Part of the overall problem, as well, Prof. Savoie said, is that political parties “have lost their soul” and politics has been taken over by professional politicians. He said there was once a time when the core values of political parties never changed, but now, all parties are the products of their leaders and not based on public policy ideas and values for which Canadians can vote for.
“They’ve been captured by the election day, the need to organize around elections. They’ve been captured by cronies and lobbyists and in the process they’ve lost their soul,” he said. “If you’ve lost your way, if you’ve lost your soul, you’ve lost what the party’s all about, then personalism takes over. The Liberal Party of today is Michael Ignatieff’s party, tomorrow it will be someone else’s party. The Conservative party today is Stephen Harper’s party. In a few years it will be someone else’s party and the core values will not matter all that much.”
“The Conservative party today is Stephen Harper’s party.”
Well, to be fair, Stephen Harper did build today’s Conservative party.
He started with the Alliance and was the architect of the merging between the Alliance and the PCs.
There was a time when getting elected wasn’t the primary focus of a politician’s job? A time when there were other incentives besides gaining power and riches for oneself and friends? I call BS.
” … then personalism takes over.”
This happens, I would suggest, because media types find it easier and more fun to hammer away at building up idols and tearing down those who do not harbor their socialist agenda.
Heavens knows they do not want to report on the trivial things – you know, things such as the economy, law&order, well being and standard of living – except in the context of idols and ‘hidden agendas’. Sound familiar?
As usual Savoie is full of it.
The folks who “take over” do so only if they can connect with the membership who are the “soul” of the party.
On occasion the membership can and will be patient. Abuse the membership and you go from a majority to two seats in one election.
What Dr. Savoie is really upset about is that a conservative and Conservative PM has become pretty good at being a professional politician. By Professional Politician I mean that he has found a way to put forth the ideas of Conservatives in a professional way which have secured support and electoral victories in every corner of Canada.
PM Harper and the Conservatives will only get better at this and for Savoie that is a very very frightening thing.
If you call paralyzing Toronto and spending billion bucks on security on a summer weekend ‘promoting conservative ideas’, than yes.
After spending a billion in one weekend it will be damn difficult to advocate for abolition of the registry. Maybe that’s the plan?
This is illustrative of part of the problem:
“As Congress investigated its role in the doomed Deep Horizon oil rig, Halliburton donated $17,000 to candidates running for federal office, giving money to several lawmakers on committees that have launched inquiries into the massive spill. The Texas-based oil giant’s political action committee made 14 contributions during the month of May, according to a federal campaign report filed Wednesday — 13 to Republicans and one to a Democrat. It was the busiest donation month for Halliburton’s PAC since September 2008.”
“”If you bring to politics another career, discipline in the marketplace in the private sector, in business and so on, you would look at that and I think you would ask the question, ‘Why in the name of god did we get into this? What’s gone wrong here?’ That’s what I meant. Professional politicians look at it strictly in terms of strategic advantages, political partisan advantages in terms of the media. People who have done other things in life than being a professional politician would ask very different questions, would view the world very differently.” “(from the linked article)
This idea may have some merit. Politics, like academia, suffers from lack of exposure to the real world. It might help to have an infusion of MPs from the outside the bubble but I think the temptations from the various perks and lack of accountability will still corrupt most people.
I subscribe to the view that politics has always been a place where public institutions are used for private gain. This corruption goes from the leaders all the way down to the lowly backbenchers. Tinkering with the system is pointless, just make it smaller and restrict its influence. Give more power to individuals and local governments.
My (now old) mother doesn’t have a clue of, nor does she care about, the policies and ideology. She votes for the leader only and his image in the media: if he speaks eloquently, if he looks good, if he sounds honest (ahem!), etc. That’s what we get with our modern democracies.
Agreed Victor.
Without the whining, what else do the Liberals have? I don’t recall Liberals having difficulty with professional politicking four years ago.
The political landscape as I see it is: no hope for the Liberals without the Dippers. Can the Liberals and the NDP run separately and then form government after the election if both parties lose? In my view this is the political discussion we need to have in Canada. It’s unthinkable that the Liberals and the Dippers would officially merge, so this IS the political play. In my view, if they don’t want to split the vote, they should run half as many candidates; but I digress.
In the end, I believe this issue is too complex for most voters to contemplate, and the Libs/Dips WILL get-away with a pre-election post-election deal. The Conservatives will have to beat both parties on an uneven playing field. This could be the major motive for PMSH moving forward with replacing the existing GG now. If Adler’s “Coup Scam” has a sequel, PMSH will be in a better position having a good idea how the GG will decide if Coup Scam II arises.
Alex is so right. I remember the election of 1974; my sister, just 18, and all excited about voting, noted she was going to vote for Trudeau. “How can you do that?” I asked “Robert Stanfield has all the good ideas”.
“Oh”, she replied “He looks so old.”
That’s when I knew for sure democracy was doomed.
The “American Idol” moment for the States was Obama. I hope we resist. Just a little.
