Caught in the Act: Government, Opened

The truth is we do have some real problems when it comes to elections in our country, and the biggest one in my opinion is low voter turnout.  We should be exploring ways to engage citizens in elections and the democratic process - between and during elections.  We should be exploring best practices from other countries on how to increase voter turnout.  This Act did none of that.  The Act identified solutions in search of problems.

If you only have one tool in your box - a hammer - you view every problem as a nail.

When you choose not to study the landscape, you increase your chances of driving over a cliff.

And when you start acting like an empire, you only encourage revolution.

Putin's Anschluss

Putin has defied calls from the West to pull back his troops, insiting that Russia has a right to protect its interests and those of Russian-speakers in Crimea and elsewhere in Ukraine.  His confidence is matched by knowledge that Ukraine's 46 million people have divided loyalities - while much of the western Ukraine wants closer ties with the 28-nation European Union, its eastern and southern regions like Crimea look to Russia for support.

There's historical precdent for what happens when a power-hungry, aggressive leader with a dislike of minority groups decides he wants to protect the interests of ethnic or linguistic fellows.

On this day, Adolf Hitler announces an "Anschluss" (union) between Germany and Austria, in fact annexing the smaller nation into a greater Germany.

What other countries have Russian-speaking populations?

•  Armenia (significant minority)
•  Azerbaijan (significant minority)
•  Belarus (co-official with Belarusian)
•  Bulgaria (minority)
•  Estonia (significant minority)
•  Finland (minority)
•  Georgia (significant minority)
•  Germany (minority)
•  Greece (minority)
•  Kazakhstan (co-official with Kazakh)
•  Kyrgyzstan (co-official with Kyrgyz)
•  Latvia (significant minority)
•  Lithuania (minority)
•  Moldova (co-official with Ukrainian and Romanian in  Transnistria)
•  Mongolia (significant minority)
•  Poland (minority)
•  Serbia (minority)
•  Turkey (significant minority)
•  Tajikistan (significant minority)
•  Turkmenistan (significant minority)
•  Ukraine (significant minority, regional in some regions)
•  Uzbekistan (significant minority)

If I were a minority group in Russisa/the former USSR, I'd be very concerned about now.  And I was was a Western leader, I'd be making damned sure I was fully versed on the errors of the past so as not to perpetuate them.

UPDATE:  And it looks like I'm not the only one who's worried about this.  Thanks Leonid Bershidsky for the quote I was looking for:

"It is not only the same people but above all a long communal history and culture which bind together the Reich and Austria."

"We are one people," Russian President Vladimir Putin said of Russians and Ukranians in September 2013.  "We have, unquestionably, common historical roots and a common destiny."

If you think this is crazy talk, just remember - that's what they used to say about Churchill.

Horwath and Harper: When It Becomes About Winning...

 

"So when you get desperate, you do desperate things, and you make accusations that are less about the policy and more about other things."

Horwath makes a good point here - desperate people do desperate things.  By the same token, over-confident or win-tasting people have a habit of ignoring other things - like laws. 

There are people who for sure won't vote Liberal.  There are people who for sure won't vote NDP, or PCPO.  By the same token, there are people who simply won't vote at all because they see the same behaviour emerging from all Parties.

Did her ad break the law?  Forget the Liberal criticisms, the potential spin - did it break election laws, yes or no?  If yes, was this an oversight, or intentional?  If it had been another Party that had done this, what would Horwath's response have been?

She probably would have cried foul, and she'd have been right to.

Our leaders are fighting over shrinking ground, mercilessly pounding each other while turning a blind eye to their own rule-bending or cynical plays.  Whatever they can get away with, the logic goes, they can do in good conscience; a win justifies all.

There's this thing that happens when you put the win first, though.  Structural solutions come later, if at all.  When you start down the path of believing the ends justify the means, you'll never get where you think you're heading.

Instead, you become that which you once stood against, and the cycle repeats again.

I'll say this again; if you play dirty to win, you will play dirty to stay in power.  Your opponents won't let you do otherwise, and the platform will continue to burn.

It's a lesson Horwath could learn from Harper.  It's one people all over the places are learning from far too many of their leaders right now.

So here's the lesson these leaders need to be paying attention to - the people have access to information, skin in the game and are tired of being played.

That Which Doesn't Kill You...

The rise of mass education, along with more critical media and a more cynical pop culture, has produced a more aware and less trusting public - a shift which poses huge challenges to governments and democratic institutions.  A more educated and less docile public, willing to hold their public institutions to account, is a good thing.  But it's now clear that the trust deficit and the broader unravelling of social cohesion has reached a level where it is compromising the very legitimacy of our democracy and public institutions.

