This is the final part of a three-part series that discusses Canadian citizens’ dissatisfaction with politics as usual. Part one dealt with the importance of refocusing on public services in the midst of government dysfunction. Part two proposed the creation of an accountable and dynamic council that facilitates coordinated action between all levels of government. This final part discusses the changing role political parties and civil society must play if we are to truly solve the democratic deficit in this country.

To reverse the public disengagement from our political institutions, political parties and civil-society groups must take dramatic steps to rethink their roles, structures, and operations, taking responsibility for promoting the concerns and aspirations of Canadians.

Canadian politics will continue to be organized around political parties for the foreseeable future. Political parties are still necessary as vehicles for addressing societal conflict and reconciling competing interests into differing but coherent visions for society. It would be wrong to think that we can give up on political parties altogether and rely only on issue-specific engagement in civil society. But the old ideological divisions among Conservatives, Liberals, and New Democrats — the old 20th century conflicts between the state and markets, big or small government — no longer define the political landscape. Twenty-first century politics are much less ideological, and much more idiosyncratic and dependent on character, leadership, and the ability to project a long-term vision that resonates with the electorate.

Political parties can no longer rely on a dedicated grassroots base to mobilize voters. Between elections, political parties and their agendas no longer find any resonance with the public, which is inundated with far more interesting and fulfilling opportunities to participate in building their communities or world through their social networks. Our age of instant communications and social media demands that political parties become accessible to everyone.

Each party will live or die by its ability to project principle and purpose — a coherent vision of the kind of country and society we are building together — and to respond to the aspirations of Canadians by establishing over-the-horizon goals. To this end, the party must continually develop practical policy positions that are accessible (see, for example, U.S. President Barack Obama’s online platform). At the same time, the party must actively reach out to the disparate civil-society coalitions on an ongoing basis and then, during an election, attempt to persuade them to mobilize their respective followers to support a particular party’s candidates.

In the past decade, some positive steps have been taken toward building more open and inclusive political parties. All major parties at the federal level have now embraced a universal vote of the membership to choose their leaders — a vast improvement over the old convention system that excluded the majority of party members, to say nothing of those outside the party. Corporations and unions can no longer dictate terms to the parties through their superior-donor clout. But parties have a long way to go if they wish to halt their precipitous decline in relevance.

One area that needs urgent improvement is the party’s ability to present authentic and committed candidates during an election. Parties must reform their nomination procedures to present candidates who are accepted by the electorate in individual ridings, rather than just the choice of a party machine. Riding associations would establish mechanisms to vet all potential candidates for basic suitability only. Their primary responsibility then consists in establishing as widespread a debate as possible among potential candidates, in as many local venues as possible — from coffee houses to pubs to community centres. Every voting resident of the riding should then be able to cast a mail-in ballot for the candidate of his or her choice via a transferable vote (wherein voters rank their top three choices). The result will be a candidate who is not only known to the electorate, but who also owes allegiance to the people who elected him or her, and not to a party machine or an unrepresentative group of paid-up party members. These reforms that promote open and unrestricted community engagement in the nominations of national candidates must be complemented by reforms at the parliamentary level that reign in the excessive power of the office of the prime minister and party leader that has allowed a small clique of party loyalists to sidestep legislative oversight and reduce members of Parliament to little more than parliamentary eunuchs.

In tandem with this transformation of political parties, the role and operations of civil-society groups will also fundamentally change. In moving to the centre of the political process, the role of civil-society groups during elections should no longer be restricted to sending predictable questionnaires to party members and candidates, and getting back equally-predictable responses. Civil-society groups now have potential to influence the direction of politics and shape the public agenda. They must expand their activism to encompass everything from the nomination of candidates by political parties, to the identification of key election issues, to endorsing appropriate candidates during an election. The changing role of civil-society groups will require a relaxation of severe restrictions on the advocacy of organizations that are entitled to charitable tax status. Dr. David Suzuki’s decision to endorse Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty’s green energy initiatives is an excellent example of civil-society leaders asserting their power more effectively to influence the political process.

At the national level, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Conservative party are currently much closer than any other party to mastering party politics in the 21st century. The Conservative party is able to rely on narrowly-based groups — anti-gun control, anti-immigration abuse, anti-tax, pro-monarchy — to mobilize a critical base of voters, whose membership is also a dependable source of revenue, on election day.

What wins elections in this cynical era of disengagement is the ability to deliver votes at the margin. The main political party positions and platforms are so similar that election campaigns become very character-focused, and in these races, the ability to mobilize narrow coalitions determines the outcome.

With almost 40 per cent of the electorate sitting out the recent federal vote, the Conservatives mobilized supporting coalitions to achieve a decisive majority, while neither the Liberals nor New Democrats could similarly mobilize the far greater number of progressive Canadians involved in a wide-range of civil-society groups.

Canada is at a critical juncture. Our environmental, economic, and social challenges require nothing less than a rewriting of the social contract that has sustained our democracy since the Second World War, and a transformation of our political institutions to restore representative democracy, and principled, responsive government at all levels. The increasing number of both aging Canadians who have contributed to the debt, infrastructure, and sustainability crises we now face, and younger, under- and un-employed Canadians struggling to believe that a better quality of life is still possible, must work together to restore a shared sense of justice, fairness and balance, and to assure a world of expanded opportunities for all Canadians. A revamping of political parties and a more engaged role for civil society could go a long way to bring the focus of political life back to long-term rather than the short-term manipulation of power by those who view Canadians as simply self-absorbed taxpayers and consumers.

Over and over, Canadians have demonstrated the ability, far better than our leaders, to pull together to protest injustice and seek ways to strengthen our social fabric and collective commitment to build what can be one of the great nations of the 21st century. The time is long overdue for bold and imaginative leadership, committed to restoring our confidence in our ability to manage change, and ensuring all Canadians are fully engaged in building an exciting sustainable future for our children and grandchildren.

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Originally published by The Mark News and Huffington Post.

This is part two of a three-part series that discusses Canadian citizens’ dissatisfaction with politics as usual.Part one dealt with the importance of refocusing on public services in the midst of government dysfunction. Part two will focus on reforming intergovernmental relations to become more responsive to citizens.

