The launch of another election – this time on the Quebec provincial level - coming amidst the usual cornucopia of touchy-feely government initiatives, led me to reflect on whether we the people will really get to decide anything or are we just going to end up feeling like the proverbial pinball being whacked by messages that are meaningless produced by those who are mindless. You can decide.
I would question if the primary responsibility of politicians is to maintain and expand their power as some commentators always suggest come election time. That may very well be what politicians want, but it is far from their duty. Are we the people really ready to be imprisoned in the low limitations of such narrow circumstance?
Is not the primary responsibility of public servants to provide fiduciary stewardship of public services for the greatest good and not merely to accelerate and elevate their own self-aggrandizement? Services to people I might add, not the people’s servitude to some social engineering schemes of the state. And if in the course of that stewardship a government’s poll numbers begin to rise, is it really proper that these be interpreted as green lights to skim $100 million of taxpayer funds for another exercise in expanding the ruling authority of the governing party?
It is satisfying to note Premier Charest’s increased popularity. He is a politician of skill and an intelligent and capable leader. But perhaps the reason that his numbers are rising is that Quebecers recognize that his attributes have been properly tuned and put to great effect within the context of the minority government they elected only some eighteen months ago. This may be just what the people ordered. Perhaps they, like Canadians just weeks ago, like keeping the ruling party on the straight and narrow. Unlike the United States, minority legislatures are the only real check and balance the people in this country have on oft-times mindless and meaningless initiatives of our governors.
Initiatives that too often cost us too much for too little. As if the fates were reading my thoughts as I contemplated the cost of another election, we were hit with two examples of silly and unnecessary excess in our public agenda.
The first was the “Bonjour” campaign of the Quebec government. You may have seen the full page ads over the past several weeks if you have read any Quebec papers. Over the past seven days I’ve been paying attention to the radio spots. Now, for a pr campaign that seeks yet again to promote the use of French – at a cost of $15 million – the message was not “evident” as the saying goes.
What mindless twit in what groaning bureaucratic ministry got the ok to spend public funds on yet another language campaign? For that matter what mindless twit gave permission? Hasn’t Quebec got the message? We’re done! All of us. Francophone, Anglophone and allophone are tired of being treated like retarded children. After four decades of culture wars and contraction of rights, we are all working in French. If the purpose of this campaign is to delegitimize the social use of English, then it’s time to tell Quebec to buzz off.
It is not only that the “Bonjour” campaign seeks to demonize the use of English in social contexts that is so offensive, it is that no one in Quebec thought of the indecency of it all. The tag line at the end of the ads is that French is the business of us all. Well its not. But civility should be. It’s time for the insecurity to end.
As if the election and more language propaganda weren’t enough, we were treated to a taste of the meaningless. Montrealers awoke to the news that the Montreal Metropolitan community had spent some $500,000 on a new logo. A big, fat, stylized M. The colours of the M ranged from rhubarb to raspberry. It was enough to give the V-8 cocktail mixers a headache. Kindergarten coloring classes couldn’t come up with a bigger mess.
It reminded me of the reaction of many to the multi-colored window panels at the Palais de congres. When they were going up, most thought it was a mistake. Someone must have ordered wrongly. Then some wags suggested that it must be that some contractor’s cousin had the fix in to pass off some overstocks. When it came out that they were done by design, guffaws could be heard at every watering hole in the city.
Let’s hope that one result from the election will be the people’s success in freeing themselves from the multi-colored – and multi-layered – tyranny of the mediocre that keeps producing such mindless and meaningless excesses.
