Rear-view Politicking

Tired as we may be with the political candidates and their false promises of goodies for us, this campaign is taking more backward looks than peeks into the future, and it is getting worse day by day. Taking credit for what the other party did or stealing their platform is old hat. Blaming them for all the woes of the past, likewise. One of the best lines in the campaign so far belongs to John Tory with his “You’ll be blaming Sir John A for something before this debate finishes!”

In our own riding, it is hard to figure just who it was that started the new hospital. I am referring to the current version, not the aborted effort back in the 90s. Or was it the 80s? I do remember that the Liberals promised to keep the project but it took them many, many months of delay to figure out how to pay for it. All the while having a war chest full of loonies that were being saved for the months leading up to this October election.

The Highway 11 four-laning is another one that simmers with controversy over who started it and who will eventually finish it. Monique’s claim that the Tories could have started it back in 1972 is a little disingenuous since northern Ontario began at King City in those days. As the frontier was pushed back to Barrie, then Orillia and finally all the way to Huntsville, the need for four-laning followed, but it was hardly required in days of yore. That highway 4-69 will be completed before 4-11, will still be a topic in the next election.

With all this looking back and either complimenting their own party or blaming the others, one wonders how much thought is really being given to where we are headed. What does seem certain is that the three major parties will continue with their old philosophies: The Conservatives will cut taxes and services in order to keep government small and out of the way of business; The Liberals will tax us more and spend more, the premise being that we can not look after our own money; The NDP will tax us less and spend more, believing that future debt is okay because they are building for the future.

The right-wing Conservatives seem to believe that only entrepreneurs deserve to make money since they drive the economy. The NDP think the workers should be paid more by the entrepreneurs since they do all the work. The Liberals bounce in between but do think that the professionals in the public services sector should be treated very well. The Conservatives think we should be able to pay for our own health care, in private clinics if we can afford it, the NDPers want nothing but public health care and the Liberals again bounce back and forth between the two other parties. John and Jane Doe simply want better health care.

On education, the right-wingers want the faith-based schools where religions may be taught, even dropping the word ‘creationism’ (somebody quickly poked John where his rib used to be and he retracted the term). The NDP are keeping mum but have been quietly hoping for a truly secular education system. The Liberals want only to keep the two versions of Christianity, the one being Roman Catholic, the other being the United Church version of Public Schools where pretty well everything goes. The Liberals blame the Tories for splitting the funding, but then go back to the BNA and somehow apply that old statue to modern-day needs. The NDP was not even a seed in the mind of Tommy Douglas’ grandparents back then so they take no stand on this contentious problem.

Instead of continually looking back at who created what problem, we should be looking forward to what we will need in the future. The government can fudge the figures all they want to make the Healthcare wait times appear better, but we patient patients tire of waiting. Healthcare is still the main concern for most of us. The three main parties need to pool their ideas on healthcare and come up with a solution. Education faces the same problem. Wages and taxes, likewise. We need some compromises between the right and left to get on with the business of working, living and creating a better place for all of us.

Which leads, as you may have guessed from some of my recent columns, to the need for a change in our way of electing people to run our lives. We need to compromise on some of the issues that have been dogging us in the past and find some solutions. To do this, we must get more people involved in the political process. Under our current system, the old parties fight it out with only the diehard voters plunking down an X in the usual place. You have to be either a liberal or conservative or, heaven forefend, a radical socialist to find a place to make your mark on the ballot. If you espouse some ideas for both the right, left and centre of the political spectrum, you have no choice and may decide it is pointless to vote. Now there is another option on the horizon and that is Mixed Member Proportional representation.

The Grits and the Tories do not like the new kid on the block and want no part of it. With MMP representing a wider spectrum of political thought, the politicians may have to find new solutions to get consensus on bills of parliament. They may have to work out problems that meet the needs of a more diverse electorate. They may no longer be able to steer us down the road to the future by looking in the rear-view mirror. And that road is no longer two lanes.