Next Ontario Election "narrative"

Before Christmas, I was reading Ill Fares the Land, from Tony Judt, after it was recommanded to me by a politico hotshot from Queen's Park.

I came away with some quotation that struck me as being quintessential to his thoughts AND because it seemed to me the next provincial election in Ontario might be fought on those principles.

Judt, quoting from John Maynard Keynes:
"it is not sufficient that the state of affairs which we seek to promote should be better that the state of affairs which preceded it; it must be sufficiently better to make up for the evils of the transition"

In other words : Are you better off with or without the changes the Liberals brought forward since 2003 (HST, Green Energy Act, etc...) Sounds like a classic ballot question to me.

Tim Hudak and Andrea Horwarth are already criss-crossing the province to make their point.

Dalton McGuinty kicked-off a tour of his own, with a new "Al Gore inspired" presentation.


(BTW, the guy on the photo behind the Premier is a 17 year-old Dalton McGuinty. the pix was taken in 1973 on Lac St-Pierre in Québec)


Other quotes from Ill fares de land:
Tony Judt

"As recently as the 1970, the idea that the point of life was to get rich and that governement existed to facilitate this would have been ridiculed: not only by capitalism's traditional critics, but also by many of its staunchest defenders. Relative indifference to wealth for its own sake was widespread in the post-war decades.

(in a survey of schoolboys in 1949)
It was discovered that the more intelligent the boy the more likely
he was to choose an interresting career at a reasonnable wage over a job that would merely pay well. Today's schoolchildren and college students can imagine little else but the search for a lucrative job."

"if we don't respect public goods; if we permit or encourage the privatization of public space, ressources and services; if we enthusiastically support the prosperity of a younger generation to look exclusively to their own needs; then we should not be surprised to find a steady falling-away from civic engagementin public decision-making. In recent years, there has been much discussion of the so-called "democratic-deficit".

The steadily declining turnout at local and national election, the cynical distaste for politicians and political institutions consistently register in public polls - most markedly among the young. There is a widespread sense that since "they" will do what they want in any case - while feathering their own nests - why should "we" waste time trying to influence the outcome of their actions.

In the short-run, democracies can survive the indifference of their citizens. Indeed it used to be thought an indicator of impending trouble in a well-ordered republic when electors were too much aroused. The business of government, it was widely supposed, should be left to those elected for the purpose. But the pendulum has flung far in the opposite direction."