Trust and leadership

Ok, call me naive. I thought that in "the most important election in Canada's history", as Paul Martin called it, the candidates would come out, guns blazing, and talk about the issues. Terribly wrong of me. Right now all I'm seeing is lies and vagueness. That's just terribly disappointing and gut churning.

In my first column I listed off quite a few issues that might be of importance to voters. "Health care, highways, cities, aborigines, immigration, law enforcement, the military, the environment, justice, Quebec, education, the rise of hate and terrorism." Hell, I even left out a few like Western alienation, the CBC, gay marriage, and the legalization of marijuana, since I thought they might be lower on the list of priorities. But the main issue was the theme of my column: logic and precision. Canadian voters in polling have translated this to "trust and leadership", which, to them, is second in importance only to health care. All these are inter-related: logic and precision only come through honesty, which leads to trust and leadership.

Trust, honesty, integrity. As one letter writer to The Globe brilliantly put it (in the context of McGuinty's promise to not raise taxes in Ontario), "When politicians don't do what they say they will, what's the point of voting?" So who can I trust most? Who will trust me most, so he'll level with me? And from that, who will be the best leader for Canada for the next four or five years, in what are sure to be very trying times?

The Liberals: Facilis descensus Averni. This is from Virgil, a smart old Roman. "It is easy to go down into Hell. Night and day, the gates of Death stand wide. But to climb back again, to retrace one's steps to the upper air. There's the rub, the task". The Liberals have descended into Hell and it's going to be a long climb back. I was very hopeful when Paul Martin promised to get to the bottom of the advertising scandal, without fear or favour. And, at first, it looked like it was going to happen. Then things unraveled and he seemingly tried to smooth everything over before an election call. I, and I'm sure most Canadians, don't believe that only Chuck Guité was responsible for the whole mess - it seems apparent that it went right to the top. Rather than saying, "I'll postpone the election until we can really get to the bottom of the whole thing," he rushed into an election. I still don't understand it.

The advertising scandal is just one of several issues of trust, of course. I don't believe his explanation for why CSL at first only received $137,000 from the Canadian government, and then it turned out to have received over $100-million. I don't believe that he knew absolutely nothing about the advertising scandal. I don't like the fact that he registered his ships offshore and employed low wage, non-Canadian, workers. And I don't like the way he and Anne McClellan have dealt with the gun registry.

The Conservatives: But I also don't particularly care for Stephen Harper. Consider Mr. Harper's ridiculous quote of Mr. Martin on Iraq: "Canada should get over to Iraq as soon as possible." Harper used the quote completely out of context, to show that Mr. Martin wanted to go to war, when Mr. Martin simply wanted to get humanitarian aid there as soon as possible. And his promise to lower taxes: only 6 per cent of Canadians think this is an important issue. How will he do this, besides vague, unspecified, "efficiencies" that he'll gain in the government? Whose votes is he trying for here -- the terribly put-upon rich? What about the military and terrorism, Mr. Harper, and what are your real views on health care? How will you deal with Quebec if you have no presence there? Canadians want precision, not lies and "a chicken in every pot".

The NDP: Jack Layton will actually increase our taxes! He seems to think that the government that the Liberals are running is ok, but we need even more of the same. Hard to do anything but laugh, but the NDP has never really wanted to lead the country or they'd try to get more in touch with Canadians.

The Greens: In despair I decided to check out the Green Party's website. The Globe hasn't talked about the Greens at all during this campaign, even though they look to get 5 per cent of the vote. But to my dismay, nowhere in their platform do they mention the police, the military, or national security. Good grief! (Well, they do mention their philosophy of pacifism, which is fine, unless you've got al-Qaeda trying to destroy your society.) Still, at least they've taken the trouble to put together a platform that appears to be a stab at honesty. But there are so many holes. Immigration for one -- they'll tighten it up, but they don't say whether they'll increase it, decrease it, or leave it the same.

Lies and vagueness. How can these guys lead us? More importantly, why do they even want to? At the end of five years they'll be thoroughly hated since they'll do things no Canadian wanted them to do.

Canadians deserve better than this. John Ibbitson states that we are looking at a minority government that will topple in a few months. I agree. And I applaud the thinking of Canadians. Until our erstwhile "leaders" start making a modicum of sense, why should they be given our trust?