Rolling Along to Common Ground

 

 

"The prime minister also asked ministers to rely on their departments for advice - that deputy ministers are part of their teams," say the minutes.

 

"In this regard, ministers' political staff will be smaller than in the previous government and should focus on political matters.  Ministers should use their departments for advice and support on policy issues."

 

Via Warren Kinsella - I may not always agree with his positions or intent, but I can always rely on him to bring good information to the table.

 

I just left a meeting with some social entrepreneurs working in the civic engagement space - there's a growing number of them.  These folk don't involve themselves much in the political process and don't work to get "ins" as an older generation of government relations folk have done. 

 

Instead, they have great relationships with civil servants. 

 

Some of these civil servants are rapidly becoming public superstars - through smarts, savvy social media use and all the sorts of presentation pieces one associates with politicians, the likes of Jen Keesmaat (@jen_keesmaat if you're on Twitter) are gaining followings and inspiring a new generation of movers and shakers.

 

I've got my own favourites, including a good many of the people involved in the Open Government/Open Data initiatives at all three levels of government.  Lots of social entrepreneurs, civic engagement groups and interested individuals do.  This is a new phenomenon and a growing trend.

 

Where does this leave politicians, the people who win votes and build their brand on being the superstars on our horizon?  Well, there's not a lot of love for politics these days, making it harder for brand success in the traditional way - the strongest leader with the best plan, the only one that knows what to do next.  Even political staff are increasingly in the headlines in ways that don't present a pretty picture of internal political culture.

 

Which is why the smart politicians are rebranding themselves more as stones in the soup then pinnacles of the command pyramid.  Instead of inflating themselves and creating false expectations of the people, these sorts of leaders are instead revisiting the process and putting power back in the hands of individuals and smaller business interests. 

 

Bureaucrats are part of the problem solution process and the writers/implementers of policy.  Civic engagement groups, unions, business associations and grassroots organizations are both problem owners and solution builders.

 

Politicians (and their staff) are conduits, making sure the right connections happen and the right ideas reinforced.  Yes to less government, but yes also to properly funded, efficient public services.  No to big Ministerial staffs, but yes to stakeholder engagement and even outreach to Opposition Parties.

 

It's the opposite direction of where too many political bosses are headed these days, doubling down on their almost demi-god status and upping their attacks on everyone who disagrees with them.  But it's the right one.

 

And, as Kinsella nicely reminds us, there's not even anything new about this trend.  History moves in cycles, with the occasional bad idea gaining traction for a bit before the wheel rolls back onto its progressive track.

 

Which brings me back to the chats I'm having with bureaucrats, politicians, political staff, community activists and those left completely outside the system.  Strong individuals for a strong society is everyone's ambition - and the only way we can reach this common destination is together.

 

The Senate: Political Hoarding

Under this system, especially, how can a political party resist the temptation to use its sitting senators - many of whom do have a bit of time on their hands, despite their backbreaking schedule - as human cash collectors?  Unless, that is, such obvious overlapping interests are banned?

Politics is about winning.  Winning is about numbers - number of dollars in the bank, number of memberships signed, numbers of votes cast. 

So everything done in the political arena is about increasing these numbers; countless fundraisers and fund-raising emails, attack ads to reduce competition numbers and photo-ops and phone calls to make people feel "touched" by a golden leader and relentless GOTV (which, oddly enough, is becoming increasingly narrow in its focus as the number of people voting, especially youth, declines).

Policy is equally about driving those three numbers - dollars, memberships and votes - and therefore are designed to create controversy, piss off opponents (resulting in attacks) and motivate one's base or potential coalitions to spend, sign and vote for you.

Somewhere in this mix is the democratic principle of constructive debate resulting in the best, furthest reaching policy decisions and yes, accountability of those in power.  But true accountability is about helping to keep government in check and encourage them to do better, which goes counter to politics - a healthy, adaptive government is bad news for Opposition Parties wanting to form government themselves.

So back to the core principles of attack, mobilize and mine.

This, more than anything, is why Senate Reform has been so problematic.  The Senate has become a great pantry for power; properly stacked they can block or ram through legislation, help raise funds and host countless partisan events designed to build brand and diminish the Opposition.

Yes, there are good people in the Senate and yes, the concept of a Chamber of Sober Second Thought does have its practical uses, but politics isn't practical, it's power-oriented.

Trudeau can and has come under all kinds of criticism for his disbanding of the Liberal Senate Caucus (or Senate Liberal Caucus); it's cruel and callous, it's bad politics, it's weakening his future hand should he become Prime Minister.