The thing that gets me is the Liberal Party rotating the three finalists for leadership. Either they started with number 3 and are working their way up or they started with number 1 and are working their way down. Either way I am tired of the constant whining when they don’t have the moxie to pull the trigger. In case they have not figured it out, they could ask the few members they have left.
When we jettisoned character, courage, and convictions and replaced them with image, cool, and the left-liberal Zeitgeist — largely during Trudeau’s reign and, BTW, at 22, I wasn’t taken in: I never voted for the reptile — we more or less ensured that image over substance would rule the day.
It’s pretty clear that when people worshipped at a real church — not the church of the cool image — they were able to discern the difference between a young, handsome empty suit and an intelligent, experienced, grown-up politician willing to grapple with serious issues affecting all Canadians not just single-interest-special-interest-multi-culti-fem-LGBT types. I still maintain that Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s CPC is way ahead of the Lib$/Dippers/Blockheads in this department.
Who says things have got to get better? We’re going to hell in a hand basket largely because so many are so un-serious these days and have been hijacked by the nanny-state agenda. ‘No kids? No common sense. Being a parent quickly wakes one up to reality.
As it is, we have a few generations down Alice’s Rabbit Hole partaking of alotta Wonderland pills.
Yas we know, a representative democracy is the worst possible way to arrange a government.
Except for all the other ways.
Possibly if the Canadian media reported on actual policy and its probable outcomes, instead of Liberal talking points 24/7, things would improve slightly.
‘Totally agree Phantom: The media has been one of THE biggest stumbling blocks to effective democracy here in Canada.
They seem to think that they’re part of the unelected Opposition and they’re obviously reading their script from Pravda.
I suspect there’s a special branch of Purgatory/Hell reserved for the pinkos in the media who seldom report the news but who, instead, maul and manipulate the facts to suit their juvenile, Utopian view of the way things SHOULD be.
Oh, and did I mention that they lie? Add that to the media’s mauling and manipulation.
Right on babt. Example, I have yet to hear of a single MSM type commenting on the probable outcome of a war in the Mediterranean between Turkey and Israel.
Namely no oil deliveries from the Gulf for 6-8 months, because then giant f-ing oil tankers have to sail ‘waaaaay around AFRICA. Suez canal opens into the Med. Most of these rat-bag Leftists can’t even find the f-ing Suez Canal on a map.
Also, outside of Bloomberg radio I have yet to hear anyone mention just exactly -why- Greece is broke. Or Hungary, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, England, Italy, plus most likely Romania and a few more former East Block countries whose bureaucrats never learned the habit of reporting truthful economic numbers. Or just how close to the wind Barry O is sailing the great ship of state down there. Drudge reports the US government debt is about to pass US GDP. Bloomberg again. Not CBC, CTV, CBSNBCCNNABC, nor any other MSM outlet.
Hey Davenport, you wonder how Haliburton gets away with the crap they do? Your loyal socialist media, that’s how. While we’re on the subject of people buying politicians, do you know how much money Goldman Sachs is into Barry for? Its a much larger number than Haliburton, let me tell you.
The politicians may have lost their way, but their constiutents have not. The following is a unaninimous motion by our local Conservative EDA board and forwarded to our Member of Parliament.
We are the people that get him/her elected and keep them elected and they need to know that they are answerable to us and to our voters. If he/she does not publically support an examination ob his/her expenditures by the Auditor General, he or she will have great difficulty finding any ‘on the ground’ support during the next elsection.
Motion:
That the CONSERVATIVE PARTY OF CANADA ELECTORAL DISTRICT ASSOCIATION of ******
a) supports the principle of the audit of Parliament (current annual expenditures of approximately $500 million) by the Office of the Auditor General of Canada;
b) reminds The National Council of efforts made by our Party to introduce greater transparency into government activities which were enshrined in the Accountability Act which strengthened the power of the Auditor General to “Follow the Money.”
c) reminds our Party leadership that 4 out 9 members of Parliament’s Board of Economy are Conservative Party representatives and cannot avoid criticism if the Board continues its refusal;
d) draws attention to the revelations in other parliamentary establishments (UK, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland) which suggest no body is immune from error including the expenses of Canadian Mps (about $100 million annually currently);
e) reminds our leadership of the Commission of Inquiry into the Sponsorship Program and Advertising Activities (Justice John H. Gomery Commissioner) which emphasized how the absence of transparency led to corruption;
f) respectfully requests that our Member of Parliament raise the above points in caucus.
The Phantom @ 5:49 PM, come on now, you’re asking for members of the media to actually have some knowledge of how international relations/intrigue works.
Or maybe they’ve declared a special week-long moratorium on reporting on Middle Eastern affairs in honour of Helen Thomas.
When I see Iran getting all involved to the hilt only a few days prior to the anniversary of their sham election, I keep thinking something’s gotta be up and its gonna blow in the next few days.
Now that was only a year ago, and the green movement protests kept going for months and months afterward. You’d think the media would be sniffing out stories left and right about what Iran is up to on the eve of the anniversary of that event, especially since they’ve been fingered in this Hamas/Israel blockade thing, but no. All they seem to be worried about is how to paint Israel in black.
