Lisa Hrabluk

If you’re interested in New Brunswick politics strangely fascinated by New Brunswick’s oddly old-fashioned political culture check out Jacques Poitras’ and Dan McHardie’s commentaries on the CBC New Brunswick political blog, Spinreduxit.

I know, weird name. It’s a play on the Province of New Brunswick’s motto, Spem Reduxit, Latin for ‘Hope Restored’.

They’ve been blogging for a couple of months now on the goings on in the Legislative Assembly and it is a fun little read. A couple of weeks ago they started what I think will be weekly audio podcasts.

The blog along with the pair’s individual Twitter posts – here’s where you’ll find Jacques and Dan in the Twittersphere – and CBC NB’s twitter feed (maintained by Dan) have become my daily source of New Brunswick political news.

The guys have got a good thing started here. I hope the CBC continues to build on the talents of individual journalists by allowing more of them to stretch their wings online – including allowing them to offer an opinion or two.

I think if media organizations are going to make the jump from old to new media they are going to have to redefine the role of journalists. News gathering is the baseline these days and offering a glorified headline service won’t get an audience. That’s the old media model.

In the land of bloggers and tweeters, those who can offer strong analysis and context will be the ones to gather and hold an audience.

Just about anyone with an Internet connection can answer the first four W5 questions – who, what, when and where.

The real money – and influence – is in being able to answer ‘Why’.

I want to be a face in the crowd.

Watching the Obama inauguration on TV and online, I was moved by the millions that gathered on the Mall. Ordinary people, most of whom weren’t able to see this new president except on large screens erected for the occasion, stood there for hours, in the cold, just for the opportunity to say ‘I was there’.

I want that.

I want to be drawn to something that is so deeply powerful that I am compelled to be at a specific place on a specific day at a specific time to bear witness.

I want to be there with my family, with my husband and with my daughter.

I want to hold her on my shoulders so she can see the size the crowd she is a part of, feel the twitchy energy of anticipation and perhaps, hold onto the memory of this powerful moment so, years later she can say of that point when her nation changed ‘I was there’.

The Obama locamotive has arrived.

The soon-to-be American First Family (along with VP designate Joe Biden and his wife) brought a little gravitas to the pre-inauguration festivities in the U.S. with their whistle-stop trip from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C., waving to the crowds from the back of an old vintage caboose that was supposed to echo the journey Abraham Lincoln made back in 1861.

He began with a speech in Philadelphia that challenged Americans to get behind a common purpose:

“What is required is a new declaration of independence, not just in our nation, but in our own lives — from ideology and small thinking, prejudice and bigotry — an appeal not to our easy instincts but to our better angels.

Further in his speech he did what many politicians do – he cited examples of individuals who embody the challenges or issues of the day. But then he took it that one step further, illustrating the now trademark Obama rhetoric that takes ordinary stories, weaves them together and elevates them to nation-defining myths.

“[N]o matter who we are or what we look like, no matter where we come from or what faith we practice, we are a people of common hopes and common dreams, who ask only for what was promised us as Americans — that we might make of our lives what we will and see our children climb higher than we did…

“…But we should never forget that we are the heirs of that first band of patriots, ordinary men and women who refused to give up when it all seemed so improbable; and who somehow believed that they had the power to make the world anew. That is the spirit that we must reclaim today.”

This is the second major address Obama has given in Philadelphia. In March 2008 Obama gave his now-famous speech on race, A More Perfect Union.

While Americans were watching the pageantry of the inauguration Canadians were watching it too.

Of course we were.

The alternative was to tune in to yet another meeting of the Prime Minister and the Premiers and Territorial Leaders. (side note: why the heck can’t we call the leaders of the territories premiers? It would save typing out that cumbersome phrase.)

They were meeting in Ottawa to talk about the economic downturn, depression, recession, crisis (pick your own cataclysmic noun) and to debate how to solve it (heaps of public money into infrastructure and capital projects; bricks and mortar are back in style) and, in the case of the provincial and territorial premiers (see, isn’t that easier?), to tell Prime Minister Stephen Harper and federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty to spend the bulk of the money because it will be so much easier for the federal government to recover from a deficit.

Okay I just guessed that, based on a couple of GlobeandMail.com headlines and half-listening to the CBC radio news while cleaning the kitchen a couple of days ago.

These guys are so predictable.

If you want to actually find out what they did, try here or here or here.

Years ago during Bernard Lord’s first term as premier of New Brunswick, I was talking to one of his advisers about Lord’s rather low-key approach to governing. There were no grand statements or grand plans in the Lord years, it was just a regular day at The Office.

When I suggested that Lord was kind of boring, the adviser laughed and told me that New Brunswickers don’t want to see their government at work; they just want to know it’s working.

Now, that is true when it comes to stuff such as getting a driver’s license or paying property tax – I want ease of service – but where that adviser missed the point, and where so many politicians stumble, is in understanding that great politicians are not civil servants.

They are symbols.

We have bureaucracies to make sure the trains run on time.