At the core, though - and whether intended or not - Trudeau's move is to divest the Liberal Party of excess holdings, untether Senators from partisan interests and get away, at least theoretically, from the deeply entrenched partisan divide that is increasingly crippling our country.

Could it have been handled better, or thought through with greater clarity?  Of course it could have.  All good things come in iteration; at least he's started.

I remain sceptical about how successful this initiative will be, as it has failed to take into account a whole host of behavioural economic principles.  Besides, we've just found out that our winter's going to drag on a bit longer and as we all know, winter is when hoarding is at its worst.

But at least he's trying.  That, at least, is refreshing.

Canada's Education Irony

 

 

Canada is world-renowned for its high-quality post-secondary education, with the University of Waterloo's engineering co-op program at its core.  In fact, the Waterloo area is also now home to the Perimeter Institute, a globally recognized leader in theoretical physics graduate studies and research.  And while Canada has always churned out top engineering talent, today it's also producing outstanding technical entrepreneurs.

 

Our country has an international reputation for producing highly-educated, innovative superstars in modern tech, industry and entrepreneurial spheres.  As companies like Google and Communitech have reshaped global connectivity and made oodles of cash doing so, you'd think we'd be hearing a lot more about this exciting and promising sector from Canada's government.

 

But we don't, do we?  Harper's signature economic piece has been the Oil Sands. 

 

Instead of promoting Canada's technological and educational expertise, Harper has focused on the Keystone pipeline, improving access to foreign markets for our natural resources and reducing the cost of and regulation commitment to labour so as to compete for the sorts of traditional manufacturing jobs that have migrated to Bangladesh.

 

Canadians (particularly young ones) are being told to give up big dreams, skip out on advanced education and focus on learning the sorts of trades-skills that can support them as they fill in supportive roles to the resource-driven economy that lines the pockets of foreign oil barons.

 

There's a dissonance here, of course, but don't count on our PM to be looking for it.

 

That would be a bit too much like committing sociology.

 

The Truths We Cling To

 

Six: it was cruel and callous.  In the "Senate Liberal" caucus, there are many hard-working and decent people. 

 

Politics has famously been described as a blood sport where loathing is considered a purifying force and stepping on opponents' necks is just the way the game is played.

 

But there must be honour among thieves, as it were - a shared chivalric code which all players of at least the same team hold to (or failing that, a code of silence).  Without such common ground there can be no loyalty and, as a consequence, neither accomplishment nor sustainability.

 

The implication of Kinsella's statement is that those Senators of the Liberal persuasion have earned better treatment from their Party than to be laid off from Caucus (which is what this is - nobody has been fired, the Liberals' Senate Caucus has just been disbanded). 

 

This is one of those matters-of-opinion things; a colluding Senate team and a House team has always led to tricky games being played and, if Trudeau is sincere about working to foster a less partisan Parliament, this isn't so bad.  Whether a less-partisan Hill can work these days is a completely different question with other fun considerations to consider.

 

Even with the cruel and callous Trudeau Plan, Senators still have far more income, clout and opportunity than most Canadians do - we don't have assistants, fancy offices or comfortable taxpayer-funded salaries. 

 

We also have never had anything resembling inside access to the backroom planning that informs Leaders' decisions; most people honestly believe that's what things like policy conventions and door-knocking are for. 

Some of us even believe that there should never have been partisan camps within the Chamber of Sober Second Thought.  If Independent Senators will bitterly work against former caucus colleagues instead of embracing the ethical clarity a post-partisan reality provides them, then they're not thinking soberly, are they?

 

It's a matter of debate if these Senators have been treated in cruel and callous fashion.  Legitimate arguments can be made for both sides with people, as they tend to do, finding every possible argument in favour of their own position and against that of someone else's. 

 

From Kinsella's point of view, it was cruel and callous to "let go of" hard-working team members who had been hard working team members for a while.

I don't remember hearing him raise similar concerns during the Great Staff Cull of 2011.

 

In 2011, he came within one seat - one seat! - of another majority government.  ... Instead, McGuinty seemed energized by the result, and looking forward to what lay ahead.

 

What immediately laid ahead, as it was clear that a minority status would require a significant truncation of staff, was to figure out what to do about all those existing staff who'd in some cases been with the McGuinty Liberal Team since the first term.  Not all of them could be brought back.

 

This was understood; many staff remained uncertain but hopeful.  By and large there were concerns among the ranks, who often felt like functionaries for the team rather than part of the team, of a Wilkinsonian approach. 

 

Suggestions were made that an appropriate staff-transition strategy could serve as a counter-weight to dismissals - a strategy that recognized the work of staff, practiced a bit of what Liberals tend to preach and also maintain positive relations with a host of loyal folk who might end up working in influential capacities, as often happens with former political staffers.

