Of course many Blogging Tories do get a kick out of mocking various members of the Opposition for their inanities, and from them you might get the impression that the Harper government could go on governing in perpetuity and it would be just fine with the rest of us.
The thing is, your impression would be wrong.
One of the greatest premiers of B.C., W.A.C. “Wacky” Bennett, had a saying: in order to fly high, you need to have the wind against you. What he meant was that a truly effective government needs a truly great opposition. And unfortunately for Canada, a great opposition is something we’ve not really had for a very, very long time.
Now, the pieces are certainly there. You have one party with an ideological spine, and a junior party wedded to pragmatism. And, if Jack Layton were still around, you’d have something that would make the government pause in its tracks, if only for a little bit.
But Mr. Layton isn’t around anymore, and the best that these inexperienced hyperpartisans are coming up with these days is a general riff on “the Harper government is evil, you voters must throw them out and put us in charge ’cause we’re the only real alternative.”
Seriously. Have you heard any of the current NDP leadership candidates give a speech that would make you say, “Yes, I can see this person as Prime Minister of Canada”? Oh, you there? Okay, then, do you work for any of the candidates? Uh-huh, that’s what I thought. Sit down, then, because you’re the one who really needs to hear this.
It’s a simple truth: Stephen Harper needs a good, effective Opposition. He needs it because it will make him a better leader.
The job of the Official Opposition is threefold:
- It holds the government to account.
The current lot might think they’re doing that, but they’re not; they’re just calling Tory policies nasty names. “Holding to account” means you challenge policies based on things like (a) the assumptions that make the policy necessary, (b) how the policy’s supposed to work, (c) the expected outcome, and (d) what should happen if (and when) something goes wrong. Pension reform is a good case in point: you should be challenging the government on whether (a) is reform needed, (b) why increasing the age of eligibility for OAS is a good idea or not, (c) what kind of savings or efficiencies should be expected, and (d) what if reform turns out to be more expensive than projected.
Does the government need this? Yes. Because one of the things that public debate is supposed to do is expose a public position, both strengths as well as weaknesses. If the Opposition can force the government to address a weakness, then the result will most likely be a better policy.
- It actively points out problems and challenges the government to resolve them.
This is, unfortunately, something that the Opposition has ceded to mainstream and social media, usually preferring to follow the news lead in Question Period, if they do so at all. It’s unfortunate because it usually means they’re suborning their own judgement of what’s wrong with government to editors and broadcasters looking for eyes to see a shocking headline (as well as the associated ad space). This can lead to political capital being expended on trivia (i.e. the PM handling a communion wafer) at the expense of truly important problems (the management of on-reserve First Nations), and it’s the sort of judgement that the Opposition needs to take back.
We all know that no administration, no managerial entity likes to admit that something it’s done has gone wrong. And as a result of this attitude, it’s going to be very reluctant to acknowledge that a problem actually exists. The job of an Opposition is not only to show the public that problems exist, but to highlight it in such a way that the government has little choice but to resolve it, in order to remove it from the public agenda.
- It presents alternatives the the present situation.
This is, truly, where our current Opposition have really fallen down. Insulting government proposals is all well and good, but unless there is a genuine will to unite behind a well-reasoned, well-expressed alternative, people will regard the Opposition insults as mere noise.
And it’s especially true that the current government needs to see this. It needs a constant reminder that alternatives exist, some of which are more electorally attractive than what they currently have, or will have, to offer. That in turn makes government more responsive to what it perceives as the public will, which is exactly the type of accountability the Opposition exists to foster.
So why is our Opposition doing so badly? Ironically, part of the problem is a certain amount of (ahem) conservatism: few members are willing to proactively take a position or advocate a policy, and risk exposure to attack. The New Democrats, in particular, are unwilling to come out of their shell; when, after all, was the last time a leadership candidate stood up in Question Period? Did Ms. Turmel and her House leader not realize that, in denying those candidates the opportunity to speak, they were denying the New Democrats a stage to make a stronger impression overall?
And the excuse they have is that, well, they’re in a state of flux, relying on interim leaders for at least the next couple of months. I’m not entirely certain that I buy that. Yes, an interim leader shouldn’t want to trap her successor into a position that causes hampering. But so long as she holds the position, then she needs to do as much as she can to get her party up to the forefront, filling in the functions that an Opposition is supposed to do. (Perhaps Ms. Turmel could observe Mr. Bob Rae and understand his work. She does, after all, have the advantage of not having his history.)
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