Can't argue with that.  In fact, many of us have been making similar arguments for a while now.

Here's the funny part - politics is all about the tough fighting it out and lasting, while the smart quit while they're ahead.  We're getting closer to the tipping point where the smart and tough are looking for greener pastures, while the Ford Tough types are relishing their chance at the spotlight.

Social tensions are on the rise, leading to unrest and friction.  It's the shedding of old skin and the continuance of the social evolutionary trend, all at once.  

Fun times, indeed...

Laying Foundation for 2014

But the most interesting political fight in 2014, by far, will be between Liberals and New Democrats, with the focus narrowing ever more closely on Quebec.

Now's the time of year where political pundits spill their tea leaves into their coffee cups and see what's in store.  They tend to start with some low-hanging fruit - almost-certain eventualities they can comment on now so as to claim wins later.  From there, they look at the key personalities - leaders, their inner circles, big names on the stage that can sway headlines.  

Pundits will look at the map in terms of electoral districts - the West vs the East, Quebec, the 905, so on and so forth.  By breaking the population up into sub-groups, the theory goes, it's easier to predict what ripples starting where will shape the shore tomorrow.

In this way, they operate in much the same way as Political Parties do; they look for and nurture coalitions, star candidates and the keenest, known-commodity operatives.  From this perspective, it's a clear picture of Power, Party and People, lined up in just that way - if you can own or dangle the promise of power through a Party the better your chances of driving action, dollars and votes - and controlling behaviour - of the people.

But there are other forces at play that the seers at the top tend not to foretell.  As technology and social media connect people from coast to coast and around the world, we have a dynamic that reaches beyond political barriers.  People see the idealized  version of how others are living; they're also seeing that the sufferings they face are shared by many.

Governments of many stripes across the world are caught in an increasingly dissonant drive for #OpenGov, while at the same time the NSA is making headlines for questionable breaches of privacy and Canadian citizens are being turned away at the US border for private health-related matters.  People are paying attention, and they're not impressed.  This is particularly true as, no matter what or when, they are relentlessly bombarded with political messaging that makes to effort to provide answers, vision or even a bit of human connectivity.

People like symbols, protagonists and simple narratives.  It's why we like to tell ourselves individuals shape history for better or worse.  This largely isn't true; leaders are most often products of the mood of the people rather than the Machiavellian manipulators they claim to be.

The truth is, pundits and the people they ponder live in a world apart.  They look at the world through a lens of self-interest that blinds them to many of the deepest realities of the times.  Everyday folk aren't interested in electing one Party or another; they are worried about their future.  

It's not about politics for them - not leaders, not Parties, not occupiers of capitalized residences.  It's about the world they face when they walk out their door and the world their children will inherit.  Far too many parents these days carry the quiet anguish of the subtle realization the world they leave behind won't be as kind to their kids as it was to them, and that's troubling.

These people don't feel there's leadership at the top, so instead are looking laterally.  Social media is increasingly becoming a tool of communication rather than messaging.  Despite the cynicism, service providers including those in uniform are looking to work with each other and the people they interact with; they're recognizing that cooperation is the only sustainable way forward.  

If the people at the top refuse to play along, well, the game gets played without them.  

For this reason I don't think the greatest adventures of 2014 will be tied to Political Parties - in fact, I imagine Parties are going to have to adapt to them.  It'll be the people themselves, online and in person in both proactive and reactive fashion that will be the ones to watch.

Just something to keep in mind - after all, a healthy society is one with the capacity to adapt. This sometimes involves shedding old skins to allow for growth.

Stephen Maher, Vacuous Celebrities and a Hobbit's Tale

But even so, in spite of his talent and lifetime of achievement, his global impact is much less than a lot of less admirable celebrities, including the self-indulgent and erratic Justin Bieber, who has 47 million Twitter followers.

It's not hard to look at the headlines and headline-makers today and despair.  

There are so many narcissistic, vacuous celebrities out there who gain and maintain fame more through notoriety than through talent.  Making history has apparently become about shock value, not something resembling actual contributions of value.

Meanwhile, there is war, destruction and soul-sucking poverty; all avoidable, if people were willing to work together and plan ahead.

There are the preludes to war, leaders ragging the puck and offloading responsibility in ways that inevitably spark fires of social disruption.  We know what to expect, because we've seen it all again and again; it's Groundhog Day, only the loop runs just long enough for new generations to forget or ignore the lessons learned by their ancestors.

