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What is the EU?
Just hours after the Brexit vote was announced, Canadian newspapers scrambled to tell us what Justin Trudeau made of Britain’s decision to leave the European Union and what he thought it meant for Canada. It seemed odd. Out of place.
Days after the vote, the world remains engulfed in uncertainty amid one of the most fluid global circumstances since the Second World War. The folks in the middle of the chaos, those bearing the direct brunt of this decision are still struggling to find meaning— and more pressingly, eager to know when the unravelling of financial, currency and trade markets will abate.
Yet our newspapers felt we needed to know what Justin Trudeau was thinking in the minutes after the vote. This is not a slam against Trudeau. It would have been just as odd, and as predictably meaningless, had they asked these questions of Stephen Harper. Kathleen Wynne. Mayor Robert Quaiff. The Dukes newest defenceman.
It is not a new thing—news outlets are programmed to seek out the local angle, to find the hometown connection. Nor is it inherently a bad thing. When a bridge collapses in Minneapolis, reporters instinctively respond with questions about the prospect of a falling bridge in the Tri-County area.
But our need for the parochial angle seems out of place in this story. Or at least too soon. Especially when the meaning isn’t at all clear in Britain or the rest of Europe. Anything Trudeau might have said, beyond soothing generalities may well have been torn to shreds by events—events over which neither he nor Canada has control or particular influence.
Despite this prelude, dear reader, I nevertheless bravely offer my own feeble observations of events this past week. I understand if you choose to turn to the next page at this point.
Number one observation: Referenda are bad ways to make public policy decisions. Popular opinion is certainly a guide in the business of governing, but decision-making is best done when filtered by those we choose to represent us. (And dismiss when they fail to represent us well).
Debates about the worth of Beyonce’s recent album or Justin Bieber’s haircut ought not be decided in the same manner or forum by which we form trade and immigration policy.
Our elected bodies provide a buffer between a distracted, disinterested and agitated population. It’s an important bushing in a democracy. When we step around these institutions—as frail and unresponsive as they may be—to ask the people to make the decision, we are asking for trouble.
The answer we get may have nothing to do with the question that was asked.
Google reported a massive spike in the U.K. in the number of searches for: What is the E.U.? in the hours and days after the vote. There are other indications that Britons were registering a protest by voting to leave. Many, of course, genuinely want to pull out of the European Union.
In any event, there is no value in interpreting the vote and dissecting meaning from it. It is moot now. Britain and Europe are getting a divorce. The fracture has already encouraged nationalists in France, the Netherlands and elsewhere to seize this opportunity to push for new walls around their countries.
The filter of parliament, of a debate between elected officials and perhaps even the felling of a government might have vented some of this frustration without tearing apart a union and feeding the appetites of those who wish to retreat to their tribes in fear of the other.But that is done now.
Observation number two: There is a wave of frustrated populism roiling across the political landscape around the globe. There can be no other explanation for the horror show of Donald Trump as a candidate to lead the most powerful nation on earth.
But the folks in that country don’t feel so powerful these days. They believe others have taken away what belongs to them. It is not a surprise that opportunists rise up to give voice to their grievances. It is dismaying and worrying that the counter argument hasn’t been made more persuasively. More effectively.
Trade globalization has been a monumental success— raising billions from poverty in the third world and improving disposable incomes in the West. By nearly every metric the poorest on this planet have become richer, healthier and optimistic about their future as a result of a freer flow of trade around the world.
Yet the benefits haven’t been shared by all in the West. Those who made brooms and towels have seen their jobs taken by folks in Asia. A 50-year-old man who grew up to believe that if you worked hard and kept your nose clean in America you would succeed— is understandably disillusioned by an economy that seems to have rejected him. Disillusionment, however, has a nasty habit of creating inarticulate and unpredictable mobs from otherwise reasonable people.
It seems to me that we can do one of two things in response: either we can stoke these feelings of resentment and bitterness or we can nurture the entrepreneurial and innovative spirit within each of us while pointing to the opportunities created by free trade and globalization.
We have had plenty of the former in the past year— it is time our leaders put more emphasis on the nurturing bit. Perhaps this is where our Mr. Trudeau can help.
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