To our fellow politicians: let’s not become the U.S.
We were both mayors. We are now members of Parliament — one Liberal and one Conservative. We have similar backgrounds and similar views on many issues despite being in different parties. And we are both alarmed.
We watched what happened in Washington last week. A violent mob ransacked the u.s. Capitol to block the certification of election results. This attack on democracy left death and injury in its wake. These domestic terrorists were fuelled by a massive disinformation campaign on social media and incited by President donald Trump, but other elected leaders were also to blame. They either repeated utterly false claims by the president about a “stolen election” or sat back and tolerated them. A poisonous environment has been created and a country has been deeply divided.
Some would tell you it can never happen in Canada. We do not agree. It can happen anywhere, if we allow it. New technology has allowed extremist groups to instantly reach millions. In the same way the Nazis used such new technology as radio and motion pictures to fuel their propaganda machine, radical extremists today — both on the left and the right — are making use of new technologies to spread disinformation in a massive way. This is a huge and complex threat that needs to be tackled urgently, but today we limit ourselves to the role of elected leaders.
In municipal government we learned to disagree without being disagreeable. Most cities do not have political parties. Those that do, have a small enough group of councillors that they need to work together on a regular basis. In those cases people recognize that you cannot constantly attack people personally and remain effective. unfortunately at the federal and provincial level this is often not the case.
Today our political discourse is often drenched in rage. As opposed to disagreeing on ideas we frequently engage in “gotcha” politics, attacking someone personally for any small error they make. Politicians are human, we all make mistakes. Each of us has made mistakes, too. Nobody is perfect. unfortunately there are some in each party for whom relationships across the aisle are less important than attacking legislators from other parties in the hopes of achieving short-term political gain or scoring a cheap point for the news that evening.
When that happens, we are following the u.s. model of polarizing our politics. As opposed to challenging ideas and proposing solutions, some try to distort their opponents’ views and seek to make the general public believe that everyone in the opposing party is bad and does not care about Canadians.
The more this is done, the more Canadians become convinced that they not only disagree with the political ideas they do not support, they actually dislike or even despise the politicians and people who espouse those opposing ideas.
This is terrible for our democracy, terrible for political stability and terrible for Canada. Justin Trudeau is a good person. So is Erin O’toole. So is Jagmeet Singh. So are other political leaders of different parties. Each wants what is best for Canada. Each has different views on what is best for Canada. That is healthy. What is unhealthy is when people say they hate the prime minister, or the leader of the Opposition, or the leader of the NDP, or the leaders of other parties, and those who support them. We are hearing this too often. This needs to end.
Our political opponents are not our enemies. We should not be inciting Canadians to believe that they are. We encourage all elected officials and candidates across Canada to think about what happened in Washington. Let’s all learn from it.