Canadians are disengaged from political processes because Canada’s political institutions and leadership are no longer accountable and responsive to their needs. This arises as much from the marked trend toward governing by executive decree (while sidestepping transparent legislative oversight) as from the dysfunctional and opaque terms of relations between various levels of government. In order to address the resulting confusion and alienation that citizens feel, one step we should consider is the establishment of a Canadian council of governments designed to facilitate the constructive and open collaboration of all levels of government — federal, provincial/territorial, municipal, and Aboriginal. (A similar council was established in Australia in 1992.)

The proposed council would be chaired by the prime minister, and would comprise provincial premiers, territorial leaders, the head of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, and Aboriginal leadership. The council’s role would be to initiate, develop, and monitor the implementation of policy reforms that are of national significance, and that require coherent co-operative action by Canadian governments.

There are many areas in which this co-ordinated action, and the shared efforts of multiple jurisdictions, would benefit Canadians: infrastructure, public transit, environmental protection and climate change, energy, health, education and training, housing, Aboriginal concerns, early childhood development, economic union and labour mobility, immigration, and disaster planning. But the focus of the council’s deliberations and ensuing intergovernmental agreements would be those issues that require a coherent national response, or major initiatives of one or more governments that impact other jurisdictions. With respect to the latter, consider the federal government’s abolition of the Canada Wheat Board, its foreign-investment decisions, its goals for prisons expansion, etc. With respect to the former, the council could finally promote serious progress on a wide range of matters of national concern: establishing a national carbon price to underpin serious efforts to address climate change; creating an infrastructure financing authority to facilitate raising the billions of dollars required to upgrade our crumbling infrastructure; restructuring equalization payments to more effectively address the disparity of public services across the country; reforming our health-care system to establish more comparable services from province to province; and co-ordinating reforms to the essential elements of Canada’s social-security system, from pensions to Employment Insurance.

Furthermore, the proposed council could provide an invaluable forum to coordinate intergovernmental discussions of issues arising during negotiations of international treaties and other agreements (such as the Canada-EU Economic and Trade Agreement), allowing other levels of government to contribute constructively on matters of interest to them — from supply management to government procurement. The council could also monitor levels of national, provincial, and municipal debt to prevent debt crises from emerging in Canada as they recently have in Europe.

It would be a mistake to assess the value of such a council through the worn-out lens of federal-provincial conflicts of the past, fought over the degree of centralization of power. The council would have no impact on the division of legislative powers in Canada, and would require no constitutional reform. The council’s role would simply be to facilitate co-ordinated and collaborative action across governments, encouraging consensus in decision-making processes.

With transparent operations conducted by a well-structured secretariat, and regular meetings (perhaps on a quarterly basis), the proposed council would allow a positive dynamic to emerge. The focus on intergovernmental collaboration would bring more direction and coherence to governance, restoring government transparency and accountability to Canadians. Council meetings would provide Canadians with a prominent point of engagement between elections, in which they could articulate public concerns, protest inaction, and engage constructively in the political process.

This council would undoubtedly be a more effective forum than the existing ad hoc First Ministers conferences (which are only held when it is convenient for the federal government), and the dysfunctional Council of the Federation (which includes only provincial/territorial governments). Unlike these existing structures, the proposed council would fundamentally change the political dynamic in Canada for the better by addressing a primary source of public frustration and cynicism with the current system: the inability of different levels of government and their leadership to come together constructively, and to collaborate on measures that serve the long-term concerns and interests of all Canadians.

In part three of this series, I will discuss the changing role political parties and civil society must play if we are to truly solve the democratic deficit in this country.

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Originally published by The Mark News and Huffington Post.

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Although it is too early to determine what impact, if any, the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement and its various offshoots will have on politics as usual in Canada or elsewhere, one thing is now clear: We are reaching a crisis point in governance and representative democracy in Canada. Predictably, abysmal voter participation in recent elections has been met by the usual angst over public apathy. However, OWS and other vigorous civil-society groups would seem to demonstrate that citizen disengagement from our formal political processes is not the result of a lack of interest in constructive public action on critical issues, but is, rather, a reflection of our alienation from an increasingly dysfunctional ingrown political system. Citizens are disengaged not from society, but from political institutions that produce neither inspiring leadership nor effective governance suitable for our time.

Almost 150 years ago, the Fathers of Confederation improbably, courageously, and creatively came together to create a federal system of governance that would guarantee a Canada distinctive in North America. Now, in the more complex, interconnected world of the 21st century, our population has grown to be one of the most dynamic and diverse in human history, outward-looking and globally connected, but no less committed to strengthening Canada’s distinctiveness — this time in the world, not just North America. Yet governance in Canada remains stubbornly mired in old structures and debates, frequently drifting without clear purpose, and remarkably inaccessible and out of touch with its citizens.

Instead of government “by, for, and of the people,” conducted in open, accountable, and legislative forums, we increasingly have government by executive decree that seems to focus on serving narrow partisan interests rather than the principled public interest. In Canada, this trend is magnified by the dysfunction in the sharing of power among all levels of government — national, provincial, municipal, and Aboriginal — which stymies any serious progress on critical issues. As I have described before, billions of dollars pour into the black hole of intergovernmental relations every year with virtually no public scrutiny or legislative accountability — and no real sense that progress is being made in areas of public concern such as the environment, infrastructure, jobs and investment, health care, and pensions.

Governance in the 21st century — in our age of instant communications and social media — is in need of complete transformation. The trend toward executive rule has irrevocably undermined basic liberal democratic values of the rule of law, equal respect for all citizens, and the accountability and transparency of government. All this is compounded by citizens’ inability to clearly identify the responsibilities of different levels of government for public action or inaction.

