Stumble by Design

"If intent is to plant a counter-narrative that Tory is racist, is getting everyone in the media to report tweet really a strategic stumble?"

If the intent is to stigmatise your opponent, make them look really bad in the eyes of the public then hey, not at all.  If winning is the only thing that matters to you, then yeah, take every shot at your opponent you can squeeze out.

Should your interest be to maybe do something about our democratic deficit, the muck-racking quality of our political debate and the increasingly bitter confrontations that are defining what should be civilised debates, carry on.

No one gets out alive.  Great leadership quality that, isn't it?

The Fall, The Fire and The Garden

But it remains the case that, in this as in other areas, we have vested far too much power in one man, with results we can now plainly see.

Lots of questionable actions in politics these days.  Lost of hasty decision made on narrow interests - go fast to go far, the message goes; win the race and it's too late for your opponents to do anything about it.  Victor, spoils, etc.

Every time that turns out not to be the case, vested interests dig their heels in a little harder, thrust out their elbows a little further.  The choices being made are increasingly selfish and, therefore, increasingly short-sighted.

What's the message that's coming across?

Several themes run through these: a contempt for civil liberties, for due process, for established convention, for consultation, for openness, replaced throughout by a culture of secrecy , control, expedience and partisan advantage.  Worse, there is virtually nothing anyone can do about it. All governments have displayed some of these traits.  If this government has pushed things further, it is because it can: because we have so centralized power in the Prime Minister's Office, with so few constraints or countervailing powers.

PMO has become the new Privy Council; the Prime Minister has replaced the Crown as the divine authority of the land.

It's a system that cannot work, is not working and given the complex, integrated nature of our challenges, will fall sooner or later.

I'm all for reparations, taking what we have and working patiently, collaboratively and structurally to make it work.  It's possible - just not easy.

People tend to prefer the quick and easy path - especially when they're angry.  We're increasingly frustrated; when that boils over, it won't be pretty.

But there will be no excuse, not at any level, for not having seen this coming.  

We can nurture the social garden, but only by committing sociology.  The alternative is brushfire.

Whatever path we choose, we're going to end up in the same place regardless.  Whether the journey is through fire or not is up to us; which is why it pays to look ahead.

Governments Should Not Be Comfortable with their Watchdogs

 

 

 

Mr. Clement ultimately “decided on someone he was comfortable recommending to the Prime Minister,” one source familiar with the selection process said. Mr. Harper approved and announced the pick last Wednesday.


Should the Prime Minister "be comfortable" with the professionals tasked with keeping an eye on the operations of government on the people's behalf?

If the PM is "comfortable" - does that not imply he/she will feel less, not more, likely to check their actions for transparency, ethics, etc.?

We've seen a trend that precedes team Harper but has drastically sped up under their watch.

Critics are silenced or threatened.  The actual organs of Canadian democracy - like Parliament - are seen as barriers between the Harper government and voters, rather than the people's mechanism for holding government to account.

Facts that counter the Harper Conservative's ideological bent are being buried, their collection halted. Watchdog positions are being stacked with individuals likely to fall in line, serving as "government spokespersons" rather than agents of accountability.  Anyone who calls this government to task, including Supreme Court Justices, is having their credibility attacked.

The Conservatives tell us they want to speak directly to Canadian voters; in practice, what this has really meant is that they seek an unfiltered, unchallenged conduit to get their message out.  At the same time, they have actively tried to suppress arguments and evidence that counter their message.

That's more in line with North Korea than it is with the principles of democratic governance.

North Korea, the hermit state, is famous for bad governance.  Their unbalanced, poorly considered (but unchecked) policy regimen has seen human catastrophes beyond measure.  The Kim's dynastic rule has increasingly relied on opacity, internal fear-mongering about the outside world yet threats to other states as leverage to get the goods they can't afford to buy.

Not a model I would think any sane Canadian government would want to ape.  What do I know, though - I'm not one of history's actors.

Ownership: Kathleen Wynne is a Leader with Balls

Here's Kathleen Wynne, using her own voice in an ad to take on the NDP.  While Leaders do this all the time when they know most people aren't paying attention - in Question Period, for instance, or during fundraiser speeches - how often is it we have a critical ad voiced by a Party's leader?

Not often.  Too often, our leaders want to steer clear of attaching their name to anything that takes a direct, repeatable poke at opposition.  

It's a known fact that people find attack ads distasteful, but that they are effective in negatively branding an opponent.  So, we get over-the-top ads like a mockery of Jean Chretien's facial paralysis, puffins pooping on Stephane Dion and Justin Trudeau "in over his head."

It's pretty inflamatory stuff.  Could you imagine any of these ads being made if they had to be voiced by the actual leader?  Nope.  Attack ads work in undermining opponents, but we find them distasteful coming from our statesmen and women.  

Which is why leaders steer clear.  Which is also why attack ads so frequently scrape the bottom of the barrel.

