Wednesday, October 21, 2015

My post-election thoughts and suggestions

Since the federal election Monday, I have been reading so many scathing posts in social media from those who feel the outcome was not to their particular liking, I thought I would take a step away from my arts reporting duties to offer up some thoughts of my own on the subject and hopefully bring some semblance of balance to the issue.

Long before I started earnestly covering the arts beat here in Niagara, I was by nature a political animal, having spent the better part of 40 years involved in covering elections on all levels in one form or another.  As such, I tend to take a more pragmatic approach to the outcome each time and look at issues from both sides, something I find rather lacking in so many of the postings lately.

My first election coverage as a young, aspiring broadcaster came in 1974 while still working in Toronto radio, when Pierre Elliot Trudeau (Justin's father, of course) soundly defeated the Progressive Conservatives lead by Robert Stansfield.  Mr. Stanfield, from the Maritimes, had proposed a form of wage and price controls to help stem the rampant inflation gripping the country at the time.  I still remember the radio and television ads from the time when Trudeau, speaking at a Liberal rally during the election campaign, railed against Stanfield's plan.  The resulting shift in poll numbers was almost immediate, and Trudeau rode the wave into another majority government term.

The popularity didn't last, of course, as Trudeau himself introduced his own form of pretty much the same thing the following year, and the party never seemed to recover from that.  Thus, in the 1979 election the Liberals were so unpopular generally and Trudeau in particular, the television and radio ads of the day mentioned only the Liberal Party of Canada with no mention of Trudeau himself.  They lost anyway, setting the stage for the Progressive Conservatives under the young and inexperienced Joe Clark to win a minority that would last barely nine months.

Trudeau announced he was stepping down as leader of the party until Clark's government tried to introduce an 18-cent per gallon (about four cents per litre) tax on gasoline, which went over like the proverbial lead balloon with Canadians.  Seeing an opportunity present itself, opposition parties defeated the Clark government and the leaderless Liberals begged Trudeau to reconsider his resignation.  He did, of course, and rode the Liberal tide to another majority government in 1980, before finally retiring for good prior to the 1984 election.

I remember vividly covering that 1980 election for the radio station in Oshawa I worked for at the time.  No cell phones back then, by the way.  We each had a black rotary-dial telephone on the table at our disposal to call in reports to the radio station back in those days.

I'm offering up this short history lesson by way of illustration that yes, I have been following Canadian politics for quite awhile now, and political angst is nothing new.  The difference now is we have social media in which to vent our collective spleens before, during and especially after the vote.

So let's fast-forward to the most recent federal election of Monday, and look at the winners and losers.

The Conservatives lost the support of the majority of Canadians for one simple reason:  their best-before date had come and gone.  It happens to all political parties once they have been in power long enough.  It's nothing new.  Canadians were just tired of the status quo and wanted a change after almost ten years of Stephen Harper, just as they got tired of the Liberals about ten years ago.  The political cycle of life has a shelf life of only so long, no matter which party is in power.

I'm not taking sides here, incidentally.  The newly-minted Liberal majority government will hit their fair share of potholes and scandals in the coming term also, and should Justin Trudeau run two or three more times, his political currency will eventually be depleted as well.  That's the cycle of political life.

The key is of course, as Kenny Rogers sang in The Gambler years ago:  "You've got to know when to hold them; know when to fold them."  Pierre knew his time was up in 1984 just like Brian Mulroney knew the time was right to exit as leader of the Progressive Conservatives in the 90s.

The Conservative cause was not helped this time round by a mean-spirited attack ad campaign directed most often at Justin Trudeau, something they frankly spent too much political capital on.  As Mulroney himself pointed out on election night, the Conservatives underestimated Trudeau during this campaign, and it hurt them badly.

Canadians don't like attack ad politics.  It is an American thing, really, and we like to think of ourselves as better than that.  We are, and we rejected the notion of attacking the opposition at all costs as a result.

