Weekend: Thursday, January 28 to Sunday, January 31, 2010

It's amazing how actions can truly have unintended consequences. According to at least one commentator, the result of Jean Chretien's party and election financing reforms, in which he replaced corporate donations with a tax-payer funded subsidy, has been increased acrimony in out national politics.

The logic goes something like this: the tax-payer funded subsidy has been a boon to political parties, with higher amounts granted compared to what they typically got from corporate donations, and the result is that they can now staff full, standing war rooms, and launch adversarial advertising, regardless of whether we are in the middle of an election or not. In other words, in the new world, the spin is constant, and it is crowding out debate on real issues.

According to that logic, what was intended to eliminate reliance on corporations and the resulting pressure to act in their interests has merely resulted in cheap access for corporations (who hire lobbyists in any event), and an atmosphere of constant spin and acrimony.

The result of all that spin and acrimony is our season of discontent. According to one study, which I believe very few people will argue with, the level of trust in our politicians and in the institutions within which they function is in steep decline.

Canada needs a new political culture, an approach to government that is truly "good", and truly vested in the interests of citizens rather than of politicians and the current approach to politics. We need citizens in Ottawa, not politicians; citizens interested in fashioning a bold new reality; citizens unwilling to buy into the perspective that one party is always right and the other is always wrong; citizens determined to fashion a Canada that will be a beacon of peace, order and good government for all the world.

At the end of our season of discontent, for it is but a season, must come a greater Canada - the dominion of the citizen.