Stop Predicting - Start Achieving

Politics is turning wacky again. Stephen Harper gloats in his decimation of the Liberal Party, which Jack Layton vows to keep in its place while his NDP seeks to consolidate its power as the chief opposition. Conservative minister James Moore mocks the NDP for pretending it will get rid of its "socialism" label. Layton promotes an NDP honeymoon without end.You get all this, right? It's not about the challenges we face as a nation but rather a fixation on power and how to retain it.  Following years of pitting the Conservatives and NDP against one another, the Liberal party is in the fortunate position of remaking itself because of its distance from real power. Because of this, Liberals can concentrate on the one thing that really matters above all else - not party survival but Canadian adaptation.Reading all the stories about how this particular party will do this and the other will do that should make us all dubious. It's all about a kind of power that can't seem to change very much of anything. We've had vestiges of such power arrangements for two decades now yet Canada's greatest obstacles remain in front of us, unchallenged and increasingly daunting regardless of how many political conventions there are.It's time we all came to terms with the reality that the present power accommodations that once served this country so well are no longer practical, despite what the parties say.  We believe that with scientific modernism we can solve anything. We desperately maintain that the smartest people in the room can rise to leadership and guide us through the precarious channels, only to find it doesn't work. This isn't because we voted wrong; rather it's because today's leaders can't possibly comprehend all the ways in which to line up the ducks in a row to make smooth progress. We hope for the same with our economic managers, only to learn once again that they got it wrong as the world plunges into more financial turbulence. They were smart men and women, but the changes they attempted to manage just got away on them.Decades ago, David Halberstam penned The Best and the Brightest - a troubling examination of how the most intelligent people in the United States couldn't spot or solve the debacle that was Vietnam. Researcher Philip Tetlock modernized Halberstam's findings by pulling together 300 experts to advise on political and economic trends. Over half had PhDs; almost all were post-graduates. After asking them a vast array of questions, he discovered that they rarely agreed with one another and that most of their predictions turned out to be wrong. His book Expert Political Judgement chronicles his findings. Soon other research followed, all arriving at a similar conclusion: modern problems are so complex that even experts can't predict their outcome.It's perhaps a little late in the day to be finally learning this, and if it is indeed true then we have arrived at the age of unintended and unknown consequences. Think of  the problems we have confronted in the last few years - the global financial meltdown, the rise in destitute poverty ratings, the steadily rising price of food, the devastation brought on by climate change, the ever-increasing demand placed upon retirement and healthcare. Where are the solutions? Nowhere. Instead we receive incremental investments that barely make a difference. There is no vision, only hand-holding.And what are our political parties doing about it? Having conventions and plotting the demise of the other parties. Content with shifting chairs on the deck, they have been so enamoured with their pursuit of power, or like the Liberals, the lack of it, that they remain blind to the icebergs arrayed before them. They offer bromides in the place of real action, forgetting the counsel of H. R. McMaster: "It's so damn complex. If you ever think you have the solution to this, you're wrong and you're dangerous." Currently, the most pressing dangers facing the Canadian future today are those offering the most simplistic of solutions while fixated themselves on the glories of power. To solve such immense issues will require a politics of cooperation not of conflict, of partnership not power. But from the antics of recent political developments it is clear we are no closer to preparing a better future for our children, even with a majority government. Voters wanted political peace and instead got a clearing of the shrubs so that the lane was cleared for the manic pursuit of power.This is where Liberals now have the advantage - they're too far from power at the moment to be drawn by it. Instead, they have the opportunity to select the challenges of the day and solve them, regardless of the sacrifice.  The other parties? Presently they're too intoxicated to discern the urgent from the expedient. Time they stopped predicting their political fortunes and actually start achieving something.