Columnists
Handcuffing our grandchildren
I’d like to say it was a pleasure to watch the noble lesson in civics that the October 8 English language leaders’ debate offered. I’d like to say it, but I can’t. The debate was disgraceful.
Andrew Scheer called Justin Trudeau a criminal mastermind at every chance he got; Justin Trudeau tried to drown out other speakers by talking over them; Maxime Bernier was just plain belligerent, and Yves-Francois Blanchet wondered what on earth he was doing in another nation’s debate. Elizabeth May and Jagmeet Singh attempted to deliver their messages in a folksy form, but were undone by the constraints of time and the format. It wasn’t the greatest learning experience.
Is there any interest in finding common ground? Is there common ground to be found?
I like to think there is. For example, there are two groups of people, each of which uses the phraseology that we are ‘handcuffing our grandchildren’ if we simply propel ourselves forward on our current trajectory. Their priorities seem to differ, but I suspect a more fulsome interaction between the two would yield up some areas of agreement.
The first group are the debt reducers. They consider we are backed into a corner with ever higher public debt—all the while enjoying good times, oblivious to the threat looming over our heads. The debt reducers say our debt level will come back to bite us when interest rates rise or when times turn worse —or when no one wants to invest in the Canadian economy any more. Debt reducers are not popular at parties.
The other group are the climateers, who are ‘believers in the science’ of a climate emergency. They say that failure to take more aggressive steps now to reduce carbon emissions will make it impossible to meet the targets set out in the Paris accords. By way of underlining how seriously some take this threat, the Globe and Mail the other day carried an article about the rising numbers of people who are pledging not to have children out of fear that the quality of their lives would be so abysmal they are better off not being born.
The peculiar thing is, the majority of people I’ve met tend towards only one of these two positions. The debt reducers seem to be suspicious of the need to take urgent acton on climate change. They argue the environmental lobby has cried wolf before; the gloomy predictions in books such as The Population Bomb and The Limits to Growth have failed to materialize. Things never turn out as badly as the worst prediction suggests, so why should they be believed this time? Climateers believe that adding to the debt is only a consequence of what needs to be done in order to avoid catastrophic climate change. The changeover to a green economy will be more costly the longer we wait. Those who think otherwise are just ostriches hiding their heads in the sand. Besides, if we’re wrong, you still get the bonus of a new green economy ahead of the absolute need for it, and this superproductive new economy will take care of the debt load.
Yet it’s conceptually possible to be both a debt reducer and a climateer—putting aside the dismissiveness I have attributed to each about the other. I just wish more of them would make their presence felt. Indeed, I would like to put some debt reducers and climateers in a room together in a collaborative, nonpartisan setting. I would even undertake to provide snacks. The discussion, grounded in their common interest in the wellbeing of their grandchildren, would be fascinating. Opportunities open up when one takes this ‘two generation’ approach (admittedly, not even close to the ‘seven generations’ approach of the Iroquois, but a big step forward). For example, investments that may seem imprudent when looked at over the short run of four years may look a lot different when amortized over the long run of a couple of generations. Priorities would change substantially if weighted against a longer term vision.
Our two camps should also be able to find some additional common ground on the powers of government, Each wants to wrench the status quo and transform it into something different. Each requires a long lead time, which is why starting now is important. Each is going to want to use the power of government, whether to try achieve something bold and new, or to conserve something extraordinarily valuable.
I will be voting next Monday for the candidate whose party platform has a long term vision and a short term plan to realize it; that encourages the collaborative approach; that is unafraid to use the power of government to make it happen; and that benefits from the contributions of both debt reducers and climateers. That shouldn’t be too much to ask.
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