What Can We Learn from the Liberal Circus?

Voters decimated the Liberal party leaving them with only 7 seats last night.

Voters exercised democracy and kicked the bums out.

Except they weren’t all bums. Many were smart people doing stupid things.

Maybe the bums were evil? This is wrong also.

We miss the point by blaming Liberal defeat on ignorance or malevolence. Accusations blind us.

The point of history is not to see how crazy and evil people were before us. That just makes us knowledgeable and arrogant.

History only teaches us if we can imagine making the same mistakes ourselves.

Ontario Liberal Party – Mistakes Were Made

The Liberals had vision

Without vision people perish, and with the wrong vision people perish for sure. A bad vision is worse than no vision at all.

Kathleen Wynne and company were resolute in marching toward their destructive vision. They knew, better than anyone, what was right.

They disparaged voters for not marching with them.

The Liberals were confident to the point of arrogance

They knew best, and we had best know and support their plans. Confidence without humility is arrogance. It turns us into confident fools.

The Liberals did not listen

Arthur Potts, former Liberal MPP from the Toronto Beaches, impressed me with his humility on NewsTalk1010 this morning.

“Until the 3rd poll, I thought I was winning.”

He called the election a landslide. “We were not listening to voters.”

Dr. Rai presented to Committee twice, only to have the Liberals glued to their cellphones:

It takes too long to talk to all the key people impacted by a new law before drafting legislation. It’s much easier to just write something, table it and see what happens. Even better: just pass the law and adjust the regulations later.

Abuse of process undermines trust.

The Liberals lacked respect

They cared little for what voters thought. But it was more than arrogance.

They had no respect for the political office they held.

Disrespect for voters can be fixed. Voters kick the bums out. But disrespect for office can take a generation to fix.

Once voters lose trust in the public service, it takes years to win it back.

Trust starts with respect: respect from politicians for voters and earned respect from voters for those in office.

A Majority Changes Everything

Neither Ford Nation nor ‘the conservative base’ has enough votes to deliver the huge majority we saw last night.

Votes came from a broad coalition of voters who wanted change. The trouble with any landslide is that it changes people.

Successful Roman emperors on parade would have a slave whisper in their ear, “Memento mori” (remember you are mortal).

As the transition team gets to work, I hope the new politicians will:

Really listen

Listen because they are desperate to learn. Listen with a readiness to change their minds. Many candidates did this before the election. Let’s hope they make it part of their legacy.

Be humble

Government cannot truly listen without humility. Listening without humility comes across as listening while checking your email. People can tell.

We do not need politicians to listen just so that they can say they listened.

Humility means assuming that other people might know more than you. It means changing your mind when you hear good ideas. It means admitting mistakes.

Look forward

At the start, politicians talk about the future. After a few months, politicians talk about all the great things they have done.

People love new governments because they look forward. Focusing on the past risks never changing the future. It’s like driving your car by looking in the rearview mirror.

Show compassion for all

Refuse to support or take part in the oppression Olympics. Identity politics is a single-lane highway with no off ramp.

Voters know whether politicians can be pushed to care about one group more than everyone else.

If some voters matter more than all voters, we will be forced to watch an eternal parade of elaborate floats filled with passionate dancers describing every possible self-identified label of oppression that encompasses every citizen into one group or another.

We are all citizens. Politicians should help improve life for all of us.

Patronage kills democracy.

Tell the truth

“The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may ignore it, but in the end, there it is.” Churchill

What Can We Learn?

The Liberal party implosion will teach us for a long time, if we let it. But history can teach us only if we admit that we might have been just as stupid or evil as the worst person who came before us.

If history is only facts and events, it provides entertainment, not wisdom.

Ontario has had a ringside seat at the Liberal circus for 15 years.

We would like to think that each of us would have been smarter, if we were in charge. We would have done a better job.

But we must not think that way.

History repeats if we refuse to learn (paraphrasing Burke).

Learning means putting ourselves in the Liberals’ shoes to see how we could have made the same mistakes.

