Take two pills and vote in the morning

This may sound bizarre, but in following the news coverage of the US Presidential campaign, I am reminded of bacteria. I realize that in penning this I am also being more than a tad bit insulting. For that, I apologize. There is a point to this, but it requires a bit of a detour down analogy lane, so fasten your seatbelt.

One of the emerging issues in the field of medicine is how to deal with MRSA’s – drug-resistant bacteria, in layperson’s terms. The advent of penicillin in the early 20^th century meant that people could take a couple of pills a day for a week and survive potentially life-threatening illnesses. When my son was 4, he was admitted to the hospital with the same ailment that killed my grandfather’s older brother in 1927. Three pills a day for five days, and that was that. Antibiotics may have grown in number and in potency, but they are also declining in effectiveness.

There are a number of opinions regarding what happened, but they seem to fall into two categories – one, that overuse or improper use of the drugs has lessened their punch, and two – that the bugs themselves have begun to mutate and build immunities of their own. The truth is likely some combination of the two phenomena, but the outcome is the same. What used to work no longer does, and the experts are left scratching their heads over what to do.

And so back to politics.

Political insiders and professional advisors are often called 'spin doctors' by others and by each other. I know some who view the moniker as some mark of favour, some source of pride. The term really owes to the fact that like practitioners of traditional medicine,  they deal with complex interactions and know what ‘remedies’ to employ when a campaign gets sick (i.e:  goes off the rails). Their patient’s health and wellbeing is what counts, even if it is a campaign and not the human body

For years, they have prescribed the same types of messages, targeted the same demographics, and pushed the same particular issues. The strategies have been repeated because, to this point, they have always worked. 'Play to your base' has been standard operating procedure since before most of us were born. Do it effectively, and you get 4 years and then, come the next election, it's more of the same.

What if, like their medical counterparts, the treatment that these ‘doctors’ are prescribing are losing their potency?  What if all of the pills in the ‘spin doctor’s’ black bag don’t deal with the infection?


Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders and Ted Cruz should never have – in the eyes of the American Spin Doctor Association – gotten this far, this fast, and with this much potency. Like their medical counterparts, the politicos have thrown every textbook treatment at them. Endorsements from former candidates and current office-holders, nods of support from powerful interest lobbies, and the unleashing of surrogates to the 24 hour news channels and talk radio circuit are the equivalent of following an article in the latest edition of the New England Journal of Medicine or The Lancet. They look for what the professional consensus declares to be the ‘gold standard’ treatment, apply, then sit back and wait.

But if polls and delegate counts are the blood work and diagnostic tests of the ‘spin doctor’, it is clear that the treatment is not working.

The patient, of course, is not sick – but they are ‘sick and tired.’ They don’t respond to the Bill Clinton pill, and they seem to have developed a severe reaction to the Mitt Romney medication as well.

In this case, people are not the bacteria – but their problems are. Declining living standards, the hollowing out of industries – and communities – as well as the devaluation of what many considered the ‘American Dream’.  The treatments on offer have been the same for four decades, and if they had worked even a fraction of the amount they have been purported to, you would not have seen this phenomenon unfold.

The ‘spin doctors’ say they are as surprised as anyone, but should they really be? When you stake a career on political consulting, when you work 50+ hours a week on K Street, collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars from clients, and you get to sit in a studio where Wolf Blitzer or Anderson Cooper ask you what it all means, do you have the luxury of shrugging your shoulders and muttering “I dunno”?

My take is this – the bacteria is ‘anger’. It has been made stronger by a combination of inaction and indifference. The bug gets stronger with each ‘I don’t know’ and ‘I don’t care’ that comes from the governing class. They, in turn, calmly declare that they’ve seen it all before and administer a treatment of ‘we care, seriously we do’, of actors and singers appearing on stage and doing a rendition of their last Billboard top ten tune, or referencing the catch phrase that helped their last picture earn $100 million, and a heavy duty course of surrogates ‘explaining’ what the ‘real’ issues are.

The treatments used to alleviate the discomfort. Joe Q. Public’s overdue mortgage payments didn’t miraculously catch up just because Fleetwood Mac queued up ‘Don’t Stop’ for the umpteenth Bill and Hillary whistle stop, but he felt that much more positive about his situation that he could actually see light at the end of the tunnel.

Today, the light at the end of the tunnel feels a lot like the headlamp of a speeding locomotive.