The federal government, in particular, provides no leadership to encourage the collaboration of provincial, territorial, municipal, and Aboriginal governments to ensure that they can deliver acceptable levels of public services to Canadians. Instead, too many initiatives at the national level, from tax measures and debt reduction to criminal law, are undertaken with little consideration of their broader impact. A case in point is the two per cent cut off the GST (love it or hate it), which had a huge impact on government budgets and, by extension, services to the general public during the worst recession in modern memory. (Coincidentally, the $12 billion in federal funding lost every year as a result of the GST cut is equal to the cost, estimated by the National Council of Welfare in 2007, of lifting every Canadian out of poverty.)

It should not be at all surprising that citizens no longer believe the political system can deliver honest, effective government or govern in the long-term public interest. Just ask the unemployed and underemployed, who desperately need co-ordinated measures from all levels of government, including innovative policies to expand credit to businesses so as to create jobs, restructured Employment Insurance, and improved training opportunities at community colleges to prepare workers for the skilled jobs (like technical engineering services) that are available. Ask the Nortel pensioners who not only discovered that their pensions were catastrophically underfunded, but also that pension insurance from province to province was inadequate or non-existent, and federal bankruptcy law terribly outdated. Ask the parents of children with autism, who are unable to demand greater comparability in relevant health services across Canada. Ask low-income families and individuals living on the margin who find that small increases in precarious employment income can trigger devastating reductions in essential housing or other benefits.

In seeking more effective ways to express their concerns and dissatisfaction, citizens have also given up on political parties, which are now considered, like the governments they underpin, to be ineffectual and out of touch, with agendas dictated by party machines rather than the public interest. New public spaces are therefore emerging for more-fulfilling citizen participation. Civil society groups are now much more effective than our traditional political parties in shaping the public debate – whether local, national, or transnational. Occupy Wall Street (and its offshoots) is simply a more diffusely organized example of a new channel for citizen angst and frustration with the political system.

If we hope to address this dysfunction and disengagement, we must begin by creating a new public space in which government executives can find solutions, ways to compromise, and common ground. In a federal system like Canada’s, it is crucial that all levels of government recognize their collective responsibility to Canadian citizens and the national interest, and that they get out of their jurisdictional silos and collaborate with other governments on urgent collective goals that will determine our quality of life in the years ahead. For most ordinary citizens just struggling to get by, the complexity of intergovernmental relations and shared responsibilities is overwhelming. How can citizens have any real impact on public policy if it is unclear what the responsibilities of each level of government are, and if it is so easy for one level to simply pass the blame for any inadequacy to another?

In part two of this series, I will offer a detailed proposal of how we might reform inter-governmental relations in a way that makes our government understandable and accountable to the most pressing concerns of its citizens.

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Originally published by The Mark News and the Huffington Post.

In this series, I have been writing about Canada’s inability to set clear, long-term national goals against which to measure our success in a number of key policy areas. Nowhere has this been more true than with aboriginal Canadians.

The fact that the plight of aboriginal Canadians still has to be singled out for special attention in the early 21^st century conclusively demonstrates the urgent need for outside-the-box thinking and new institutional structures to support good governance. We have to move beyond the occasional bursts of outrage over news reports citing that extensive federal expenditures on aboriginal education appear to have produced no discernible improvement, that aboriginal healthcare is sub-standard and housing conditions have worsened , that incarceration and suicide rates among aboriginal Canadians are shockingly high, and that nearly 40 per cent of water systems on native reserves pose high levels of risk.

Chief of the Assembly of First Nations Shawn Atleo’s proposal to do away with the Department of Aboriginal Affairs and the dysfunctional legislative framework of the 1876 Indian Act is encouraging. This would mean that band councils would be primarily responsible to their citizens, rather than to the minister of aboriginal affairs. Aboriginal communities would establish new governance entities and assume responsibility for the long-term management of their local economies and the efficient and effective delivery of services to aboriginal Canadians.

But while repealing the Indian Act is a good step, a comprehensive framework providing consistency in the structures and operations of aboriginal governance entities is also required. Too much internal fragmentation will undermine the collective effectiveness of aboriginal governments in justifying the extensive fiscal transfers and other investments required to bring public services and the standard of living of aboriginal Canadians to acceptable levels.

New fiscal-transfer arrangements should be collectively negotiated with the federal government, while maintaining the shift of responsibility to aboriginal governments. It is important that we reduce the amount of back-and-forth red tape that currently exists between bands and federal bureaucrats, as it obscures accountability. These fiscal-transfer arrangements would be managed openly and accountably through the proposed arm’s-length national commission, which would also be responsible for other intergovernmental transfers such as health, education, social services, and equalization.

Furthermore, the proposed Canadian infrastructure financing authority would be responsible for leveraging the investment needed to advance high-quality infrastructure for aboriginal communities, just as it would do for the rest of Canada. Our federal leaders would be held accountable for our clear national commitment to provide equal opportunities and an acceptable standard of living for all aboriginal Canadians, and would have to be vigilant in ensuring that aboriginal governments’ expenditures were effectively devoted to this end.

To conclude this series on the urgent need to address the serious crisis of confidence in national governance, it is crucial to note that we are neither as difficult a country to govern, nor as complicated a people, as our politicians would have us believe. Despite the fact that Canada has 13 provinces and territories, six time zones, three oceans, and many languages, religions, and ethnic and national origins, Canadians have much in common. We are Canadians without borders – citizens from everywhere, with links to many countries and global networks that are enormously valuable economically, socially, and politically. And we are all contributing to a vibrant and youthful diversity that will sustain us for generations to come. The world is still a collage – plural, fragmented, a random collection of cultures, origins, and perspectives. Canada is where the collage becomes a coherent dynamic whole with a collective commitment to the best of universal values: equality, justice, the rule of law, fundamental rights and freedoms, and non-discrimination.

We are building a unique multi-ethnic liberal democracy that can be an inspiration to a world troubled by religious and sectarian friction. But we will fail to realize our potential as a great nation if our federal leaders continue to cast national politics as a boring, outdated struggle between supporters of smaller government and less spending, on the one hand, and bigger government and more spending, on the other – between supporters of private-sector initiatives and public initiatives; conservative values and liberal or socialist values. Such arguments are seriously out-of-sync with the rhythm of our times.