 

Such was not to be.  All staff were let go of and told to wait by the phone for the call back to work.  Dutifully, many hopeful people waited.  And waited.  And eventually their severance wore out and they realized no call would come, was never going to come.  They'd been left at the alter of unemployment and were now on their own.

 

To me, that was cruel and callous treatment (and no, I was not on either side of the decision process).  More than that, it was cowardly.

 

That's just me, though.  There are many leaders and organizers who see The Leader as infallible, the inner circle as Alpha Dominant and staff as hired help, rewarded through wages and clout who should recognize they are dispensable from the outset.  Loyalty is meant to flow up, never down.

 

Are paid Senators who retain everything except the ego-stroke of being in backroom conversations and who are forced to offer their policy or partisan ideas like any other Member of a Party (assuming, of course, they all have paid LPC memberships) being treated cruelly and callously?  Was it wrong to tell them of the inner team's decision after the fact?

 

Was it cruel and callous to lay off staff, give them the impression they'd be getting a phone call and then never following up, period?

 

I have long since learned not to expect consistency in the thought processes of political people.  You can't get ahead in a survival-of-the-fittest game without rationalizing cognitive dissonance at least some of the time.

 

As Obi Wan Kenobi stated a long time ago, "the truths we depend greatly on our own point of view."  If political people tend to be even more slavish to points of view than, say, evidence or best practice, that says as much about us as it does about them.

 

Key to this equation, naturally, is how we view people in relation to our own standing.

 

To know the world, take yourself out of the equation. 

By putting their teams after their mission and themselves always last, true leaders do this all the time.  Which is why they don't need to demand loyalty; it just comes naturally.

Fantino's Leadership Fail

"It was a set-up," Fantino said.  "The union exploited these folks and that to me is reprehensible."

So it turns out there is more than one side to this story, and now it has been reported.

I'd like to be baffled; I really would.  For a Minister (who has been accused of jigging his expenses) of a Party that has built it's entire brand around exploitation (Illegal Coalitions?  Dying MPs? Their own health policy as fodder for fundraisers?) is more than a bit rich.  Surely, this level of hypocrisy is unprecedented, shocking and something Team Harper would feel an urge to repent over.

But no - it's business as usual, just another day on the Hill.

Politics is all about simple, standardized and often-repeated messaging.  It's what politicians deliver and, sadly, it's all a great host of them are prepared to listen to.  If you get 20 different stakeholders each impacted by the same issue, but telling different stories, a Minister/their staff are liable to say "see, they all want different things, so there's nothing we can do here - it's status quo and let's move on."

So any advocacy group that is good at what they do works hard to speak the language of politics, which means standardized, oft-repeated messaging.  

The same goes for the fact that veterans had their tabs paid for.  This is all business as usual, too - I've been involved in many campaigns where individuals impacted by certain policies or who would gain from new ones were keen to participate in face-to-face meetings with government officials but couldn't afford the trip.  

As organizations behind such efforts are meant to support their "clients" or "members" it's a natural part of their mandate to facilitate such visits through subsidizing or covering travel and accommodation costs.  I'm going to be accompanying my grandfather, a World War II vet and Holocaust Survivor to a memorial service at the former Buchenwald Concentration Camp in Germany this April, paid for by the German taxpayer.  Is that a cynical manipulation or the fulfilling of a social responsibility?

Of course, Julian Fantino knows all this, as does Stephen Harper and every other politician on the Hill.  They will also be aware of the fact that many veterans are suffering from their policies and legitimately concerned about how they're being treated.

If Fantino truly put veterans' best interests ahead of partisan ones and truly believed his policy approach was the right one to take, as a leader you'd think it would be imperative for him to clearly demonstrate that respect and make the effort to empathize with these veterans and go to whatever lengths necessary to explain why he felt his approach was the best one.

Leaders don't decide, sell and defend - they discuss, decide and then do.

But that's not what happened.  Fantino showed up late - that wasn't the Union's doing.  Seeing that the people for whom he is, as Minister of Veterans' Affairs, responsible for were upset, Fantino could have sat down and given his guests the gift of his time and made it clear, in person, that he does care.  Such an approach would have undermined any manipulations by the union and demonstrated his clear intent to the veterans who were right there in front of him.

Instead, he got accusatory.

Now that this whole incident has become yet more fodder for the press - in addition to demanding the spouse of a soldier who committed suicide repay some of her disability cheque - Fantino had yet another leadership opportunity where he could have put the veterans first and focused on explaining why he felt his approach was correct.