We can only hope for politicians who know what to do when it pulls into their station.

“What I’m proposing has a simple name – it’s democracy.” – Bob Rae – to reporters in Toronto on Dec. 8.

Guess he didn’t like that name.

CTV reports Bob Rae is withdrawing from the Liberal leadership race.

Remember when the Globe and Mail used to have that little box on the bottom of the front page called ‘The Morning Smile’?

It’s back.

Well, at least I smiled when I read about New Brunswick MP Dominic Leblanc, what’s-his-name from the federal leadership prance (this hardly qualifies as a race), throw his support behind caucus fave Michael Ignatieff.

The third candidate in the Liberal leadership race, New Brunswick MP Dominic LeBlanc, pulled out yesterday to support Mr. Ignatieff, arguing that circumstances require Liberals to rally behind the “consensus” choice as leader – tacitly pressuring Mr. Rae to follow suit.

“The ideal scenario for me is that the Liberal caucus is united behind Michael Ignatieff as the leader,” Mr. LeBlanc said.

How funny to talk of consensus at a press conference organized by Liberal courtiers furiously try to organize a pre-Christmas coronation.

Leblanc threw down his sword – as expected – and declared his fealty to Ignatieff.

Damn if that repentant socialist Bob Rae won’t do the same.

“I don’t think coronations are generally very successful in political parties. … Most people believe it’s better to have a contest, it’s better to have a choice,” Rae, 60, told reporters in Toronto.

“What I’m proposing has a simple name – it’s democracy.” – Toronto Star, Dec. 9, 2008

I have to admire the stubborn obtuseness of a political party that can get so caught up in its own rules, procedures and processes that it fails at the one thing that matters: earning the respect of Canadians.

In his new book, Court Government and the Collapse of Accountability in Canada the United Kingdom, Donald Savoie refers to political parties as empty vessels.

Brian Flemming, a former Trudeau-era policy advisor, wrote a thought-provoking critical essay about Savoie’s argument in the October 2008 issue of the  Literary Review of Canada.

In the article, entited ‘Control-Freak Kingdom’, Flemming summarizes Savoie’s thesis:

“The Canadian prime minister has become a Ruritanian king, surrounded by a coterie of courtiers and praise singers.”

Cue the choir; the Liberals and Michael Ignatieff are in the House.

What is this fascination the federal Liberal caucus have with Michael Ignatieff?

After a weekend of anxious phone calls and velvet-gloved cajolling, the Liberals are almost certain to name Ignatieff their interim leader this week.

In a country of 30 million + people, just over 100 (the MPs plus the Liberal senators) will crown him their king, pushing aside Bob Rae and what’s-his-name, otherwise known as Dominic LeBlanc, New Brunswick MP.

Poor old Stephane Dion is being unceremoniously dumped by his party. His greatest mistake, and there were many, was to forget the cardinal rule of Liberals: they play to win and so you better too.

I didn’t warm to Ignatieff during the last leadership race and in the last few weeks, he hasn’t done or said anything to give me any indication that he represents a new style of leadership.

How can a scion of the old order be repackaged as the the leader for a new era?

The evidence laid out by Michael Valpy in his excellent 2006 Globe and Mail profile suggests it can’t be done.

Ignatieff’s most recent behaviour provides further evidence of his inability to understand what the country wants and needs. As Macleans national editor Andrew Coyne points out in a recent blog post, Ignatieff chose to remain silent in the lead-up to the coalition’s creation and then, once it was launched, freed his minions, otherwise known as supporters, to whisper in journalists’ ears that Ignatieff was decidedly cool to the idea.

When I wrote a political column, I reserved my greatest contempt for those politicians who let their backers speak for them, preferring to pull strings off-stage rather than grab the spotlight and let their true opinions be known.

If you can’t speak up for yourself, how can you possibly speak up for Canadians?

We deserve better.

Margaret Wente’s on the money when she writes that there’s something not right about Stephen Harper’s smile.

We’ve got a prime minister whose hubris sent the House of Commons into unnecessary turmoil, a trio of party leaders who can’t see past their own ambitions and a battered Liberal party closing ranks around a bilingual photogenic man with a famous last name.

As Ignatieff prepares to grab hold of the Liberal party, his greatest task will not be to defeat Stephen Harper, but rather, to win back the trust of Canadians weary of political games.

Yesterday I went into Canadian Tire looking for enough Christmas lights to create a landing strip for eight tiny reindeer.

Instead, my path was blocked by the four horsemen of the Canadian political apocalypse.

Okay, so Harper, Dion, Layton and Duceppe weren’t literally in my local Canadian Tire store, but they might as well have been.

There, gathered around the Christmas lights aisle was a salesman and two customers yammering on about that mess up in Ottawa. They were mad. Raise your voice mad. I had to detour down another aisle to pick up my Noma outdoor lights and was still able to hear them going on about political party public financing, the role of the Governor-General and voter intent.

Retail politics on full display at a shopping mall near you.

Oh, the inanity of it all.