Joe Q. Public has grown weary of the medicine he’s been taking for the past four decades, and like someone with a long term illness that defies conventional treatment, he’s willing do the equivalent of going to some third world country where a doctor has declared that they have a new experimental drug that the medical community back home won’t certify. If you’re that sick and that frustrated, you might just borrow fifty grand and fly halfway around the world for the ‘extract of the adrenal gland of the whatchamacallit’ because the hospital back home is full of people in white coats who just shrug and mutter ‘I dunno.’

The political establishment, I believe, brought this on themselves. The spin doctors over prescribed answers to tough socioeconomic issues with treatments barely stronger than a placebo. They allowed the ‘anger’ to grow and metastasize. Just as important, they failed to come up with something strong enough to give the patient – the middle class voter – any real relief. Instead, they have tried to manage the anger, much like a doctor tries to manage pain.

And that’s the thing. If all you are doing for your patient is managing their pain, you are admitting that curing their condition is not in your purview. The patient knows that, and that’s why he and she are willing to take the risk.

Canada Needs a ‘Commonwealth Minister’

A few years ago, the government was taken to task over the appointment of Ted Menzies as a Parliamentary Secretary to then Cabinet Minister Josee Verner. The criticism had nothing to do with Mr. Menzies’ per se, but was made because his role made him a ‘back up’ to a Minister whose portfolio included the job of ‘Minister of State for la Francophonie’. For some, the idea of an Alberta Anglophone answering on behalf of the Francophonie Minister seemed inappropriate.

The one thing that the critics could not ask, however, was how many of us would feel if a Quebec francophone had been named as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of State for the Commonwealth. For that to happen, the federal government would first need to name a Commonwealth Minister – something that no Prime Minister has done in the more than two decades since the Francophonie portfolio came into being.

Canada’s support for the Francophonie has been significant and substantial. With the election of Michaelle Jean as its Secretary-General, that support has only increased in stature. Having a member of Cabinet whose job, in part, is to focus on Francophonie issues sends the signal that Canada considers the organization, and the community of nations it represents, as a priority. I would be the last person to argue with that view.

On the other hand, we are also prominent members of the Commonwealth – an organization that encompasses significantly more jurisdictions and a higher portion of the world’s population than la Francophonie. Outside of the United States and France, all of the most important military and economic allies Canada has are Commonwealth jurisdictions. Based on population, GDP, and the distribution of regional and global power, the Commonwealth is a far larger presence on the world stage.

The Commonwealth comprises 54 jurisdictions that hold one-third of the world’s population. Together, they account for 13 of the world’s fastest growing economies and almost a quarter of the world’s economic output. It includes every continent and region, as well as India, which is emerging as a global economic power in its own right. With Britain, Australia and New Zealand, it also includes the nations outside of the US who are our closest allies.

It all begs the obvious question - if the Francophonie merits a seat at the Cabinet table, why is the Commonwealth not even present in the room?

In fairness to the present government, the appointment of then-Senator Hugh Segal as a ‘Special Envoy to the Commonwealth’ was the most attention any Canadian government had afforded the organization since the appointment of Arnold Smith as its Secretary-General fifty years ago.

I would also acknowledge that the Commonwealth has its share of challenges, from the effectiveness of the Secretariat to the governance issues and human rights concerns within member jurisdictions. The problem with using this as an excuse for non-engagement is the fact that the same complaints could be made about la Francophonie. In many cases, it fares no better. 

Canadian objections to the Commonwealth of late were primarily due to human rights concerns in Sri Lanka. This issue appeared to be the impetus for the withdrawal of Canadian support for the Commonwealth Secretariat. If one considers this action to be principled and legitimate, then one would need to ask why the current situation in Egypt has not brought about a similar reaction toward the Francophonie? In the former case, we downgraded our support while in the latter we have maintained our commitment and lobbied to have a former Governor-General lead the organization.

Canada’s neglect of the Commonwealth has been long standing, and the remedy will not be found in a quick fix. It could, however, turn the corner with a simple act – the naming of a Minister of State for the Commonwealth.

The advantages of such an appointment are numerous. They would act as a reference point in dealings with the Secretariat, yet be able to work with officials and organizations in member states directly. They would also demonstrate to Canadians and to the rest of the Commonwealth that this nation does value our relationships. At a time when nearly fifty percent of immigrants to Canada come from Commonwealth jurisdictions, this importance cannot be overstated.

It would be naïve to presume that the Commonwealth could not benefit from reform, but Canada’s disengagement will do nothing to remedy the situation. Indeed, by applying a different standard to our involvement in la Francophonie, we create a perception that our stance on issues of principle are purely situational.

The logic behind Canada’s support for la Francophonie is understandable. The lack of equal regard for the Commonwealth is not. Naming a Commonwealth Minister would be a tangible step in the right direction.