Words and debate are the lifeblood of democracy. Because of that reality, the government might consider expanding the mandate of the Krever Commission on the national bad-blood scandal into the political realm, to try to figure out why Canada’s political blood supply has become so contaminated.
Clearly, the contamination of excess, hyperbole and outright falsehood has infected the national political debate at this critical time in the life of the nation.
Consider some recent examples of democratic bloodstream contamination:
- Quebec premier Lucien Bouchard was speaking about Ottawa’s position that Quebec separation would have to be enacted under the rule of constitutional law. Canada, he complained, is “a prison from which we cannot escape.”
- Reform Party house leader Deborah Grey was speaking about prime minister Jean ChrŽtien’s decision to appoint a new Alberta senator, rather than wait for the province to elect one under a provincial law that has no constitutional base:
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“The prime minister has used an iron fist and smashed Alberta’s right to have a democratic election. This is tantamount to a dictatorship.”
- ChrŽtien was speaking in Parliament about Preston Manning: “It is quite evident the leader of the third party (Reform) has no great interest in keeping Canada together.”
- Quebec intergovernmental affairs minister Jacques Brassard was speaking about federal efforts to counter separatist arguments that the rest of Canada has no right to a say in whether Quebec leaves or stays: “We’re facing an operation of political terrorism. Mr. ChrŽtien likes to act like a despot.”
- Alberta Reform MP Leon Benoit was speaking about Ottawa’s refusal to accept an Alberta plebiscite on the Canadian Wheat Board, a plebiscite that offered farmers the best of all worlds: “(Agriculture minister Ralph) Goodale is saying that democracy is counter-productive.”
Oh dear – Canada as a prison, Manning as a self-serving nation-destroyer, ChrŽtien as a despot and a dictator, Goodale as an anti-democrat.
These are not the images of Canada, nor its political leaders and institutions, that most Canadians see when they look in the national mirror each morning. They may not like their political leaders all the time, but most Canadians do not believe they live in an undemocratic state, a dictatorship or a prison.
Last week, the House of Commons took a week off to allow MPs to return to their constituencies to listen to their voters. Thank God.
Maybe, once away from the hothouse of Political Ottawa, they will realize that excessive rhetoric can be as destructive to political debate and legitimacy of the system as outright lies.
Maybe they will realize that ordinary Canadians do not think in the fevered, black-and-white terms that seems to be the currency of the political classes.
Maybe they will, in the famous suggestion attributed to former separatist Quebec premier RenŽ Levesque, take a Valium and calm down.
It is amazing that some politicians still wonder why average people distrust them, their words and their instincts.
