Marshall McLuhan was known to mark his students’ essays with phrases like “
one new idea,” or “ two new ideas” and so on. Despite the fact that many
pundits today are saying that the present Liberal leadership race is based
on issues and ideas, up until now, I’ve seen no new policies or a hint of
new ideas. Nonetheless, the so-called mainstream media report that there are
“ front-runners,” or a “ Team A” and a “ Team B” in the federal Liberal
leadership. But why is that? I’ve tried hard to understand the criteria, but
I wasn’t able to come up with an explanation.
For example, most put Liberal MP Scott Brison in “ Team A” and Liberal
MP Maurizio Bevilacqua in “ Team B.” My question is: what does Mr. Brison
have more than Mr. Bevilacqua? Both have some economic expertise, with the
former being a member of the House Finance Committee when the latter was the
chairman of the same committee.
Both
have government experience and are young. Mr. Brison stood up to Stephen
Harper, Mr. Bevilacqua stood up to Paul Martin and they both speak the same
French.
I’m not saying one is better than the other or who has more
Liberal credentials. I’m only asking why is one in “ A Team” and the other
in “ B team” ? Another example? Liberal MPP Gerard Kennedy is in the “ A
Team” and Liberal MP Joe Volpe is in the “ B Team.” Kennedy has experience
with food banks.Volpe has experience in the education system. Both speak
French and have academic credentials. One has provincial government
experience, the other has federal government experience, and, yes, both
might have a public relations degree from the George Costanza-Seinfeld
University.
Now, excluding the thought that their collocation in A or B
teams have anything to do with their ethnicity, I hope someone will explain
to me why Brison and Kennedy are in the so-called “ A team” and Bevilacqua
and Volpe are in the so-called “ B team.” And don’t tell me about name
recognition: that comes with the exposure that the mainstream media give to
some and not to others.
The proof? When Volpe intervened a few weeks ago in
Edmonton, a weekend filler journalist (and sincerely I don’t remember his
name), was asked to comment on the candidate’s speech, but the only thing he
had to say was that Volpe was known for the “ pizza scandal.” There are
many bad things that a good journalist can say about anybody, including
Volpe, but there are very few that a “ team B” pundit can come up with.
This Liberal leadership race will be an opportunity for all
pundits to better understand the candidates and the changes taking place in
Canadian federal politics. There are some still talking about Paul Martin’s
or Jean Chrétien’s electoral machines without knowing that those machines do
not exist any longer. So what’s actually left are generals without troops,
and troops without generals.
Other pundits are talking about the need for new ideas, but
they end up with a new political vocabulary. For example, in the past there
was always talk about “ turncoats,” now it’s become much more sophisticated
talk about a “ homecoming.” Now, the Liberal Party, in order to accommodate
all the people “ coming home” at the same time, has more doors than the
coliseum. There’s the ideological homecoming of Scott Brison who appears to
be on the Road to Damascus; the geographical homecoming of Michael Ignatief
who has been also forced to explain some of the content of his celebrated
books; and the homecoming of the Prodigal Son Bob Rae.To find out how
prodigal he was, just ask Ontarians.
Politics is an evolving business and everybody can reassess
its thinking. Nonetheless, Liberals should be entitled to some skepticism
when they hear that a former NDP premier who is running for the Liberal
leadership, says that,” The choice is not between capitalism and
socialism.The question is what kind of capitalism we want to have,”
according to James Laxer’s book
The New Left.
So are we sure that this is a homecoming or just a stopover before
considering an eventual run for the leadership of the Conservative Party? So
we, in the almighty media, create heroes and front-runners without doing
some homework first to try to understand the ideas, and where the candidates
want to take the party and the country first.
I’m not saying they’re bad, I’m only saying that before we
declare winners and losers, we ought to do some homework, scratch under the
surface and see what we really get. If we do that first we’ll be surprised
to discover how much talent is out there, which would be good for the
country and we’d surprised to see, just to name one, how deep in his
thoughts is Ken Dryden and how committed he is to his vision of Canada.
Unfortunately, we prefer to talk about Dryden only when he has his NHL goal
tender mask on his face, and I suspect we like to judge all candidates with
the masks we put on them.
I also suspect that we, the media, do so because we can’t
handle people the way they are; we need to put a mask on all of them because
we’re afraid to see the real face of the new Canada. Just think about Mark
Twain’s assessment of things.” God made an idiot for practice, than he made
some journalists.”
