Canadians are too accepting of incompetence
Our politicians should be held to a higher standard, Andrew Cohen says.
Less than a month ago, the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario chose its new leader. The process was cloudy and chaotic. In a word, it was a fiasco.
At different stages in the electronic balloting, the two leading candidates — Doug Ford and Christine Elliott — cast doubt on the legitimacy of the contest. Before he was declared the winner, Ford had warned of irregularities, seeking an extension of the vote. According to the National Post, he called the process “corrupt, unfair and biased.”
When his victory was announced, though, Ford’s concerns vanished (much like Donald Trump, who questioned the integrity of the 2016 election until it made him president).
Elliott, having lost despite winning more votes than Ford — blame her party’s peculiar version of the electoral college — protested. In the complex voting system based on geography, her representatives “identified entire towns voting in the wrong riding.”
The point here isn’t who won. It is that no one seems terribly upset about this shambles — the latest example of Canada’s institutional ineptitude.
We cannot seem to get things right these days. Once we saw things as a matter of confidence. Now we ask if things are a matter of competence.
Justin Trudeau’s visit to India was a disaster because his staff ignored advice on when to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi and how to balance his time. They did not foresee the optics of Canada’s prime minister wearing more national outfits than a runway model. This followed a bad trip to China. A question: who’s responsible?
The federal government cannot fix the beleaguered Phoenix system (inherited from the Conservatives) to pay its employees. It could not organize the security for celebrations in Ottawa on July 1; thousands were caught in long lines, in the rain, unable to get on Parliament Hill.
It could not unveil the National Holocaust Monument without controversy. It could not build the unfinished Collections Conservation Centre next to the Canada Science and Technology Museum without huge cost overruns. It cannot fill many senior administrative and judicial positions.
We continue to have a crumbling 24 Sussex Drive because no one will make a decision. It will take 10 years or so to renovate Centre Block, forcing Parliament to move. Why do other countries finish big projects faster?
The Conservatives made little progress on pipelines and it is likely the Liberals won’t either, despite their efforts. More broadly, funds for infrastructure projects are slow to reach their destination.
Incompetence, incompetence. Is it more common now than before? Perhaps. True, governments do not get credit for things that work — utilities that supply power and water, medical care that heals, pensions that are paid on time. These, governments do well.
It is also true that governments receive no applause for what we don’t see — such as Trudeau’s quiet, able management of the bilateral relationship with the mercurial Donald Trump as NAFTA is renegotiated. Canada is a case study in focus and selfdiscipline.
When we see excellence in quality in business, we know it. There is a reason that Mercedes-Benz, EQ3, Apple, Enterprise Car Rental and L.L. Bean succeed; they have exacting standards of service that they apply relentlessly.
Yet too many today have no standards at all. We accept the results with polite resignation.
Andrew Cohen is a journalist, professor and author of Two Days in June: John F. Kennedy and the 48 Hours That Made History.