Right …. another academic preaching about how things “ought to be” or “used to be” or some such garbage fit only for the shallow end of the intellectual pool … like th MSM.
Or was it simply dredged from that muck and regurgitated?
I think people are in general sick to death of politicians.
I’ve been a Conservative supporter for ever, but $1 billion of hard earned tax payer money for security for a summit?
I think the time is ripe for the right person to come along and change things. People are hungry for change – not Obama-style change – real change. All that is missing is a suitable leader.
Harper has been good, and I’d take him *any day* over the current alternatives, every time. But even he has not picked up on the growing sense that it’s time for fresh ideas in politics.
“BTW, at 22, I wasn’t taken in: I never voted for the reptile” says batb.
I’m with you on that batb! If there is one thing I am damn proud of about my youth is that I never once fell for loony left wing pinkos.
Don’t know why, because many of my friends did. Must have been good upbringing by my parents.
The point about professional politicians was a very good one. There needs to be some way in which one can get skilled people from outside of the political mainstream into positions of power temporarily. The people who shouldn’t be in government are the ones who most want to be there and the people who should be there are those who don’t want anything to do with the corrupt psychopathic process which describes the governments of today.
One of the problems with government is that it only passes laws and never repeals them and the net social result is similar to the buildup of amyloid protein in the Alzheimer’s disease brain. What is needed is a separate legislative body whose only function would be the repeal of legislation. It would not be based on a party system and professional politicians would not be eligeable to run in elections for this body. Also, the legislation repealing branch would have priority over the legislation passing branch. This might restore some balance into the current system which is totally broken but, as Phantom has pointed out, other systems of government are worse than what we have.
“What is needed is a separate legislative body whose only function would be the repeal of legislation. It would not be based on a party system and professional politicians would not be eligeable to run in elections for this body. Also, the legislation repealing branch would have priority over the legislation passing branch. This might restore some balance into the current system which is totally broken but, as Phantom has pointed out, other systems of government are worse than what we have.”
I’ve sometimes wondered about the feasibility of having legislation with automatic “sunset” provisions. Legislation would have to be re-authorized, using the same rules that govern the enactment of new legislation, at the end of its sunset period (e.g. 10 years). Exceptions could exist for the really fundamental and obvious laws, such as the criminalization of murder, but look at how many harebrained laws exist in most countries simply because some jackass 20 years ago thought it would make him look good on TV. The effort to muster up votes for repeal is often difficult, even for demonstrably ineffective and unpopular legislation, because of political bickering and childish “I’m not joining the opposition in repealing something we passed!” type thinking. Sunsets could offer an easier way of allowing stupid laws to die, without anyone having to proactively repeal it.
It’s just one theory. The ultimate problem is busybody legislature. Why do societies have this assumption that their legislatures should always be working on some new law? Government gridlock isn’t always such a bad thing!
the thrust of the article is correct. how many times have you heard someone say “I voted for the PM!? Unless you live in Calgary SW you couldn’t have voted for Harper. You may have voted for the local Conservative candidate based on the PM’s image/policy etc.
Pearson, for all his faults, was an accomplished dipolmat and WWI veteran, Dief was a well known Sask crimial defence barrister (also a RFC WWI vet). St Laurent was a prominant Quebec lawyer and MacKenzie King’s early career was a business advisor to US industrialists like John D Rockefellar. Trudeau? Editor of Cite Libre, a minor Quebec periodical for intellectuals and a bon viant around town. After Pearson, we’ve had by and large professional politicains.
The average voter’s knowledge of what used to called civics is sad. Many elected politician’s knowledge is no better; how many times have you heard a federal politician who’s hobby horse is a provincial jurisdiction or prov pol who want’s to direct foreign affairs? Did they get on the wrong bus at nomination time? They get away with it because the voter’s seldom know any better. Immigrants are the worst because most are not from federal organized nations and they cannot fathom the concept of different laws in different provinces (the USA must really throw them for a loop when each state has its own criminal code!).
norm: “The average voter’s knowledge of what used to called civics is sad.”
Yeah, we’re screwed. Our kids’ knowledge of their cultural, historical, spiritual heritage is getting smaller every year and is being replaced by sheer leftist revisionism and propaganda.
Apparently, here in Ontario, there’s a new combined history/geography text coming out which is HALF the size of the previous two texts that have been used over the past 15 or so years. The teacher who told me this said there have been complaints by students and their parents that the two-volume, grade 7/8 text books are “too long.”
Hey, why not just a comic book for our lazy, academically challenged teens, written by Bob Rae, Jack Layton, Gilles Duceppe and co.?
Like you, TJ, I’m not sure just why I was able to smell a rat when most of my university colleagues were falling all over themselves to laud and vote for PET. ‘Must have been my table-pounding grandfather, father, and uncles when “discussing” politics at Sunday dinner that turned my head away from the leftists.