Preston Manning, President and CEO, Manning Centre for Building Democracy
Many Canadians profess to being more attracted to the U.S. presidential election campaign than to their own federal election. Why is that, and what can be done to restore politics to first place in our political allegiance?
Many Canadians profess to being more attracted to the U.S. presidential election campaign than to their own federal election. Why is that, and what can be done to restore politics to first place in our political allegiance?
In the United States, the news media tend to aggrandize and dramatize everything political - the personalities, issues, blunders and achievements - making politics seem "bigger and better" than real life. That may partly explain the attraction for Canadians, especially those whose only involvement is watching on television.
But there is another explanation: Americans invest more time, energy and money than Canadians do in preparing the politicians and supporting casts for their roles and responsibilities on the political stage.
In the United States, there are scores of think tanks, covering the entire political spectrum, that constantly generate compelling ideas, policies and communications pieces for their politicians in a timely and effective manner. In Canada, our think tanks are much fewer in number, chronically underfunded and seriously constrained by tax laws.
There are at least nine U.S. graduate schools in "political management" - for example, the George Washington University Graduate School of Political Management, which offers more than 30 master's-level courses in this discipline. In Canada, there are no such schools.
American organizations, such as the Leadership Institute near Washington, have trained tens of thousands of grassroots political activists in everything from policy analysis to fundraising to getting out the vote. In Canada, the parties do some of this, but no one is providing such training in depth, year after year, on a national scale.
As for potential candidates for office, we have virtually nothing to offer them in terms of organized preparation - no extensive training in campaigning; political communications; constituency service; policy analysis and development; managing public money; political ethics; legislating; or public administration at an executive level.
You are required to have 20 to 30 hours of training to serve the public at Tim Hortons or Starbucks, but you can become a lawmaker in Canada's Parliament or legislatures without a single hour of it. Instead, we expect such people to learn on the job - in the full glare of media and public scrutiny, where any misstep is likely to be broadcast far and wide and instantly attacked by opponents.
So what can be done? We can start by investing more time, energy, and money in political education and training. My own institute, the Manning Centre, is promoting several such courses. There is a graduate program in political management and communications, intended for senior political staffers in a minister's office, or executives with a party, campaign or interest group. There is a school of practical politics, intended for volunteer political activists. And there are seminars on faith and politics, providing instruction on conduct for Canadians whose involvement in politics is motivated by faith. Our centre has sponsored seminars for Christians, Jews and Muslims, with similar seminars for Sikh and Hindu communities in the works.
Finally, I have one more dream pertaining to political education whose accomplishment could play a major role in making Canadian politicians more attractive and competitive in the public eye. This is the creation of a permanent model Parliament - a 60-seat replica of the House of Commons that also incorporates some of the best characteristics of our provincial legislatures.
To it would come political activists who aspire to sit as members of the Commons, a legislature or a municipal council. For four to six weeks, they would be exposed to parliamentary procedure and protocol, question periods, debate, legislative analysis, caucuses, committee work and mock media scrums - everything necessary to give them a thorough understanding of the elected representative's job and the skills required to perform it effectively.
The model Parliament could also be used to experiment with new and more effective approaches to question period, issue debates, electronic surveying and voting, the televising of democratic activity - innovations that could make our future politicians more effective and attractive than those of any other country on Earth.