In her ad, Wynne sticks to the facts.  Of course, there's cherry-picking here - Horwath arguably didn't vote against the budget, she voted against the continuance of the Party - but that's as much a problem of voters demanding sound-bite simplicity as it is partisans spinning their message.

What Wynne doesn't do is imply Horwath is weak, dumb, ignorant, etc.  It's not about Horwath, it's about Horwath's positions.

I think that's fair.  The point of a campaign is to kick the tires on policies and capacities for implementation, plus hints at consequences.  Wynne is simply articulating her perspective on where a Horwath government would take Ontario.

It's absolutely true that Ontarians are looking for a change.  Asked by Ipsos Reid if it was 'time for another party to take over' 72% of Ontarians asked yes.  Not asked by Ipsos Reid, so far as I know, was any question about dissatisfaction with the way our system represents individual voices and concerns, period.  

Personally, I think Ontarians are ready for more than just a different coat of paint on an old system.  I think the change we long for is more structural in nature.

By taking some ownership over her message (and as a result, moving away from the angry sound-bite rhetoric people get so worked up about) Wynne is demonstrating a different kind of leadership than we're used to.

She's being open, directly, transparently about what she thinks.

In a cynical, go-for-the-throat political war zone run by back-room operators who love to attack people from a distance, that takes balls.

Will this approach be enough to make a dent over the short span of an election?  Maybe yes, maybe no.

Either way, though, this is the kind of leadership Ontarians want from all levels of government.

It won't happen all on its own, though.  If we want to empower our leaders to own their voices, as Wynne is doing, then it's time we start speaking up as well.

Get organized, get informed, get engaged - because when you do, you can make a difference.

Contempt in Parliament

Bisson said the drafting of the report can be done when witnesses for whatever reason fail to show up.

"It's pretty clear from the evidence that I've seen within all of the testimony and what I've read there is clearly grounds for contempt here.  Who is named in those contempt charges, what the penalties should be will be entirely up to the committee.

The committee, which consists of partisan MPPs following marching orders from their Centres.

It's pretty easy to understand what the opposition Parties want; they want to make the governing Liberals look at bad as possible.  Why?  To try and encourage voters who previously supported the Liberals to support them or even stay home.

Perhaps it's because folk like Bisson have been in office so long that they don't see the big picture here.

So far as everyone who isn't a partisan is concerned, political people are all the same.  The more one Party bends over backwards to make their opponents (individually or collectively) look like demons from hell, the more voters give up on the lot of them.

It's sad, because there are capable people in our Legislatures.  When they put their heads together, they're actually capable of coming up with good initiatives.  When it becomes about partisan wins, though, it's not about democratic accountability with a focus on shared solutions, it's about smear campaigns and wedge tactics.

There's a lot of contempt in Parliament these days - sadly, it appears to be directed at our system itself.

The Responsible Society

"Responsible journalism," as the Lords called their new defence, posited that if a journalist has taken reasonable steps to verify that a story is true, and has given the subject an opportunity to respond, he or she cannot be found liable for defamation, even if the story contains untruths.

I read this fascinating article on the parallel journeys of journalistic rights and responsibilities via the social catalyst that is Rob Ford.

The terms referenced in here - responsible journalism and responsible government really stood out, for obvious reasons.

As I find myself increasingly speaking on behalf of the Open Government movement and exploring how it is we've come to this particular crossroads of political/democratic accountability, I've peeled back the layers of history to really understand the foundations of our present.

Two plot points in particular seem to hold our particular narrative together - Magna Carta, which led to the first iteration of Parliament, and the introduction of the responsible government.

A responsible government is one where the Crown's Ministers are responsible to Parliament, rather than Parliament being accountable to the Crown.

As part of a presentation I do on the Open Government/Open Data movement I reference The Peaceable Revolution - the movement that started in Nova Scotia and served to bring responsible government to Canadian shores for the firs time.

This, I say with all the gravity I can muster, is our Magna Carta moment - our Peaceable Revolution starts now.

It's a good, dramatic line, but it's also one I believe.  Not as a punch line, but as a concise way of capturing our current reality - in Canadian politics, convention has trumped law and neither government nor Parliament are, in practice, responsible to Canadians.  

At the same time, I've been trying to put the emerging Canadian narrative (or more accurately next chapter in our tale) into a framework that makes sense.  This frame I've called the Conscious Society - I've also called it the Just Society Redux, because I see what's happening now as the socio-cultural child of Pierre Trudeau's Just Society.

Essentially, it's about agency, ownership and a shift in focus from the competition-oriented, isolationist and obstructionist model represented by Stephen Harper towards one that is solution-oriented, collaborative and progressive.  Put more simply, moving forward together leaving no one behind.

And yeah, not gonna lie - I smiled when I heard Justin Trudeau seemed to be picking up that torch, all on his own.

I've also called it the Healthy Society, because society is like an organism - a networked intelligence, if you will, that needs proper circulation to survive.  Economics, mental health crisis, democratic deficit - and all the solutions to these things - fit together into a neat narrative.  

