My Absolute Best Assumption
The days following the announcement of Stephane Dion's Green Shift proposal have been highly illustrative of much of what is wrong in the present political system. I don't need to go into the Prime Minister's demeaning "It will screw everybody" - the level of rhetoric speaks for itself.
I'm more intrigued by the pundrity coming out of national media. That there would be numerous opinions was to be predicted. I am more surprised at the sheer lack of understanding of the Green Shift plan. I spoke to one national columnist today who scolded me for supporting a plan that would ultimately hurt (his tone could have more fit the PM's "screwed" language) the less-fortunate in society. He said this to me because he perceived (correctly) that because I'm still director of my local food bank, poverty should matter to me. But then he assumed (incorrectly) that I should take issue with Dion's new initiative as a result. Once I took him through the details of the plan that pertained to the alleviation of poverty he simply stated he didn't understand that before.
And that's the problem with it all. Rather than spending time searching it out and speaking with experts (I'm not one, by the way), so many have just decided the plan won't work. I still find it incredible, especially considering the sheer importance of the initiative. Whether one agrees with the plan or not, it is a serious policy effort and deserves to be treated with a corresponding seriousness.
Where is everyone about the present government's environmental plan? Last night I had the privilege of speaking in tribute at a reception for Gordon MacBean, a climate specialist in London, Ontario and one of the members of the ICCP - the International Climate Change Panel - that recently won the Nobel Peace Prize. In his closing speech, MacBean apologized for arriving late to the reception. He had just finished putting the touches on an open letter to the Prime Minister from 100 of the top Canadian scientists, claiming that the scientific debate on global warming is over and the time has come for the Prime Minister to act.
So there we have it: Canada's top scientists taking on the role that parliamentarians and the media should be occupying. It is a given in Ottawa that the government's present plan is remarkably weak, but what do we spend our time complaining about? Stephane Dion and a serious plan to address poverty and climate change together.
I am relieved this moment has finally arrived. I will be premising my whole election campaign on the single assumption that Canadians are uneasy at the present drift in our national life. They are collectively disturbed at the slow but inevitable decline in our national vitality and international prestige. It is clear to me, as I think it is to many Canadians, that our great trouble at the moment is that we talk far too often in slogans and we fight old, foolish partisan battles that cheapen modern citizenry.
It's time for a new future ... and I'm ready for it. It will be a future in which science will clearly be linked to social justice. On the horizon is the greatest threat ever confronted by humanity (a conclusion in which those 100 scientists clearly concur).
The most significant difficulty in Canadian politics today is that we're slipping - in our intellectual and moral strength. Those days in which we can sincerely debate credible ideas has withered. We have lost our way, our will, and our sense of Canada's destiny in the world. Everything is punditry, consumerism and grade school political rhetoric that permits our most privileged leaders to use words like "crazy" and "screwed."
Well, Dion has given us a chance to bring it back - to introduce meaning back into citizen engagement. And every citizen will be engaged by having to pay a price for carbon. Rather than observing, like it or not, they will now be the key agents for battling climate change. Doesn't sound "crazy" to me. Whatever the merits or faults of Dion's plan, it is a plan and it is serious. It's the moment I've been waiting for ... and my biggest assumption is that I believe I'm not alone.