If you fear for the future of humanity, you've got just cause to do so.  

By all appearances, we're a petty, vengeful self-absorbed lot more prone to negative reaction that pro-social altruism.  How can we but end up in darkness?

And yet, there's nothing new to this picture - as Warren Kinsella points out, we've been enjoying bloodsports, ignoring the well-being of our neighbours and feeling better about ourselves through putting down others since before the written word.

Thug leaders with neither vision nor foresight like Rob Ford aren't uncommon - in fact, history is full of them.  I've said to many that Ford is like a toned-down version of Saddam Hussein and that, if not for the laws, expectations and culture of Canada, things in Toronto would be a lot worse.  

This can be taken as an insult against Ford, who is but a genetic and experiential product; it can also be taken as a compliment for the rest of us.

There are self-obsessed celebrities like Miley Cyrus, Justin Bieber and Rob Ford, but there are also good ones, people like George Clooney and Angelina Jolie who are equally famous, opt not to take themselves seriously and feel a responsibility to use their fame to further the goal of an equitable society.

More importantly, though, there are those people whose names the world will never know, but that you perhaps might; your neighbour, a teacher who cared, a boss who treated you as an apprentice rather than a resource.  There are also the innovators, the pioneers, the people who have changed the world as much as Johannes Guttenberg but without having their names recorded.  

History is replete with people like this.  In fact, history is a bit like an archaeological record; we will celebrate the names and events that are passed on through tradition, but much of what has shaped the world we live in was never written down; it simply was.

It's easy to look behind and feel frightened for what's to come, but what we see is not the entirety of what is.  The greatest people, the ones who bring promise of brighter days are not on the periphery, nor are they waiting just beyond the horizon.  

They're here, right now, doing what they do best which is not selling brands or making headlines, but doing the little deeds, developing small ideas that will lead to an avalanche of social change for which someone else will gain credit.

Don't feel bad for them, nor bitter - fewer people claim fame than we might think when we focus on those who do.  That, too, is how it has always been.  Our journey may seem like a slow decent into darkness; it isn't.  

We sometimes just need visionaries to remind us of this.

 I've found it is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keeps the darkness at bay.

The Political Wheel Turns

 

"We're pushing for openness and transparency and an opportunity to hear from these three Senators at committee.  We have Mr. Harper deciding that he's going to dump all the responsibility on the three of them and try to create a serious penalty here that, to my mind, needs to be at least reasonably discussed before we enact something that's going to create precedents," said Trudeau.

Everyone and their dog talks about openness and transparency; both were major themes that Harper came to power advocating for.  Political people know those are words that resonate with people, which is why they use them; it's kind of like a child saying "fuck" because they know it creates a strong response, without really knowing what it means.

But when was the last time we had a Political Leader that thought far enough ahead to consider precedents - the consequences of their actions?

 

A Reflection on Stephen Harper's Canada

It is worth remembering that the Conservatives have a history of launching major policy initiatives with little or no evidence.  The government's multi-billion-dollar Safe Streets and Communities Act, featuring harsh jail sentences, was unveilved when crime was dropping.  Stockwell Day, defending the crackdown, said it was needed to curb and alarming rise in "unreported crime."  Its decision to cancel Canada's long-form census was justified on the ground that 10,000 people complained the questionnaire violated their privacy.  In fact, 27 individuals had complained.  Then there was the F-35 fiasco.  Peter MacKay insisted there was no need for competitive bids because Lockheed Martin's Lightening II Joint Strike Fighter was the only one that met Canada's needs.  That, too, turned out to be more fiction than fact.

Here's a Harper's New Government recap for you:

The Liberals and all other Opposition Parties deserve to be pilloried because, frankly, they're just bad people.  Kick the corrupt bums out, only we can clean up shop.  It doesn't matter what policy positions they come up with - even if they're ones the Conservatives eventually mimic - anything the other guys do is stupid.

Once in government, start stifling dissent - doesn't matter where it comes from, be it internal, really internal or even from outside Canada's borders just shout it down, belittle it or starve it of resources.  Hey, if your opponents' claims had any validity, they'd end up being selected regardless, right?

Policy is about validation and enabling the base.  The message should be thus - you are entitled to whatever you want if you support the Party, but if you don't - especially if you are in any shape or form reliant on government handouts (not to be confused with sole-sourced government contracts, 'cause that's clearly different).  There's really no need to debase oneself with research, systems theory or modelling; those are all just fancy ways of committing sociology.  When you're tough, you eliminate the weak and take the resources you want, full stop.  Low hanging fruit are always abundant.