Personally, I don't care what the branding is, but I understand communications enough to know why one is important; people need symbols, emotionally-connective tissue to turn abstract policy frameworks and social zeitgeists into, well movements - things they can be part of instead of told about.

As the picture comes into greater clarity, though, it's that word responsible and it's orbiting terms accountability and values that keeps popping up.

Responsible government - one that's accountable to Parliament for its choices, implying the need to make responsible ones.

Responsible journalism - less fettered rules, more personal responsibility for right intent and action.

Responsible communication - which, in fact, is just communication, instead of what we tend to do now (message and sell)

Consciousness is key (you can't be responsible if you don't know how your choices are being made) but there's a step that comes before that - ownership, which also implies a certain amount of trust.

Both are about being responsible.

Call it the Conscious Society, the Just Society Redux, the Responsible Society or any other variation you choose, the two emerging truths are this - the pendulum is swinging back to "we" and sustainability is about empowerment.

It begins now.

Stephen Harper: The Straw That Broke the Back of Responsible Government

Tell me if you remember any of these quotes from the 2008 Parliamentary crisis:

"Conservatives would go over the head of Parliament and of the Governor General." - John Baird, MP

"It's a kind of coup d'état." - Jean-Pierre Blackburn, MP

A coalition government would be "irresponsible and undemocratic." - Jim Prentice, MP

The Conservative government "will use all legal means to resist this undemocratic seizure of power." - Stephen Harper, MP

Please note the letters behind the names of each of these Ministers of the Crown - M for Member, P for Parliament.

Stephen Harper and his whole caucus are elected Members of Parliament.  It's by virtue of convention that, in Canada, the leader of the Party with a majority of seats in the House of Commons forms government.

By convention.  

By law - by our Constitution - whoever forms government is accountable to Parliament.  By law, the Prime Minister must be able to retain the confidence of Parliament, the people's elected representatives.  Government, legally speaking, is the Crown and her advisors - the Ministers of the Crown.

What we have now are the people's representatives who's job is to hold government to account being government, and keeping Parliament at bay.  It's as though the lawyers, the jury and the judge were all one and the same.  They aren't serving two masters in this fashion; they're strictly serving their own interests.

As I will be telling several Grade 10 classes today, a responsible government, that pillar of our Westminster Parliamentary/Constitutional Monarchy system that came out of Magna Carta, is one where government is responsible to Parliament - not citizens.  Citizens elect Parliaments, not governments.

Here's another gem of a quote for you: Stephen Harper responding to a reporter's comment that his government had been found in contempt of Parliament, to whom he is accountable:

"That was a Parliamentary motion, passed by the Opposition Parties.  That is not the substance of this election or what the Canadian public care about.  The Canadian public don't care about the maneuvers in Parliament and the wording of various motions."

Harper was probably right about that.  But that's a big part of the problem.

There is no legal mechanism by which Canadians can hold our government to account except through our elected Parliament.  When we disengage from how Parliament operates and focus strictly on government, we're essentially shutting the door on our levers of control.  Is it any wonder our current government is encouraging us not to care about Parliament?  Or putting the responsibility for electoral engagement strictly in the hands of partisan interests?  

First, you tell people not to care about their only means of holding government to account.  Then, you ensure that only partisan interests can promote voting - which they will do, but only to those they want to vote.  If that's not irresponsible and undemocratic, I don't know what is.

When we donate to Political Parties with a growing amount of money, we are essentially delegating the power that is constitutionally invested in our democratically elected Members of Parliament and giving it over to political operatives who are, at best, elected by partisans only - though most of them aren't elected at all.

Let's be clear - we, as Canadians, don't elect government - we elect Parliamentarians to hold government to account.  

Government is the employee, Parliament is the boss, we are the Board.

As Stephen Harper has increasingly consolidated power, he has done everything within his power to undermine Parliament and any body that is designed to hold government to account.  

He and his partisan team have gone above and beyond to attack and marginalize any and every Opposition leader in Parliament who has the job of holding government to account.

I'm less worried about whether Trudeau is "in over his head" - that's just a line, a message point crafted by un-elected PMO staff that is now being parroted by Conservative MPs that seem to be partisans first, the people's representatives second.

I''m more troubled by how this Conservative government is increasingly going over the head of every legal tool that exists to hold them accountable.

Because in the system of government we have right now, on paper and in practice, when government doesn't account to Parliament and Parliament answers to Political Parties, not citizens, then there is no accountability to Canadians at all.  

Unless, that is, you pay the price of admission and join a Political tribe.  But that wouldn't be very democratic, would it?

It's supposed to be the House of Commons, not the House of Partisans.  If access to the system comes at the cost of a Party membership, it's not democracy.

Team Harper aren't to blame for the gradual erosion of our Parliamentary democratic system - but it's quite possible they have broken it beyond repair.

It took Magna Carta and later, the English Civil War to deliver a responsible government; it may just be possible that we need something similar to give us the responsible democracy we both need and deserve.