Good national government in the 21^st century is much less about sterile debates over the size of government and levels of expenditure, and much more about providing ethical leadership, both nationally and internationally, and establishing firm national priorities across the full spectrum of issues that demand national attention. Going forward, we need creative and innovative ideas for governance and the management of public finances, and for new institutional structures designed to ensure a long-term focus – one that goes beyond the next election. We require new public spaces for citizen participation to facilitate solutions, compromise, and common ground on critically important issues and concerns.

Above all, we need to remind our national leaders that their job is to increase, not diminish, our internal strength and global potential, and that we are stronger when we act together. Together, we can restore coherent national leadership at home, and a clear Canadian voice on the world stage.

Originally published by The Mark News and Huffington Post Canada.

I have been writing, lately, about our political leaders’ debilitating short-term vision, and the absence of clear, over-the-horizon national goals for the country. In Part 2 of this series, I suggested ways to establish and achieve those goals, and restore confidence in the value of public action, in relation to renewing our national infrastructure. Here, I will address another area where Canada has lagged shockingly: the development of a sustainable national energy strategy.

The federal government continues to be missing in action when it comes to issues of the environment and green energy; as of yet, no meaningful national goals or objectives have been set forth. Provincial constitutional responsibility for “natural resources” has emerged as a convenient excuse for the federal government to abdicate responsibility for a clear matter of national concern: to ensure all Canadians have reasonably comparable access to green energy and a clean environment. In doing so, the government chooses to ignore the fact that the Supreme Court of Canada has long confirmed federal government jurisdiction over matters of national and international concern when it comes to the environment. The result is a dysfunctional patchwork of provincial initiatives and global condemnation of Canada for contributing nothing significant to global efforts to address climate change.

The federal government’s abdication of responsibility with respect to the environment and green energy is all the more surprising in light of the fact that prominent private-sector leaders in the oil, gas, pipeline, energy retail, and electricity industries have called for clear and consistent national policies – such as an economy-wide price on carbon – to facilitate and guide their investments.  What is needed, in their view, is a clear statement of Canada’s interests and objectives with respect to energy; clear national regulations; infrastructure investments; and even immigration and education policies – all of which amount to a national strategy to help corporations map out an energy-development agenda and prioritize initiatives, including research and development, and training.

A July meeting of federal and provincial energy ministers, ostensibly called to discuss a “national energy strategy,” ended in predictable disarray. The federal minister of natural resources had nothing to contribute, and made no discernible impact on the conversation. The absence of any direct input from the equally anemic minister of the environment confirmed the national government’s disinterest in the process. A few days later, there was more of this inconclusive talk at the annual meeting of premiers and territorial leaders (the pretentiously named Council of the Federation, completely unrelated as it is to the federal government). All things considered, Canadians can be forgiven for not having the slightest clue as to what our elected national representatives intend to do.

Ontario’s premier objected to Ontario tax dollars going to support the Alberta oil and gas industry, demanded more support for his province’s green-energy initiatives, and strongly disagreed with a communiqué’s reference to the questionable concept of “responsible and sustainable development of the oil sands.” The Saskatchewan premier claimed not to understand what Ontario was going on about, since Ontario now receives $2 billion in equalization payments from the other provinces. He then described a national energy policy as merely “combining the efforts of the provinces, Ottawa, and the industry into deliberations about transportation, regulation, environmental issues, as well as marketing or branding” (whatever that means).

Quebec’s minister of natural resources insisted that, while some national collaboration might be desirable, energy is a provincial competence: She pointed out that Quebec already has its own strategy emphasizing hydro, wind, and energy efficiency, and indicated that any involvement from Ottawa was not welcome. Moreover, she argued, since Hydro-Québec built all its own transmission (and other hydro) infrastructure, Ottawa should not be supporting other provinces’ hydro projects, such as Newfoundland’s Lower Churchill development.

Finally, Alberta’s energy minister defended “responsible and sustainable development of the oil sands,” and reminded other provinces that equalization payments depend on revenues from Alberta’s oil and gas industry.

Despite the desperate need for bold national leadership to rise above this dissonant cacophony of provincial voices and ensure concrete progress towards Canada’s green-energy future, the federal government remains content to muddle along, making ad hoc one-off deals with provinces – a loan guarantee for the Lower Churchill development here, a contribution to the Old Harry oil and gas development in the St. Lawrence there – and establishing toothless, window-dressing-only, regulations of oil-sands development that fail to address habitat destruction, air and water pollution, and greenhouse-gas emissions. This is not good enough.

Canadians are left completely in the dark in terms of the national purpose served by any of these initiatives and expenditures, with no effective means of holding the national government accountable for monies sucked into the black hole of federal-provincial fiscal relations, and no national goal (such as establishing Canada as a leading green-energy power by mid-century) to guide us. This national incoherence stands in stark contrast to the many individual Canadian researchers and businesses that are out front as real innovators in green technologies, and that would benefit from clear and consistent public leadership and investment.

Canadians must directly challenge this incoherence. We have to demand that our national leaders establish ambitious national goals and long-term objectives designed to build stronger ties among Canadians rather than attenuate them, beginning with forward-thinking policies on the environment and energy. Among other things, this could include integrating matters of energy, natural resources, and the environment in a new department more reflective of our 21^st-century challenges, and providing a single minister with a clear mandate to pursue national goals relating to green energy and sustainable living. (The current cabinet committee on Economic Prosperity and Sustainable Growth that ostensibly includes “environment and energy security” among its concerns has a mandate so vague as to be meaningless.)

To ensure real accountability for clear national goals and objectives in areas involving intergovernmental co-operation, we must also establish a new institutional framework for federal-provincial fiscal transfers, such as a permanent non-partisan advisory commission (similar to the Commonwealth Grants Commission in Australia. Such a commission would manage all federal transfers and report regularly to Parliament through a dedicated committee of the House of Commons or Senate that has real powers to influence government policy and expenditures. Federal contributions to provinces and other levels of government would be more transparent and subject to public scrutiny to ensure consistency with national goals, and would respond to the best interests of individual Canadians, rather than to the demands of provincial/territorial leaders or political gamesmanship.