When this mentality starts taking root among your own ranks - when members of your own team get a bit too comfortable with picking from the national tree - bury the story in the usual ways and if that fails, well, do unto them what you do unto all opponents (throw 'em under the bus).

It may happen that consequences of tossing the policy warning tickets in the partisan glove box start to add up.  This gets uncomfortable, but you don't need to take responsibility - like in a sitcom, you're always just one clever scheme away from disappearing your problems forever.  Just keep spinning, denying and attacking others, all will be well!

So this is where we find ourselves, in a grave of our own making.  You see, we can blame Harper (and increasingly, that's exactly what Canadians are doing) who in turn is passing the blame on to others, but that's hardly fair, is it?  Who he is and how he operates has been clear since day one, all those years ago.  It was always predictable where he would take our country - where he will continue to take our country.  

Harper is a symptom, not a cause.  He's been holding out a mirror, allowing Canadians to see just what they wanted to see; an ideal, contained world that reflects what we want perfectly.  We're the ones who've neglected to look beyond to what's really happening in the world.  We're still doing it.  Team Harper is still finding new ways to beat the exact same dead horses.

Canada was lucky to enter the economic recession with a full well, but we're getting to the point where that well is going dry.  There are plenty of new directions and new opportunities we could harness, but not if we refuse to acknowledge reality and move on from the past.

If we don't - if we continue to listen to what we want to hear and ignore the rest - it won't be Harper we have to blame.

What Has Happened Before...

Perhaps few in Greece would argue with a “Greece for the Greeks” slogan, but to suggest that all foreigners should be expelled does not sit well with the concepts of democracy or inclusivity, to say nothing of EU laws.

Just sayin'.

99 Problems but the Snake Isn't One of Them

It's like God created this man for a busy day and he forgot to put fear in his hand.

We tend to view fear as a powerful tool.  Employers use it to keep their employees in line.  Governments, same - either by encouraging their people to be afraid of them or by blowing up external fears as a justification of "why they need us."  Terrorism, that nebulous activity against which nations have attempted to go to war with, thrives on fear.

In practise, though, fear is not a tool - tools are devices used to facilitate productivity.  Fear is a weapon that serves to end activity, be it speaking truth to power or living a life contrary to traditional dictates.  Fear is a glass ceiling that instinctively restrains us from taking risks, either positive or negative.  It's a firewall that keeps out the threat of change - or a flaming sword that banishes change from within.

So what happens when fear is not an issue? 

When you stop waiting for the worst to happen; when you stop waiting for someone to remove the thing that makes you anxious before acting - doors open.  The opposite of fear is wonder.

If fear is about closing doors, wonder is about opening them.  It's funny, that - how the end of one thing leads to the beginning of something else. 
 

Clearly, you can't walk through every door - but having the option matters.

 

When you pull back the veil of fear, the world seems a lot clearer.

Best of all - it's a meme, too.

 

Why the Rob Ford crack scandal is bad news for progressives (Paul Saurette)

 

“You guys are lower than a bunch of f**kn’ politicians.” Quite the statement, coming from “everyman” Doug Ford – inheritor of a family business, city councillor, aspiring provincial politician, son of an MPP and brother to a mayor. Given their bombastic history and vitriolic response to the unfolding scandal, many Torontonians may be tempted to revel in the poetic justice of watching the tragic flaws that propelled them up, now pull them low.

But even progressives who regret the damage the Fords have done to the municipal agenda and disdain the faux-populist affectations of a couple of self-entitled rich guys passing themselves off as regular joes, should mourn the events of the last few weeks and think carefully before indulging in too much schadenfreude. For although these scandals might ultimately topple one or two “Teflon” conservative politicians (which wouldn’t be a bad thing), the long term effects of scandals like these are likely to make it even harder for us to advance progressive political agendas.

Why might this be the case? The ease with which Doug Ford was able, devoid of irony, to demean the media by insulting politicians, is indicative of a political worldview that is both fantastical and real at the same time. It is a perspective that closely mirrors what Thomas Frank has termed “backlash populism.”

 

Backlash populism is not really political populism. Political populism, at minimum, argues for substantial procedural changes in the way the political realm functions to give “the people” a more direct say in politics (for example, abolishing the senate, holding direct referendums, or giving grassroots riding associations far more real authority). Historically, political populism has also sought to reduce inequalities of wealth and power. Thus it has usually critiqued the excessive influence and wealth of economic elites, who also tend to exercise a heavy influence over political and media spheres.