My friend often says, “This is not my circus, and you are not my monkeys.” But in the case of government, we have to own it, or we will rebuild a new circus with our own monkeys.

 

13 thoughts on “What Can We Learn from the Liberal Circus?”

  1. A bitter pill and a harsh lesson for the Liberals. And a cautionary tale for the Conservatives.

    Let them take their new found majority and go slowly forward with baby steps and double checks along the way. The last thing we need is another party just moving on their own agenda with their blinders on and their ear plugs snugly in place.

    While obviously Health Care issues and funding are prominent topics amongst the circle of colleagues I hang with, we should not forget the bigger picture which includes total government spending, our massive debt and deficit and a bloated bureaucracy that needs culling.

    We probably need some austerity to get our Province back on track. As individuals we save when we’re young because we know we’ll have expenses when we retire. Our province is facing a tsunami of Boomers which will soon drive our costs through the roof. And here we are spending our savings and going further and further into debt, before that need arises. How smart really is that?

    1. Well said, Rob

      I like this line best: “Let then take their new found majority and go slowly forward with baby steps.” Good advice.

      The scary part is that they are going to have to start undoing the mess they’ve inherited too. I hope they do some of that quickly. Bill 41 maybe?

      Thanks again for sharing a comment!

  2. After every election, for their own sakes, some partisans hope the winner will not succeed. For their own sakes, the winning partisans hope they do well for their own future sakes. We all *should* hope, as the nonpartisans do, for the government’s success because that is the best thing for all of Ontarians.

  3. The PC’s should eliminate all the LHIN’S and sub lhins, then reduce the hospital bureaucracies by 50 %.
    Put the money into Frontline services.
    That’s a start ….

    1. I think many would support getting rid of the LHINs for sure. Hospital bureaucracies grow to satisfy the requirements put on them by the LHINs and MOH. It would be hard to eliminate at that level without making changes above.

      Investing in the front line seems best for patients, for sure.

      Thanks!

    2. And there are several Divisions and Branches of Divisions in the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care and the Ontario Health Insurance Plan that can also be eliminated.

  4. Ah, Shawn, you were wasted as leader of the OMA. Leader of the province— no Canada would have been a better job. A humble politician is an oxymoron!’ But we can always dream. Set your sights higher and go to the top😍

    1. What a way to start the weekend! Wow. Thanks, Pat! That was very kind.

      Thanks so much for reading and taking time to share your thoughts!

      Cheers

  5. Great summary as usual, Shawn,

    I guess the key learning is no party is essentially good or bad, the balance of democracy is the key, like a pendulum:
    Left – Right, Lib’s – Con’s,
    otherwise, it’s the sinful humane nature – to get corrupted without an opposition.

    It is true at any level of government – Provincial, Federal or any other governing organizations, like… OMA:
    without an opposition they rot & get corrupted.

    The best thing a responsible leader can do, is to make sure there is an opposition, which has a voice & ability to keep the people in power accountable,
    ant to bring it closer to home, who is the opposition of OMA-leading circle? And how to make sure it’s heard & empowered?

    As your brilliant quotation reminds, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

    1. Great comment, Alexey. I agree with the pendulum, if it is a small, rational swing over the centre.

      I guess I do not feel like we have a pendulum anymore. It feels like we are eroding the fabric of what created liberal democratic capitalism in the first place. Schumpeter predicted this. He said that the same heartless rationalism that drives producers to improve in a market economy will be turned on all of our institutions, too. As capitalism progresses, it will eat away at all the social fabric that allowed it to flourish. It will create a market for intellectuals who tear up the roots of the system. Finally, capitalism will produce enough affluence to create a new class of intellectuals who survive on selling resentment about the way things are. At that point, capitalism is close to done.

      I found these thoughts in Goldberg’s new, Suicide of the West. Really enjoying it. Goldberg goes on to say that our system was created by words and can be destroyed by words. But it can also be saved by words. So it’s up to us to keep fighting for it.

      Thanks again for your thoughtful comment!

      Cheers

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