The billions of dollars in equalization payments require particular attention: They have become almost completely unhinged from any principled goals of greater equality of public services across Canada, and currently operate in an alternate universe only rarely understood, even by experts. Establishing national objectives, such as the development of a long-term energy strategy, is a priority. A restructuring and rethinking of equalization payments is a promising mechanism by which we might re-orient the national agenda away from its current fractured, regional focus.

In the next, and final, piece in this series, I will look at our frustrating inability to achieve meaningful improvements in the lives of aboriginal Canadians.

Originally published by The Mark News and Huffington Post Canada.

In Part 1, I wrote about the need for long-term and transparent commitments in areas of public policy where Canada has stagnated, and where the national government has fallen into a pattern of reaction rather than action. I highlighted how our national leadership has failed to offer a coherent narrative that transcends regional interests and divisions, losing the confidence of Canadians in turn. Here, I will address one of these areas in greater detail: our crumbling infrastructure.

Recently, two major transportation arteries in Montreal have been disrupted because of partial structural collapses involving the Champlain Bridge and the Viger-est tunnel. These events are only the tip of the iceberg in terms of crumbling bridges, tunnels, roads, and sewers, and inadequate municipal transit and water-purification systems across Canada. Because of our neglect and lack of foresight, the massive physical infrastructure deficit is now conservatively estimated (by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities) at $100 billion. The investment funds needed to upgrade to 21^st-century standards and ensure our competitiveness are now well beyond what the private sector can supply, and what current taxpayers could reasonably contribute to public action by way of increased taxes.

To avoid locking our children in a financial straitjacket and making them suffer through debilitating and preventable catastrophes, we must consider new institutional arrangements for long-term financing of infrastructure. For example, we could establish a Canadian Infrastructure Financing Authority to build advanced energy, transportation, and information platforms, similar to the bipartisan proposal currently before the U.S. Senate.

The authority would be owned and operated by citizens, not shareholders. Debt would not be sold to investors, and funds would not be allocated through federal grants and formulas. Instead, with a significant one-time infusion of funds from the national government, the authority would operate much like the World Bank and international regionally-based development banks; it would extend targeted loans and limited loan guarantees to viable projects that will be financially sustainable over time after receiving initial start-up money. Examples include toll roads, energy plants that collect user fees, a port that imposes fees on goods entering or leaving the country, etc. The aim would be to get private capital now.

An authority structured in this way would be able to mobilize large amounts of private capital in pensions, private equity, sovereign funds, and other funds to move into much-needed infrastructure projects so essential to sustainable long-term economic growth. To ensure clear accountability to Canadians for the commitment to build and maintain our national infrastructure to the highest, most-advanced, standards, the authority would regularly report to Parliament. It would be led by a non-partisan board of directors with impeccable ethical standards and relevant credentials, and a CEO appointed by the government but subject to confirmation by a reformed senate.  Members of the authority’s administration could appear, on a periodic basis, before a powerful committee of the House of Commons or Senate that would be dedicated to the national government’s infrastructure responsibilities, and that would have real powers to influence government policy and expenditures.

Building and maintaining world-class infrastructure will require bold action from our national leaders. The establishment of an Infrastructure Financing Authority would serve as a valuable first step towards making the federal government accountable to this pressing national priority.

In the next article in this series, I will suggest a fresh approach to pursuing the national interest in another critical policy arena where we have been failing badly: the development of a national environmental and energy strategy.

Originally published by The Mark News and Huffington Post Canada.

Unnoticed in the heat of an all-too-short Canadian summer, with Parliament shuttered for an extended recess, the business of the nation quietly continues under the radar. Occasionally, a first ministers’ conference or a crisis of some sort will merit enough media attention to register fleetingly in our collective psyche. But, for the most part, billions of dollars of national revenue steadily flow out of Ottawa each month, channeled to individual Canadians and to other levels of government (provincial, municipal, aboriginal) with little or no direct accountability with respect to even the most basic national goals or objectives.

Despite a modest increase in the transparency of public affairs in recent years, the lack of meaningful oversight of intergovernmental transfers provides a poignant example of how unanswerable our federal politicians are to issues of national concern. While Ottawa transfers huge sums for a wide range of initiatives that may be justifiable in isolation, we are left with a serious lack of national coherence on the very issues these payments are meant to address.  Indeed, if we measure the effectiveness of these expenditures against clear long-term national goals such as building and maintaining high-quality infrastructure, making Canada a leading green-energy power, or eliminating third-world living conditions among aboriginal Canadians, the collective impact of the spending falls well short.

Regrettably, bold, visionary national leadership that governs for the long term has been absent in Canada for a long time. Our national government rarely conveys any sense of public purpose or narrative other than winning the next election. Public action is diverted to expanding short-term opportunities for superficial consumption rather than fostering long-term opportunities for valuable investments, greater employment, and sustainable living across the country.

Not surprisingly, a growing number of Canadians are disillusioned and cynical about the prospects for good national governance and constructive public action. Our public finances appear to be constantly mismanaged, and our politicians seem incapable of looking beyond their political self-interest and re-election to respond to the national interest. Most Canadians, all too painfully aware of our new age of austerity and the need to deleverage and get out from under suffocating debt, believe that governments should do the same thing. A growing number of Canadians now support the more specific proposition that the national government should be substantially trimmed and money returned to us through lower taxes so that we can pursue private-sector alternatives to dysfunctional public services.

The great danger now emerging is that, if Canadians can no longer be persuaded of the legitimacy of national action – if we become indifferent to having a national government with the capacity to deal with matters of national concern on behalf of all of us – our collective ability to build on what we have in common will gradually, but inevitably, disintegrate.

Once we no longer believe in the value of bold national governance – that we are stronger when we act together to advance national ideals and goals – we will lose all sense of joint responsibility, shared sacrifice, and national purpose. Social bonds will crumble and generational bonds will attenuate.