Backlash populism, however, merely mimics the linguistic tics of political populism (e.g. invoking the people against an imagined elite) without any actual policy to back it up. In fact, the real achievement of conservative backlash populism – pioneered in the US and sometimes embraced in Canada – is to use populist language while changing the target. In this worldview, having money doesn’t make you an elite. It is the “social” elites (Doug Ford’s term) in the media and politics that are the enemy. Faux populism is probably a better name for it.

One might think that such a narrative is too silly to become popular. But contemporary neuroscience has shown that sheer repetition is a powerful strategy of persuasion. Neurons that fire together, wire together, as they like to say. The constant repetition of these faux populist talking points actually works with lots of people. As Daniel Kahneman – winner of a Nobel prize for his pioneering work in behavioural economics – has shown, the more times you hear something (even if you don’t really believe it), the more familiar it feels. And the more familiar it feels, the more true it seems.

 Familiarity may breed contempt among some. But it also breeds acceptance among many others. And the faux populist story has been circulating in Canada in politics and the media for several decades.

One of the core tenets of faux populism is the idea that you can’t trust anyone in the media (latte sipping, look-down-their-nose-at-you city types) or in establishment politics (corrupt and captured by special interests). Hence the reason so many conservative politicians continue to frame themselves as rank outsiders despite it being patently untrue (George W’s successful ability to claim the outsider mantle despite being literally the son of the president shows how far this can go). And why Doug Ford could refer to politicians as the almost lowest of the low without blushing.

 

Won’t the fact that it is now conservatives that are so spectacularly caught up in a whirlwind of scandal at federal, provincial and municipal levels finally burst the bubble and let people see the empty rhetoric of faux populism for what it is? It is possible. But the more likely outcome is that these scandals will only deepen the generalized distrust and cynicism that Canadians increasingly feel towards politics.

 

With each scandal, the bar of what we expect of our politicians is lowered farther and farther. It now takes truly absurd events to shock us. And so we become even more cynical about all politicians. If we can’t even trust the guys who yell loudest about stamping out crime; and if we have to watch even the hand of the guys who lecture longest about keeping the public till free from those who feel entitled to their entitlements, who can we put our faith in?

And yet, even if we don’t expect more, we still know we should be able to. So alongside our cynicism, we start to resent the fact that we are constantly disappointed by so many of our political representatives.

 

The tragedy is that this intensification of cynicism and resentment – even when caused by conservative scandals – is a bigger problem for progressives than it for conservatives. Progressive political parties rely on having citizens believe, at least to some degree, that those in public office might be worth trusting and might actually be working for the general good. And most progressive platforms require citizens to put their faith in the idea that greed is not the only motivator and that we can set up non-market systems that actually deliver more value than if we assume that people will only do the bare minimum they can get away with.

 

Contemporary conservatism, however, is in a far better situation to appeal to a public that only believes in individualized interest and doesn’t trust anyone. Because the most logical response to those assumptions is to create a night-watchman state that is heavy handed when it comes to national security, crime and protecting (at least the appearance of) a functioning market, but is largely uninterested in developing collective public solutions to many of the issues progressives care most about.

 

Progressives are well within their rights to express their outrage at these recent scandals and to push for political regime change on that basis. But that ought to be done carefully and for the right reasons. And it certainly shouldn’t be celebrated. Because these messy affairs hurt us all, and in the long run, perhaps progressives most of all.

Paul Saurette is an associate professor at the School of Political Studies at the University of Ottawa. His column appears on thestar.com every second Thursday. You can follow him on Twitter @paulsaurette.

IR4: Here There Be Dragons

From his vantage point, in the future more and more people can get involved in making things they really enjoy and can connect with others who share their passions and their products. These connections, he claims, are creating a new Industrial Revolution.

 

 

The Internet is a bit like Sid Meier's Civilization - a digital world mapped on top of the physical one with new realms to explore and other cultures to encounter.  There will be conflicts, competition and the e-equivalents of Guns, Germs and Steel.

But that won't be the whole story. 
 

This age of digital exploration will be both led and funded by a broader swath of individuals and groups than led the great Age of Exploration.  People's passions aren't just for conquest or products - there's a desire for meaningful contribution, as well. 

