Power To Truth

A conference room in a Montreal hotel isn’t such a bad place to hold a Thinkers Conference in order to examine what Canada should look like at 150 years of age. Any kind of opposition to the Liberal direction of the last few years was presented in a respectful tone. Interested third parties got their opinions out, either at the event itself of through regional sessions connected via the Internet. Politicians themselves were, in fact, the benign audience, taking it all in and reflecting on truths shared.Now the roles are reversed – the thinking is over for a time, but the “doing” begins. As the politicians stream back into Ottawa, they aren’t heading back into a mere three-ring circus, as the public supposes, but onto a “winner-takes-all” battleground.  Will the truth once more become the first casualty of that war, or will the Liberals, armed with the humility and collective purpose garnered from the past weekend, stake out a higher moral ground with the other opposition parties and maintain it?There is inevitably some pretty rough stuff to come, as Conservative knives will be drawn and sharpened.  They will do what they’ve always done – bludgeon any attempt at refinement or shared compromise. They can’t afford to have the kind of authentic self-examination enter the House in any way that can survive, for the sheer power of that new dynamic threatens our current way of doing politics in Ottawa.When Michael Ignatieff announced a tax freeze on corporate cuts for the next two years, he surely knew he had bared his back to the government knives.  Interest groups will press him to do it for the sake of the truth that was uncovered this past weekend, but then again, they don’t have to endure what the Liberal leader is about to experience.  One of the key transformations witnessed in Ottawa in these last few years has been the unfolding of “hard power” in the nation’s capital. It’s neither reasonable nor responsible, but it has prevailed, placing the country under a harsher blue light.  Ignatieff is about to face that force again, while most of those third party groups sit back and keenly observe.It’s likely the business and corporate community will have their arguments ready as to why they need the tax reduction. They’ll claim that in such a competitive economic climate they require every break they can get.  It’s doubtful, however, that the corporate voices will draw attention the windfall they’ve experienced in the past decade.  Yes, the Liberals would freeze the corporate tax rate at 18%, yet such rates have been declining steadily from a high of 35% a mere decade ago.  That’s a significant boost to the corporate sector and a huge loss of revenue for the federal government.So while Mr. Flaherty wants to reduce those rates even further, Mr. Ignatieff has suggested they be frozen for two years so that we can have the revenue required to boost productivity and manage the upcoming healthcare crisis of the coming decades. More details are to follow, but in one bold, and what appears to be counter-intuitive move, the Liberal leader has staked this country’s future on innovation, human capital, and a sense of recovered vision. He knows well enough that the business community will itself be bankrupt without the investment in the skills and education of a qualified workforce.And so the lines are drawn.  New dynamics are now at play in Ottawa and the Conservatives stand at the ready to pummel them.  And those third party groups?  Well, that’s just it.  After a weekend of enjoying owning the podium and presenting their truth, will they now enter the political arena and support those parties that act on it?  That is now the big question.  Truth or consequences.