As we increasingly depend on provincial and local governments for action on everything from pensions and health care to infrastructure and environmental standards, disparities in both public and private investment and services will grow from province-to-province and municipality-to-municipality, leading to greater inequities and uneven opportunities across the country. Canada will be much-diminished, with an increasingly blurred and ineffective presence in global affairs, known more for the exploitation of our natural resources to the benefit of the emerging economic powers than for the talents of our innovative, globally connected population.

Surely Canada’s destiny should not be to fade away as a national presence in this exciting age of instant communications and open borders? Canada’s incredible diversity of geography and human and natural resources means it has enormous potential to be a significant 21^st-century nation. But we will not come close to realizing this potential if we no longer recognize that only our national government, representing all Canadians, can ensure that we act coherently and responsibly as a nation.

What is urgently needed is nothing less than a transformation of our approach to national governance, and, in particular, of the management of public finances to focus on substantial long-term investments required to protect and promote the interests and aspirations of present and future Canadians. At the same time, we have an unprecedented opportunity to use the new tools of transparency – the internet, social media, etc. – to improve accountability of public action and encourage much broader public understanding and participation in shaping our collective future.

We must start thinking outside the box and articulate firm long-term national objectives – not just the usual empty rhetoric about Canada as an energy superpower and a compassionate and tolerant country. We must demand bold national leadership that establishes specific collective goals that engage all Canadians – regardless of residence – and that asks us to think beyond the horizon on behalf of the Canadians of the future. We must acknowledge the failure of our current governance models, and the widespread public cynicism with national affairs, and commit to restoring meaningful legislative oversight of government action and building new institutional frameworks that rise above regional, and other, divisions, and that hold our federal politicians accountable for the pursuit of clear national commitments.

In subsequent articles in this series, I will offer some outside-the-box thinking on the development of ambitious national objectives. I will suggest concrete examples of the kinds of institutional frameworks we need to ensure that our national leaders are held accountable. This series will focus on three areas in particular: building and maintaining our national infrastructure to the highest, most-advanced standards; making Canada a leader in green energy and sustainable living; and eliminating third-world conditions among aboriginal Canadians.

Originally published by The Mark News and Huffington Post Canada.

Yet the Conservative government is misleading Canadians into believing that mere tinkering with a Senate structure dating back to the 19th century – establishing nine-year term limits and à la carte elections – is sufficient. The NDP and some provincial premiers, on the other hand, are suggesting that outright abolition of the Senate is even better. Both the government and Official Opposition are conspiring to dumb down a very important debate affecting the fundamental nature of the Canadian federation and our coherence as a nation. The choice between a partially reformed Senate and no Senate is really not a choice at all: Both options lead to an increasingly dysfunctional and discredited Parliament.

Senate reform is too important a component of any serious plan for improving the functioning of Canadian democracy to be left to the legislative fiat of shortsighted politicians. Rather, the people of Canada must be directly engaged in the debate over this vital issue, and must ultimately be consulted through a national referendum.

Due to an insufficient amount of democratic legitimacy in the Senate, our national leaders have increasingly deferred to provincial premiers on matters of national concern in unaccountable federal-provincial negotiations. The national interest is too often equated with the haphazard sum of disparate provincial-government interests, dependent on highly improbable provincial-government co-operation for even the minimum national standards or actions.

The result is a lack of national action on climate change, an increasing patchwork of health-care policies, the absence of a national clean-energy strategy, a crumbling national infrastructure, and a stalemate on pension reform. This ongoing drift toward national incoherence has not only failed Canadians, but has also led to Canada’s increasing insignificance on the global stage.  Among other things, we are ignored during international climate-change discussions, and are no longer considered worthy of a UN Security Council seat. Furthermore, with our recent infamous UN vote blocking the addition of asbestos to the list of hazardous chemicals, we have relegated Canada to the sidelines of history on this issue, further devaluing the Canadian perspective on the international stage.

We need to re-imagine a more robust elected Senate that provides a valuable counterweight to the purely provincialist perspective voiced by individual premiers in current federal-provincial forums. To this end, we have to consider the role of the Senate in representing regional concerns in a more imaginative and truly democratic way. The Senate is not meant to represent the interests of regional economic and political elites as defined by provincial governments.

Keep in mind that regionalism is not the same as provincialism. Regionalism, at its best, reflects the fact that, in such a large and geographically diverse country as Canada, and with such a highly uneven population distribution, national policies will only be effective if regional concerns are acceptably integrated into a workable national framework. And this process will only find success if it is carried out in an open, transparent parliamentary forum committed to the best interests of Canada as a whole, and accountable to all Canadians – not just provincial premiers.

To engage Canadians, we must take the Senate-reform debate to the people, and away from the day-to-day operations of Parliament. A non-partisan commission of informed Canadians should be tasked with holding hearings across the country to listen to Canadians, explain the issues at stake, and discuss possible options for reform.

The commission would be mandated to – within a reasonable time frame – come up with a serious reform proposal that involves an elected Senate with a new distribution of seats and new powers. Among other things, in the current Senate, the western provinces are significantly underrepresented, and the Atlantic provinces are significantly overrepresented. A much more acceptable regional equilibrium is required if the Senate is to better represent regional concerns, and to work with the House of Commons to produce feasible national action plans for everything from climate-change strategies to health care, from infrastructure investment to clean energy. Such changes could mean, for example, progress on establishing a Canada-wide carbon price, and on implementing national health-care policies that provide greater consistency in the quality and availability of services across the country.

The elected Senate should also be specifically empowered to protect the interests of Quebec as the only province with a French-speaking majority, and to bring transparency, principle, and equity to the mess of federal-provincial fiscal transfers, hitherto confined to the black hole of federal-provincial negotiations.

Any proposal that the commission makes must then be made available for Canadians to vote on in a national referendum. Ratification cannot be left only to the first ministers, since they are able to stifle all possible progress in the national interest by making their support for Senate reform contingent on a myriad of other parochial provincial demands, which is what happened with the infamous Meech Lake and Charlottetown Accords.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has made the disingenuous claim that the May 2 election somehow performed the function of a referendum, and that, in that “referendum,” Canadians provided the Conservatives with a strong mandate for their Senate tinkering. Our national representatives need to be reminded that, at all times – whether during, or in between, elections – they govern in trust for the people of Canada. It is their democratic responsibility to engage Canadians in fundamental debates, and they cannot shirk this responsibility for the sake of convenience.

