Contenders are already emerging for the 2010 race for the mayoralty in Ottawa, and for the seats on a new council that will lead Ottawa through the recession, seamlessly realizing a bold, new vision that creates jobs, protects our green spaces, fixes our traffic snarls, and makes Ottawa an exciting tourist destination and even better place to live.
Long-term vision and cooperation will be the mantra of this new council, who put aside petty differences for the good of their constituents and the whole city. They will find new money without raising taxes, eliminating the dreadful waste that has plagued us in the past. Unbeholden to developers and other private interests, taxpayers will get bang for their buck, rural and urban residents alike.
Overseeing this fresh political harmony will be the new Mayor, elected for her wisdom and experience. A natural born leader, the Mayor will bring unmatched vigour and integrity, pushing forward for practical change while holding the reigns on reckless spending.
Sound fanciful? It should. Current councillors are already jockeying for the top spot, among them Alex Cullen and Diane Deans. Not that either of these two couldn't be a fine mayor. They might. But coming from this council which has produced little in the way of results and much in they way of public disgust, they are tainted.
So too is provincial cabinet minister Jim Watson who is rumoured to be thinking of making the jump from Dalton McGuinty's inner circle to Larry O'Brien's office. Anyone attached to the hapless McGuinty Liberals, soiled by scandal and broken promises, comes with baggage.
What Ottawa really needs is an injection of new blood, leaders who have lived outside of politics and government long enough to know how the world turns. We need a healthy combination of youth and age, urban and rural, men and women, minorities and whites, and a mix of career backgrounds.
Easy to say, I know. Our treatment of politicians hardly makes the job desirable and the pay is nothing to get excited about (approximately $80,000 for councillors). But there must be something to it because nearly everyone who gets elected spends four years in office thinking only about optics, relying on an apathetic and distracted electorate with short public memory and little political education to lazily elect them again despite a substance-free track record.
The solution to this downward spiral is daunting, but it does exist.
There are flowers within the weeds and we just need to find them. At all levels of government there are intelligent, thoughtful and honest politicians buried beneath the heap of garbage that regularly makes headlines. They represent all parties and political perspectives but share the quality of genuine respect, for each other and the taxpaying public that pays their salaries. If these few can get elected, there is hope that others like them could too. All is not lost.
The solution, therefore, is for voters to find these people and push them to the top so they can lead as examples to the rest. To encourage such a collective feat, Ottawa and Ontario should hold several public forums leading up to the election, online and in person, so that voters can drill candidates with questions.
The media should profile each candidate with special emphasis on character as well as policy ideas, refusing to play along with meaningless stunts, not even in a critical role. As parents know, children act out for attention, not caring whether that attention is positive or negative, preferring punishment to nothing at all. Politicians operate at the level of children. They are happy to be in the news even if for their kicks and screams. Just look at John Baird.
Civics education should be made mandatory again in schools so that young voters know the difference between municipal, provincial and federal responsibilities, government and opposition, announcement and action, and why it matters.
Election financing laws should be reformed and regulated to make campaigning less expensive so that anyone with the will could put their name on the ballot and be given a fair chance to be seen and heard.
Finally, party leaders should reverse the trend to centralize power in their offices, backrooms run by snide, unelected partisans who strategize without an ounce of concern for the public good. Leaders should allow more free speech and free votes for backbenchers who are still connected to the ground.
Apathy is the scourge of our current system and cynicism is its bastard child. It is easy to blame politicians but it is really on the shoulders of voters to flush the tank and fill it with clean water.
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