These explorers aren't just men seeking glory and fortune - they are people of varied gender and a multiplicity of backgrounds that are only possible in our increasingly blended world.  We just don't call them explorers anymore - today, they're called Social Entrepreneurs.

 

Their patrons aren't only governments bent on territories to conquest, financiers looking for new resources to exploit or churches looking for converts.  There are NGOs, Angel Investors and Conscious Capitalists who care more about leaving behind a positive legacy than what they can take for themselves.

 

In the Knowledge Economy, it's ideas we look to harness - not just the intellectual property that's out there right now and ripe for the picking, but the ideas that lie in the heads of innovators that can be extracted through incentive rather than force.  As we revisit the shrunken cultures of minorities devastated by Western expansion, we can look to the resources we missed when we focused on tree, wood, gold and labour - culture, myth, world views. 

 

There still be dragons in the blank spaces on our digital map - this time, they're not dangers to be feared, but opportunities to be harnessed.

 

Are Our Public Services At Risk?

 

“The value we bring to society is tremendous and we will continue to risk much for our cities and neighbourhoods. I dislike being in a position where I am defending our bargaining system in a public format,” he said.

 

This past week, a new addition was welcomed to our family; the professional medical care we received was top-notch, surpassed only by the human connection and empathy of the doctors, nurses and other specialists we encountered.  There was one surprise, though - on the Labour and Delivery floor walked a couple of penny-pinchers in suits carrying clipboards, looking over the medical staff's shoulders and discouraging supply use wherever possible.  The professionals we dealt with referred often to the pressure being placed on them to move patients out of the system as quickly as possible to reduce cost to the overall system. 

 

It's a theme I have come across many times in the past year or so - police officers confessing to personal and system strain due to an insufficient number of officers on patrol; obstetricians frustrated at the score of stories being circulated about the use of cosmetic Cesarean Sections, which is not reflective of their patient experiences at all; front-line service providers ranging from teachers to phone operators saying they need to put their foot down somewhere, because what is being demanded of them isn't long-term sustainable.

 

The arguments surfacing are all about money - the Political Right will decry well-heeled public servants living high of the taxpayer hog, due mostly to union interference.  The easy answer goes like this - kill the unions, roll back the extravagant wages and benefits of these police officers, paramedics, fire fighters, nurses, doctors, water inspectors, teachers, etc. and let the free market determine what their services are truly worth.  But truly, can you put a dollar value on preemptive social care?

 

I have also come across public servants who felt constrained from doing their work by the nature of the system in place.  When I was hit a number of months ago by a negligent driver, the officer who ended up with my case actively discouraged me from seeking justice, saying it would be a waste of time; he'd been through the ringer on similar cases countless times.  He sounded downright defeatist and professed a disturbing lack of faith in our justice system, seeing as how he was part of that system.  That wasn't the first or last time I have encountered front-line service providers who feel their efforts are often futile. 

 

It almost becomes a vicious circle - instead of serving a noble cause, front-line service providers come to accept they haven't enough fingers to plug all the holes in the dyke and instead look at their job as a pay cheque and try to get what they can from it; that's the trend being set up and down the social scale, after all.  As the economic watering hole shrinks, the haves are shoring up their interests at the expense of the have-nots who are beginning to believe that the cards are stacked against them.  It's wholly disheartening.

 

The same holds true for politics; the Party of Transparency has become as opaque as any in Canada's history, while the odd slip of a story of entitlement or cronyism, or perhaps down-right corruption, creeps through to an already-preoccupied public consciousness.  People are loosing faith in our public system; instead of the complete collapse that threatens in Greece, we instead face democratic death by a thousand cuts.  The pragmatic are hedging their bets and turning elsewhere than the polling booth to exert their influence and keep trouble from lapping at their shores.

 

Penny-pinching, service-hoarding, self-interest trumping social contributions - it's all very tragedy of the commons, all very feudal.  But it doesn't have to be that way.  The best public servants aren't in it for the money; it does a disservice to their contributions to think otherwise.  It's true that, given meaningful work, some food and regular acknowledgement, volunteers will work endless hours willingly on causes they believe.  The same can be true of public sector employees - if we provide decent wages and benefits, get that part out of the way, then add value to their work experience and provide the best environments for them to work in, we can motivate a whole new level of commitment, contribution, productivity and even innovation.

 

But we have to take a leap of faith to try this model out - there are few templates to follow.

 

I look at the emerging trends, then I look at the bright new face that greats me every day - and I wonder what sort of society he will inherit.  I hope that it will be a strong one.  That, after all, is what Canada should be about.