Contrary to the conventional wisdom, the Liberal party did not lose the recent federal election; rather, it was missing in action. What has been portrayed, unfairly, as a personal failure of Michael Ignatieff is really the culmination, and logical consequence, of the party’s abandonment, for over two decades now, of the basic vision that underpinned its success in governing Canada for more than a century. This is the vision of energetic national government, to meet the needs and aspirations of the people, and unite the country.

Canadians have for years – under recent Liberal governments as much as Conservative ones – been treated as a mere sideshow in the sport of national politics, anesthetized by the masters of political messaging and spin. The national government is no longer an instrument of the people, governing for all Canadians.

The role of our national government has been reduced to managing relations with the provinces in all the critical areas of national life. It means that the lowest common denominator of a provincial consensus defines the boundaries on national action on everything from Canada Pension Plan reform, to environmental protection, to clean energy, to health care.

National action is all about federal-provincial relations and financial transfers to provinces. And when negotiations in unaccountable federal-provincial forums – to which citizens are uninvited – break down, our government turns to the courts, not the people, to resolve differences from securities regulation to access to reproductive technologies. The same goes for fundamental social controversies, from polygamy to the wearing of the niqab. Too complicated to engage in discussions with the Canadian people. So much easier to bypass us completely.

No national leader or national party currently focuses on their role to speak out for all Canadians and remind us of our reciprocal obligations as citizens of this great country – the kind of commitment and solidarity that transcends provincial boundaries and condemns indifference to the plights of others, whatever our residence.

But when parents of disabled children in Nova Scotia find it necessary to uproot their family in order to access better services in Ontario or Alberta, this is a concern of all Canadians, not just the Nova Scotia government. When residents in New Brunswick face horrendous electricity costs and need help to invest in clean energy options, this is a matter of national concern, not just a dispute between the governments of New Brunswick and Quebec about the transmission of electrical energy from Newfoundland. And when virtually all the mayors of Canadian municipalities raise the alarm about our crumbling physical infrastructure and the pathetic state of public transit, the need is for visionary and energetic national action, not a quick fix through adjusting tax revenue.

In the May 2 election, Canadians came to the polls worn down by the petty partisan politics that paralyzed the last Parliament – the smallest adjustment to national programs or initiatives, whether banning a toxic substance or changing EI or veterans’ pensions, a Herculean task. Too many individuals and families are living too close to the financial edge, with our ability to withstand an unexpected event – from a sudden illness to loss of employment – gravely diminished.

Too many Canadians face greatly reduced expectations and disappointments with respect to their job prospects and ambitions for the future. Too many have lost any sense that the federal government can make a difference in our lives; the appeal of conservativism reflects less a retrenchment of progressive values and much more a crisis of confidence in government’s ability to serve people honestly and efficiently.

With such low expectations and no politicians providing any real answers, we settled for stable mediocrity and a newly constituted NDP opposition, dominated by a collection of accidental MPs replacing the Bloc Québécois, which may be unlikely to understand that national governance is all about the Canadian people and not all about provinces.

To reverse this trend toward national mediocrity and the related decline in our global potential (witness Canada’s image as a dinosaur of climate change on the international stage and loss of a UN Security Council seat to Portugal), Canadians need the voices for bold and visionary national action to speak up. We must be reminded that there is only one government that directly represents all Canadians and that we cannot achieve our goals and aspirations if we accept that there are only provincial or local answers to the challenges we face.

Canada remains a land of incredible opportunity with a vibrant globally connected population. Whether in the Northern Hemisphere or the Southern, economic and social progress in the 21^st century is about secure sources of clean energy; accessible education and training for more and more people, with credentials that are portable nationally and globally; a health-care system that is innovative, responsive to major public health challenges, in which access to and quality of health-care services do not depend on your place of residence; public infrastructure that supports environmentally sustainable growth in a global economy; and where competition for investment and jobs can and should be won by a race to the top, not the bottom.

We are stronger when we work together, when our achievement is measured by our commitment and responsibility to our fellow citizens, not by our level of consumption – and when we protect the human dignity of our neighbour, we protect the dignity of us all.

So we need a national clean-energy strategy in which Canada takes the leadership role in North America, rather than passively taking a back seat to the dysfunctional U.S. Congress. This means establishing a national economy-wide price for carbon already promoted by leaders of both energy-intensive industries and the environmental community, which can be harmonized constructively with global efforts. To make this work, we need major investment in interprovincial transmission of electrical energy and a leading Canadian role in the regulation and management of the North American grid.

The Conservative party’s election announcement of a substantial loan guarantee for the Lower Churchill River hydro project, however welcome, simply led immediately to the prime minister mediating a haggling match among provincial premiers and a vague commitment to “equity across regions.” This is not good enough – a string of ad hoc deals with provinces is not a coherent national strategy. Neither is refusing to address our concerns over the impact of energy developments on our health and the environment, from the oil sands to shale gas, or punting them into the black hole of federal-provincial negotiations.

To date, our national representatives seem utterly incapable of engaging citizens directly in a civil discussion to find workable, scientifically sound solutions. Filmmaker James Cameron’s visit to Alberta last year, and discussions with politicians and aboriginal leaders about the oil sands did more to highlight the interests at stake than anything said in the halls of power.

Similar bold leadership is needed for the renewal of health care for the 21^st century and undertaking long-overdue investments to renew our flagging physical and social infrastructure. And through all this we need an open conversation about finances and fiscal responsibility. Where money is raised from federal taxes, we need federal accountability for the results, and measurable targets for social and economic outcomes, whichever level or levels of government are delivering the programs.

Bringing the focus of national governance back to the needs and collective responsibilities of Canadians, and restoring the Canadian people to the centre of our democratic structures, also require clear proposals for institutional change. We need better checks and balances within our parliamentary structure to define and promote the interests of the Canadian people. We should not have to rely on provincial premiers to articulate the Canadian national interest in such matters as equalization and foreign takeovers.

