Unwillingness to listen makes politicians alike

Polite social interaction dictates that we apply the “they’re-all-the-same” view when discussing politics.

This way, we avoid unpleasant partisan disagreement.

It’s an annoyance, because politicians are not all the same ... or least, there is usually one who is more at fault than the other at any given time.

There again, sometimes they are all the same — which seems to be the problem in current federal/provincial relations where both conservative provincial premiers and federal Liberal politicians share the view there really isn’t any need to actually listen to each other ... even at First Ministers meetings specifically designed to identify problems and share ideas for solutions.

The cheek of Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe and Ontario Premier Doug Ford to threaten to walk out of an opportunity to discuss with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau the very federal issues they claim are plaguing their provinces is actually rather stunning. You can’t be a leader if you are walking away from an opportunity to sit down with the supposed source of your problems and talk about solutions.

There again, Ottawa somehow pre-determined that the concerns of Moe, Ford et al. were not significant enough to be included on the initial agenda, a murky reflection of a federal government that is oblivious to people in the regions that are really hurting.

That the federal response to plummeting oil jobs would be a lecture from federal Environment Minister Catherine Mckenna on her flawed carbon levy is equally stunning.

An environment minister is not a “first minister”. This was just ridiculous.

However, the problem may be that Moe, Ford, Trudeau, Mckenna and Alberta Opposition leader Jason Kenney are all too much alike — at least when it comes to being only interested in spewing stuff to their own base with little thought of broader issues or solutions to them.

For example, there is legitimate reason to question how Mckenna’s carbon tax is an effective policy — especially when her government is giving it back to people to spend as they wish, like putting more gas in their carbon-polluting cars.

But it isn’t just provincial politicians that Mckenna and Trudeau tend to tune out. When confronted by grain farmer and video-blogger Megz Reynolds on the notion that agriculture’s fixed commodity prices mean the industry can’t simply pass on the carbon tax to customers, Mckenna offered the same vacant rhetoric we’ve heard for three years now.

That said, the eagerness of Moe and others to press these issues has long been tinged by their barely-hidden partisan political agenda to defeat Trudeau.

Of course, one can fairly argue that any supposed agenda and/or desire Moe, Ford and Kenney have to replace Trudeau is the acceptable nature of politics in which you support those with similar philosophies because you sincerely believe their policies are better for your jurisdictions.

But far too often, the narrative accompanying the problem is more important than the solution.

Consider how this very week Moe made it known he would not support Alberta’s slowdown on production to deal with the price differential between light and heavy crude oil — an issue he has been hammering at for weeks and demanded be on the agenda of the First Ministers’ meeting. So why not co-operatively join the NDP premier in a solution strategy? Hmmm?

There again, if western premiers are eager to see the First Ministers agenda changed because of dwindling western jobs, their timing was less than fortuitous. Alberta NDP Premier Rachel Notley was tweeting out about 80,000 new Alberta jobs, mere minutes after also tweeting about the job crisis in Alberta’s oil sector.

Similarly, Moe’s communication office was boasting Friday morning about how “Saskatchewan’s year-overyear employment increased by 16,300 jobs in November ... the largest job increase since 2013.” Job crisis? What job crisis?

Sadly, all this turns politicians into the old cliché that they are all really the same.