One of this country’s proudest traditions is a long history of boring politics.
We had no bloody revolution like the Americans, just the passing of the British North America Act. We’ve never had a musical worthy politician like Argentina’s Eva Perón and things have worked out great.
The problem with exciting politicians is that their appeal and likeability can sometimes disguise the fact that they are incompetent leaders with no business being in power.
Even Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, with his hair and amicableness is a bit flashy for me. His father before him was also blessed with charisma and he nearly tore the country apart when he immoderately called in the troops during the 1970 FLQ crisis.
Don’t get me wrong, Justin is great, but I’d trade 1,000 soapbox orators for one competent administrator any day of the week.
Nobody would seriously consider penning a musical starring John Diefenbaker but all those boring old men from Robert Borden to Joe Clark have built a relatively well run, more-or-less equitable society.
There seems to be a taste for more exciting political figures in the west these days, which is concerning. Canada should not follow the trend.
Kevin O’Leary is running to become leader of the Conservative Party of Canada and he is a very exciting man.
The other week he decided to skip a debate in Edmonton. What a maverick! He said the format of the debate was not to his liking but multiple sources are reporting that he did not want to participate because the debate is bilingual and O’Leary cannot speak French.
He held his own event, a question-and-answer session, across the street at the Westin Edmonton at the same time. What a daring man.
His character on Dragons’ Den was a wildly unsympathetic individual but O’Leary has had a long varied and successful business career. One can only hope that he is not as villainous in real life as he was on that show. He might very well be a decent human being but is he fit to be Prime Minister?
South of the border, they’ve handed the keys of executive power to a former-reality television star. Would doing the exact same thing up here also lead to a climate of anarchy and fear and near constant international humiliation? Not necessarily but why take the chance?
There’s been a lot of exciting politics in the west as of late but lets keep Canada boring.