An Election is No Time to Talk About Issues

Canada's recent election shows our politics are at risk of becoming a type of showbiz.

“Rise up, Canada!” declared Michael Ignatieff during the recent federal election campaign, no doubt trying to engineer some Trudeau-like mania for a Liberal party in decline. A calm mind might ask, “From what, to what?” Did Professor Ignatieff want us all to become taller? How would that help the country? I’m confused, as was the rest of the electorate.

The election offers us a chance to reflect on the role of truth-telling in our media-saturated democratic process. Cynics will tell us that all politicians are liars, thus excusing their need to trudge to the polls instead of staying at home to update their Facebook pages. But the cynics are wrong, though in a way they probably didn’t anticipate.

Most of the time politicians aren't liars at all, since they avoid making the sort of clear factual statements that can later be called out as lies. A lie involves either saying something that is contradicted by something you’ve already said or which is at odds with facts one knows to be true.

Instead, in most speeches and interviews, political leaders stick rigidly to talking points scripted by party insiders – e.g. Stephen Harper’s endless fear-mongering about a Liberal-NDP-Bloc coalition of evil (despite the fact that all minority governments require some support from opposition parties) or Gilles Duceppe’s pronouncements that only his party can stand up for the rights of les Québecois. Sure, each party has a list of specific policies available on their websites. But these aren’t what we hear about in the media, and these aren’t what won them seats in Parliament.

If politicians make truth claims, they run the risk of putting themselves in the position of lying. It’s far smarter not to make such claims at all, to make performative statements like NDP Leader Jack Layton's “together we can do this!” or Ignatieff's “rise up!” – to echo Barack Obama's call for “hope” and “change.” Who can be opposed to hope and change? Unless, of course, he tells us what changes he has in mind. The dismal failure of Obama’s attempt to implement a full system of public health care in the U.S. shows us how it’s much easier to talk about change than to actually accomplish it.

Though they usually don’t lie, politicians do engage in a version of what philosopher Harry Frankfurt calls “bullshit” – the use of fancy rhetoric to impress an audience without caring about the truth of what is being said. A good example of bullshit, which is seen more clearly in American politics than north of the border, is the small-C conservative call to cut taxes. Well, nudge nudge, wink wink, they don’t really mean cutting taxes across the board: If cutting taxes means reducing social programs, then yes; if it means reducing defence spending, then no. Even in times of peace, the military is the sacred cow of conservative policies.