be
neither seen nor heard, and kicking off the next act in our little drama.
If Trudeau’s
speech was the teaser to the campaign, the den Tandt piece
was like a making-of featurette. It
introduced us to a likeable production crew that clearly supports the vision
laid out by their leader. In addition to
Katie Telford, a bright young mother with tons of both idealism and political
experience (full disclosure, she’s a former colleague of mine), we have former
Liberal MP for Mississauga-Erindale Omar Alghabra, Ben Chin (a former reporter of South
Korean heritage) and the more mysterious of the Trudeau brothers, Sacha. Named but not interviewed was Gerry Butts, a
man who is not only gifted in his ability to craft political strategy but also
someone who only dedicates his time to things he believes in. Former political staff like me still look up
to people like him.
Not a bad crew
to have supporting you, really – and unlike a Kouvalis or a Powers, these folk have
made it clear their goal isn’t to defeat the opposition at all cost. “It’s about who’s
willing to put in the work, no matter their background, no matter what party
they’ve been in before, or (whether they’ve) been involved in past battles,”
as Telford says. But why, some might
ask, is she the one saying this at all?
There’s a reason why conventional wisdom suggests staff should stay in
the backroom; when they draw attention to themselves, support teams draw the
focus away from the person who will actually have his name on the ballot. It’s not smart, politically.
One of the
people pointing this out is Warren
Kinsella, Bad Boy Liberal Strategist and a man with more hard-won election
scars than most political staff ever has skin in the game. When it comes to all this campaign strategy
stuff, Kinsella knows of what he speaks – he wrote the book on it, literally
(and if you haven’t read The
War Room, I highly recommend it).
Kinsella compares political strategy to the process of making sausages
(a bit ironic, given the unfolding
tainted meat scandal); the less revealed to the public and your opponents,
the better.
It’s a point
worth raising. As Kinsella notes, the folk
supporting Paul Martin, Stéphane Dion and Michael Ignatieff all dabbled with
media exposure, while the campaign teams for Stephen Harper did not. As a strategy, this worked out pretty well
for Team Harper; despite being implicated
in a scheme to bribe a dying man for his vote, being
found in contempt of Parliament and the
ongoing robocall scandal, among others, the Conservatives have clawed their
way to a majority government and are now free to do as they please. By never going off message, allowing few of
his Caucus to speak to the media and holding his operators to an omerta-like code of silence,
Harper presents a thin target for his opponents. As for the other guys, well – go look for
them now.
This Harperian
method makes for great politics, but is terrible for the long-term health of
our Canadian democracy. “The
political system has failed many Canadians in clear and tangible ways,”
suggests Alison Loat, Co-Founder and Executive Director of democracy watchdog
the Samara Institute. As Trudeau stated
so eloquently in his launch-speech, we no longer trust politics, neither the
leaders nor the people who support them.
Harper doesn’t shoulder all the weight for this problem – he’s merely
taken an emerging trend and pushed it further, faster than anyone expected. It’s because of this sort of cynical
governance that Canadians, particularly younger ones, are proactively opting
not to vote.
Only 61.4
per cent of eligible Canadian voters cast ballots in the last Federal election,
and that was considered an improvement.
Youth turnout was even lower, with only 38.8 choosing to support a
candidate or Party. Feeling like their
vote has no meaning and that all Parties are the same, these
Canadians are choosing alternative methods of expressing themselves politically
by participating in student protests or supporting movements like Occupy.
Kinsella himself
has recognized this, time and again – the
way politics works in Canada is changing.
As disenfranchised voters tune out, backroom operators are using
increasingly aggressive tactics to win votes and eviscerate their opponents. To
avoid the consequences of scrutiny, these folk are extinguishing media and
opposition access so that they can do what they have to do away from the spotlight. What happens when people who don’t feel
accountable to the public have
growing amounts of influence on the political process?
According to the
den Tandt article, Team Trudeau and Justin himself have collectively realized
that it’s not just the Liberal Party, but the Canadian political process that
is at risk of collapse. That’s the
burning platform; that’s the impetus for renewal. Instead of engaging in old-school politics of
Machiavellian manoeuvers planned and orchestrated by shadowy, unaccountable
operators, Team Trudeau is trying to devise a new approach, one that is more
transparent and accessible to the public while equally being more respectful to
opponents. In this, they’re following
some wise words: “Never attack
the individual. We can be in total
disagreement with someone without denigrating them as a consequence.”
Which brings us
to the last act of our little drama. Warren
Kinsella, a Liberal veteran who recognizes the need for some kind of renewal in
politics offered some constructive criticism of the Team Trudeau approach. Less
discussion of process in the media, he suggests. Staff should remain behind the curtain. This is a valid position, one that has born
political fruit for successive generations.
It doesn’t mean it’s the right one for today.
According to
Kinsella himself, his advice has been met with the kind of response that is
typical of old-school politics; angry messages from Trudeau supporters, some of
them delivered anonymously. This is the
sort of kindling from which new rivalries are made; it’s also the sort of personality
conflict we’re sadly used to. Sure, this
kind of political theatre makes for great viewing, but it does nothing to
address the burning platform and brings into question whether renewal is
actually possible. If politics is
invariably a blood sport, you can hardly blame the Tories for being as ruthless
as necessary to succeed – nor can you blame Canada’s youth for taking to the
streets in protest.
For what it’s
worth, I think that Trudeau is right. I
think it’s time for a political leader to embody the values they speak of and inspire
the same from their team and the public at large. I also think that Kinsella is right –
political staff shouldn’t be using their position as a way to build their own
brand. Frankly, good leaders value their
team personally and always make sure their contributions are properly recognized. Having said that, we live in the days of
Facebook and Twitter and IP addresses.
Whether we like it or not, everyone is in the spotlight. Instead of trying to deny this, political
people should always be thinking about how their comments, both verbal and
posted, can reinforce and carry forward the vision they have chosen to support. You never go wrong by standing up for what
you believe in.
I would also
suggest that political leaders need to spend less time attacking their
opponents and micro-targeting voter blocks and instead start engaging all
Canadians. Democracy is a conversation
and, like all conversations, it’s built on a foundation of shared values – including
trust. When we don’t trust others, we
make them untrustworthy and become untrustworthy ourselves as a consequence.
Of course, all
this suspicion and intrigue makes for great conflict. Though Canadians do love their drama, I think
there’s a growing recognition that if we don’t change something, we’re
all going to get burned. The Leader
or Party that consciously sets the right example will find that while we enjoy
the spectacle, what we truly respect is values-based leadership.
Will Trudeau be
this leader? Can his team renew Canadian
democracy before the platform disintegrates?
I’ve got my feet by the fire and popcorn in hand, waiting to see how the
next act unfolds.
Some people never learn, eh?
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