The Trudeau resume spots with the requisite tag-line "Nice hair, though" became a political joke during the campaign, so much so the NDP lampooned the ads with their own version directed at Mr. Harper.  It was bad enough listening to the tired old joke for months on end before the campaign started; continuing with them after the campaign started - even producing new ones with the same tag-line - suggested to me the Conservatives had simply run out of ideas.  With all the money behind the Conservative campaign, was that really the best they could do?

Thankfully, the Conservatives stopped short of using the same approach once they set their sights on Mulcair and the NDP by using the line "Nice beard, though"...

On the other hand, the one-on-one radio spots Stephen Harper voiced on a daily basis during the latter stages of the campaign were very effective.  They dealt with issues and I think made him appear more human and down-to-earth.  In the future, the Conservatives would be wise to adopt that strategy with all their advertising.

The Liberals took advantage of great campaign footage of Justin rallying the troops during the final days before the vote, and that too, I felt, was especially effective.  It showed him in control and on his game at a critical juncture of this very long election campaign.

The Liberals for their part ran a generally clean, attack-free campaign and I think it won them a lot of votes because of it.  Their message resonated with a lot of Canadians and struck a more optimistic tone.  Canadians like and want that.

It doesn't hurt that Justin is young and good-looking, of course.  But that's not new, either.  His father Pierre cut a dashing figure when he ran for leadership of the party and successfully ran for Prime Minister in 1968.  Remember too John F. Kennedy looking much younger and so much more dashing than the dour Richard Nixon in the 1960 American election.

I think people looked at Justin, his wife Sophie and the family and saw a bit of themselves.  A young successful family making it in the world and reaching for a better life.  That's why the youth vote looks to have gone to the Liberals in this election:  younger voters simply identified with him.  There is a bit of a perception amongst young people, I think, that politics is often the domain of grumpy old men, many of them lawyers.

This time, they saw something different, they saw what they themselves could someday be.  There's nothing wrong with that.

Justin grew up at 24 Sussex Drive so knew early on what a politician's life was like and learned much from his father.  He also distanced himself from politics earlier in his career in order to make a name for himself away from the public spotlight.  Sure he wasn't a lawyer running for office as is so often the case.  But is that such a bad thing?

So what of the NDP and their collapse from the 2011 election?  I think first of all the "Jack" factor wasn't present this time.  As effective as Thomas Mulcair was during the campaign, he didn't have that magic the late Jack Layton possessed in 2011.  We'll never know if NDP fortunes would have been different this time around had Jack lived to fight another campaign, but you have to think things would have been somewhat different.

Secondly, perhaps people sensed this time a vote for the NDP was not the most effective way to stop Harper, if that was their personal game-plan.

So as it stands right now, Mr. Trudeau will have a brief honeymoon and will have to deliver on his promises sooner rather than later in order to take advantage of the goodwill generated by his big election win.

Look, he's not perfect, I know that.  Mistakes likely will be made in the coming four-year term of office.  But what party has not made mistakes while in office?  None that I can think of, frankly.

Justin Trudeau represents a younger generation, to be sure, but his appeal this time around seems to have crossed many age barriers, and that is something you can't ignore.

He deserves a chance to show what he can do.  Whether you voted for him or not, he has a majority government and as such the next election will not be for another four years.  Might as well get used to him for awhile.

You know, I often wonder how politicians find the strength and will to run for political office, and especially so now with attacks coming from all directions every day by way of social media.  It will be relentless for the next four years, I'm afraid, and I suggest you do as I do and try to scroll right by the partisan rants.

On a local level, Conservative MP Rick Dykstra and NDP MP Malcolm Allen both fell in the red wave that swept across the country, and that is indeed unfortunate.  I have had the pleasure of knowing both gentlemen during my days in the media and I appreciate their service to the community.  Both will land on their feet, to be sure, and I hope in both cases both Rick and Malcolm find new ways to serve their respective communities with the dignity and skill they brought to their roles as Members of Parliament.

Let's get past the rancour and partisan political rants and give the new government a chance.  Is that too much to ask?

October 21st, 2015.

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