We could adopt a new electoral system based on proportional principles that moves us beyond the divisive winner-take-all politics represented by the first-past-the-post system. We also need an elected Senate with, among other things, specific powers to represent regional concerns and work with the House of Commons to produce workable national action plans for everything from climate-change strategies to health care, from infrastructure investment to energy. The elected Senate would also be the forum within which to protect the interests of Quebec as the only majority French-speaking province. Whatever institutional options are chosen should be approved by Canadians in a national referendum.

Beyond changes to our institutions, we must develop avenues for much greater citizen participation to find solutions, compromise, and common ground on critical challenges we face. As the Liberal party rebuilds, this means encouraging powerful grassroots, citizen-based structures – not around political party agendas, but around issues and concerns that engage us.

Political parties have declined as vehicles for public participation. Gaining the loyalty and trust of Canadians in the networked age of the internet, Facebook, and Twitter requires nimble responsiveness and transparency on any and all issues through web-based mechanisms, such as those used so effectively by U.S. President Barack Obama.

The 2011 election represents a challenge for the many Canadians who support the vision of a strong national government and bold national ambitions. That no political party today promotes this vision does not mean that Canadians no longer care or that it no longer resonates with us.

The vision of a strong national government historically found a home in the Liberal Party of Canada. Perhaps neither the party nor the vision will survive – nothing is immortal. But they will either rise or continue to fall together. Now is the time for like-minded Canadians to come together, forum by forum, riding by riding, and fight for nothing less than the soul of our nation.

Was the security team at the recent Quebec National Assembly wrong to refuse entry to several Sikh Canadians carrying their ceremonial kirpans?

Certainly, how we should balance the demands of public security with the right to freedom of religion is an important question that justifies a national conversation among all Canadians.  A nation cannot strengthen and progress without national discussion and consensus on fundamental moral issues that affect the fabric of society.

But not only did our prime minister and his government fail to enter the debate, they also failed to condemn the attempt by parochial partisan Quebec politicians to cast the debate as a purely Quebec issue, with Quebec “secularism” pitted against alien Canadian “multiculturalism.”

With its silence, our national government abdicated its fundamental role to govern for all Canadians and to speak for one Canada. But this should come as no surprise. This is the same political party that cannot bring itself to use the word “Canada” in its French advertising in Quebec, opting instead for the phrase “Notre région au pouvoir” – a cynical play for nationalist voters who have little attachment to Canada.

It is time for Canadians to raise the alarm and demand answers.

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.

If we lose our connection with and responsibility for other Canadians – regardless of residence, religion, income, or country of origin – then we will fail to realize the great promise of building a vibrant, innovative, pluralist 21^st-century nation that can be an example to the world.  Our international presence and coherence will fade, and the world and country we leave to our children and grandchildren will be much diminished.

If we are to increase our internal strength and global potential, we have to understand what draws us together as a nation. A national discussion must begin with the recognition that people are not knocking on Canada’s door because we are “tolerant.”  Our welcome mat does not say, “Please come here, and know that as long as you do not bother anyone, no one will bother you.”  Tolerance cannot be an end in itself. We owe each other more than tolerance. We must move beyond a passive “tolerance” for our increasingly diverse population to a more robust respect for our neighbours that will allow us to work together in facing the profound challenges of the day.

So we cannot shrink or hide from national debates over the whole range of rights and responsibilities of Canadian citizens. Quebec should not be alone in engaging in vigorous public debate over the niqab and the kirpan. The courts in British Columbia should not be the only forums prepared to address issues such as polygamy. Such issues are matters of national debate and deserve attention from Canada as a whole.

We urgently need a national government that will govern for all Canadians, rather than abandon the field to the provinces and the courts – a national government that provides clear moral leadership and that can lead the discussion on issues of polygamy, the carrying of kirpans, and the wearing of niqabs. We need our national representatives to publicly debate the competing values and interests at stake and to promote a national consensus that may not satisfy everyone, but will allow us to have a better understanding and shared sense of the kind of society and nation that we are building.

As a nation, we need to be collectively responsible for maintaining values of gender equality and non-discrimination, even if this leads us to hold inconvenient debates over the propriety of cultural or religious norms.

We need open, civil, national discussion about the right to freedom of religion and how to balance that right with the need for public security. We can agree that we all have the right to practise the faith of our choice. But we must also agree that we all have a clear responsibility not to express prejudice and incite hatred and discrimination against those of different beliefs. This shared understanding should facilitate consensus on what might constitute legitimate public security restrictions, for instance on the carrying of ceremonial daggers. This consensus is then far less likely to be the subject of manipulation by petty provincial politicians aiming to divide Canadians and undermine the fabric of Canada.

We are Canadians without borders, looking outward to an exciting future in the networked age of the internet, Facebook, Twitter, and WikiLeaks. We know that we are not as divided about the fundamentals of our great country as our politicians seem to think. We know that we are stronger when we work together.

What draws us together as Canadians is opportunity, both economic and social. Canada must represent the best of universal values – justice, equality, diversity, the rule of law, fundamental freedoms, equal rights, and non-discrimination. We want a chance to live in peace, to build a progressive, multi-ethnic democracy in which economic prosperity coincides with environmental preservation.

For Canada to be a global leader, as it can and should be, its strength must come from a unity of purpose: to pull together our huge and growing pool of exceptional human talent with the best-quality education, from childcare to post-secondary; to become more than producers of raw materials for emerging markets; to be credible, global players in the growing number of areas of our national life that have an international dimension requiring global cooperation (most notably, the crucible issue of our time – climate change); in short, to build a better Canada and world for future generations.

It is time for our national government and representatives to step up to the plate, to stop avoiding us and resisting serious debate, to provide clear moral and ethical leadership, and to speak to our collective obligations to our fellow citizens, regardless of province or territory.

We need bold and visionary national leadership to inspire us to confidently take on the problems we face and to convey a sense of forward motion in our complex world. We need leaders who refuse to pander to prejudice and parochialism. We need leaders who are poets, not pollsters.

Nothing less than the soul of our nation is at stake.