Instead, he went on the attack, as his Party tends to do, dismissing the real emotions of the veterans themselves and instead focusing on blaming the Union.  By accusing the union of playing the vets as pawns, Fantino is doing the exact same thing.

Why?  Because he, as Minister, felt wronged and as such, felt compelled to defend himself.

This is not leadership.  The only time leaders put themselves first is when it's in the line of fire.  

It shouldn't have mattered what the union's intent was; he is Minister, not them.  It has always been in his power to be the leader instead of a player, but it's not to be.  

Frankly, there aren't many leaders on our political landscape at all; everyone is content to play the rules and cut corners in the partisan game that has led to the decline of Canadian democracy.

There's a reason why Canadians are so cynical about our politicians, and this is it.  

I'd say Fantino should be ashamed of himself for failing to live up to the responsibility of his office, but it would be a waste of breath.

We don't do shame or responsibility in Canadian politics any more.  

But we desperately need to.  Responsible, democratic governance is what our veterans have fought to defend. 

Time Will Tell

Warren Kinsella disagrees with Trudeau's disbanding of the Senate side of the Liberal Caucus.  

Every point he makes in his disagreement is absolutely accurate, except one; former Liberal Senators aren't exactly being kicked to the curb, which in my mind (and I'm sure that of many Canadians) would imply a loss of employment, income and office (hence the curb).  Senators are Senators and these folk are still pulling in far more than the vast majority of us.

Beyond that, though, the Tory Senators would work to block legislation, allowing the Conservative Party (and the NDP) to portray Trudeau as a weak leader, etc.  Party loyalists probably do feel let down; they may not be on the street, but their clout and status have certainly been curbed.  Plus, there are countless logistical bugs that could cause problems down the road and that, guaranteed, Conservative operators are working out for future use.

If Trudeau wants to strengthen his political brand, ensure his agenda gets rammed through and entrench the Liberal Party, this was a poorly conceived play from the outset.

There is a chance, however, that those aren't Trudeau's goals.  I don't know him any more than  anyone else so can't claim an insider's perspective on his thought process, but he could feel his personal brand and the scope of his vision are enough to carry weight with Canadians beyond traditional politics.  

Delusional?  Maybe, but so is thinking that you should be Prime Minister.  Politics is all about delusions.  That and/or paranoia.

What's at issue, in my mind, is less whether Trudeau is playing skillfully within the traditional frame of the political game; the question is whether the people of Canada are so fed up with the failures of the system as it stands to attribute any partisan plays in favour of the status quo as transparently crass and contemptible.

In this sense, Trudeau's popularity may work against him - if he wins and everyone gets an oxytocin high, they may soften on their disdain for the political status quo and willingness to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

I remain convinced that the War Room politics that has dominated Canada for decades is drawing to a close, brought as it has been by Team Harper (and worse, Rob Ford) to a point beyond which it can't go much further and still mask itself as democratic.  

Of course, Team Trudeau has been schooled in politics-as-usual by folk like Kinsella himself; whether they've got the bandwidth to veer so far into new territory in a structurally sound way is anyone's guess.

If we're at that tipping point quite yet, though, who knows.  As the US Declaration of Independence so wisely observes, "mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."  

It's basic behavioural economics of the burning platform; change is uncertain, better the devil you know than the one you don't, until it's too late.

Are we there yet?  We'll know soon enough.

The Responsibility of Leadership

I categorize the way kids view you as something you owe.

I like this, a lot.  If you choose to pursue a career in the spotlight, it's like choosing to be a police officer.  Yes, you are a human being and are allowed to be a human being, but at the same time as soon as you put on a uniform, assume a mantle or become an icon, the essence of what you are is infused with the emotional investment made by your constituents or fans, both of whom, ultimately, are the people you serve.

Particularly in the dopamanic, intrusive age in which we live, it's very hard to draw the line between what's acceptable and what's not from people in positions of power and influence.  If it's strictly a peer-competition thing, you end up with a gradual weakening of the concept as people seek new ways to undermine others or raise their own start just that little bit further.

Like driving a car or a bus, the greater the power you wield and the more people are impacted by it, the greater becomes your responsibility to be mindful of the consequence of your actions.  I would be more forgiving of the digressions of a depressed, unemployed 20 year old than I would those of an elected Chief Magistrate. 

So how do you put a floor underneath responsibility of leaders and icons to the people?

Ask yourself if you could, in good conscience, look a seven year old in the face and say "when you're my age you should feel comfortable living your life just as I do."  

Then surround yourself not with people who will have your back and clean up your messes, but remind you of your responsibility and support your ability to fulfil it.