Looking for the Good News

It is tempting to label all politicians as self-serving, witless buffoons who generally would not know how to organize a sock drawer, never mind draft policies and laws that would govern a country. Hundreds of pundits and bloggers do so on a daily basis in part because it is just so easy to do so. It does not matter what our political bent is, there are numerous examples of the incompetence of politicians regardless of their ideological leanings. Some days it is difficult to find any examples of a politician and even harder - a group of politicians who demonstrate any capacity to work together to effect good - or at least good for anyone different than themselves. But our cynicism is partially self-inflicted in that we do not demand that politicians work together, we certainly do not reward those that do. In fact, I suspect that our interest in politics and the activities of those we have elected is directly proportional to the level of political absurdities and stupidity that the media reports. Politics are boring if everyone agrees with each other and if all are working towards a common goal. The media has learnt that if you wanted to attract readers/listeners/viewers - you need to sensationalize the news, you need to stress the bits that will get people reacting.

This approach has a couple of consequences. One is that it teaches the public that we should distrust all politicians who do not think like us, secondly that there are only black and white answers to all issues and that there is no middle ground where consensus can be negotiated and thirdly - that politicians learn that to get attention and therefore be re-elected - they need to say and do things that facilitate that polarization. It is a vicious circle - politicians get rewarded by being extreme in their opinions in part by demonstrating a limited (or no) capacity to think, individuals are attracted to media that both stimulates and reconfirms their beliefs/values, politicians get re-elected on meaningless platforms. The form is all that matters, the substance has become irrelevant.

And yet, at least in Canada, there are some real tangible signs that not all politicians are incompetent and that there is a real possibility that some of them, from different political parties, are at least willing to consider that they can and should work together. This week, CBC reported a few comments by politicians and others that suggest that things may not be as unworkable as the pundits suggest. Ford, the Premier of Ontario has suggested that he can work together with the federal government to address some of the issues - in fact he describes his meeting with Trudeau as being "very productive, very collaborative". Alberta Energy Minister Sonya Savage described her first meeting with the federal Natural resource Minister ( Seamus O'Regan) as "very good start." The oil and gas leaders of Alberta are welcoming the appointment of Anne McLellan as an unpaid adviser to the government.

What is remarkable about all three of those stories is how little press they received, how little enthusiasm was generated by the possibility that maybe, just maybe politicians will work together to solve some of the issues that arise in a country as large and as diverse as is Canada. They are small stories - nothing will change because some leaders have expressed some limited enthusiasm for some meetings but it is a start. We need to support those politicians and captains of industry, we need to reward them with our cheers, we need to encourage them to keep looking for the positives, we need to assure them that we prefer it when they work together, when they avoid looking for the negatives.

It is time that we, the people, start to control how the narrative is told. We need to tell the storytellers to change the manipulative spin on the stories that they chose to tell. That does not mean they ignore the bad stuff - just that they tell the whole story.