While partisan supporters have been quick to pick sides in this Harper vs the Coalition of the Willful, their numbers are dwindling as an increasing number of Canadians view the faux drama of this power play/constitutional drama as little more than a poorly constructed pantomime.

This amateur production has it all:

• A song and dance from the male lead Stephen Harper about the evils of separatist leader and former BFF (circa 2004) Gilles Duceppe. Although Harper was thrown off balance with the quickly formed coalition, he’s “back on my feet /Just a man and his will to survive“;
• There’s a second number performed by that slightly discordant duo of Stephane Dion and Jack Layton who believe they can live together in perfect harmony. “There is good and bad in evryone/ We learn to live, we learn to give/Each other what we need to survive together alive.”
• Audience participation via talk radio, quickly organized public opinion polls and my fellow shoppers; and,
• A traditional story line defined by a set of performance conventions. Welcome back to Canada Michaëlle Jean. A few short days ago she left for Europe a mere figure head and now return as a constitutional head of state.

We spent $200 million on a federal election and we end up with a House of Commons that appears to be held together with little more than a few pieces of hockey tape.

Someone owes us an apology.

We’re not likely to get it from a cast of characters that have displayed little character over the past two weeks.

Too strong to tell us they’re sorry. Too proud to tell us they were wrong.

Is it any wonder that Canadians don’t love politics that way we use to do?

We have been taxpayers for too long; it is time for us to become citizens again.

That was the lede in a column I wrote in February 2004 as I and John McLaughlin, president of the University of New Brunswick, went chasing after an idea; that to fix our broken public institutions – government, media and universities – we needed to empower the crowd.

Bottom up leadership rather than top down.

Our public institutions didn’t get it, but people did. They craved authenticity and failing to get it from their local governments, newspapers and radio and TV news, so went looking for it somewhere else.

It is a social and cultural movement and it is far more powerful and sustainable than anything happening right now in the political sphere.

Or at least that was true until last night.

Barack Obama is the new face from the crowd.

As Thomas Friedman wrote in his column today in the New York Times:

Obama’s campaign tapped a dormant civic idealism, a hunger among Americans to serve a cause greater than themselves, a yearning to be citizens again.

It is hardly surprising that people have used religious metaphors and imagery to describe him; faith and belief were the cornerstones of his campaign.

Faith in ourselves and belief in the greater good of our society.

Today I am envious that Americans have found what we in Canada are still searching for – a leader who can articulate the wisdom of the crowd.

Will we find leaders who inspire us, as Obama has inspired a generation of Americans?

Yes, I believe we can.

The win, when it comes, won’t be of biblical proportions.

The ideological sea that divides America isn’t going to part Tuesday night because, despite the fervency of his followers’ belief, Barack Obama is no saviour.

If we are to draw a Biblical analogy, he has more in common with John the Baptist, who wandered alone to prepare the path, and with St. Peter, the first apostle and upon whom a new church was built.

Barack Obama: part bricklayer, part prophesy-offering story-teller.

Ian Brown in Saturday’s Globe and Mail, wrote a lovely feature story about Obama’s appeal to people in Washington D.C. Near the end of the piece he interviews a 17-year-old named Tempestt Newton.

For her, Mr. Obama isn’t “The One;” he isn’t “That One,” as Mr. McCain called him during one debate; he is just one of what she hopes will be many.

That’s it. This sentence coalesced my thoughts about this fascinating U.S. election campaign. I want to see Obama win because I do believe he represents change, but not just a change of policy or even of style.

Obama gives me hope that there are others like him, who want to reach beyond the divisions we have in our communities, whether they are class, race, gender or ideology, and begin to build consensus among citizens.

I hope that an Obama presidency attracts people to public office who up until now have stayed away.

However, for that to happen, political parties must be willing to cede ground to other voices in their party, who may not be the first choice of the flacks and hacks.

The federal Liberal party doesn’t seem to understand that – yet. Neither Michael Ignatieff or Bob Rae are true Grits in the mould of great Liberal leaders. Both have been on the national stage for two years and have failed to ignite any sort of following outside of Liberal party ranks and I doubt either ever will. Perhaps they can reengage the base and maybe, in Canada, that will be enough to win.

Hardly an audacious strategy.

The Pakistan government has opened an investigation into the murder of five young women who were killed because they wanted to marry for love following protests throughout the country.

Pakistan Begins Inquiry into Deaths of Five Women

News of the killings, which occurred six weeks ago, trickled out of the remote, tribal area slowly and with sketchy details. As described in an Aug. 21 statement by a French human rights group, the victims were three young women who had planned to marry men of their choice — a blot on family honor — and two older female relatives.

All were kidnapped by several men on July 13 from their village, Baba Kot, in the department of Jafferabad, and taken to a deserted area in a vehicle bearing provincial government plates, according to the group, the International Federation for Human Rights. The young women were beaten and shot, and, still breathing, covered with earth and stones. The two older women tried to intervene and were buried alive as well. (Source: NY Times)