If Canada is to excel in the 21st century, political parties must be reformed and civil society engagement revamped.
Part 1 focuses on Canada’s need to break out of election-cycle thinking and transform our approach to national governance and public finances.
Contrary to the conventional wisdom, the Liberal Party did not lose the recent federal election; rather, it was missing in action.
If our national life is reduced to simply managing the economy and federal-provincial relations, not rocking the boat; if the provinces and courts become the default focal point of all serious moral debate; if we come together only in celebration at sporting events, and in grief over the casualties of war and environmental catastrophes, then we are losing the soul of our nation.
Our national government no longer governs for all Canadians as citizens of one great country, and refuses to address matters of national interest.
On October 30th, I joined a crowd of over 300,000 crammed on the National Mall in Washington D.C. to support the Rally To Restore Sanity sponsored by Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.
“Restoring citizens’ confidence in our political system must be the primary, if not the sole, focus of any responsible political party in the next general election.”
Good government in the 21st century is much less about sterile debates over levels of expenditure and much more about providing ethical leadership and establishing national priorities.
The bilateral Quebec-New Brunswick deal works against Canada’s responsibility to promote inter-provincial equity in the transmission of electricity across Canada and to the U.S., and to ensure that Canadians work together cooperatively to expand clean energy options.
We conclude 2009 with little achieved and much that is troubling. The government record can best be summarized as peeling the onion of conservative government initiatives, only to find….there is no onion.