Last Updated:Friday - 09/24/2010

Wandering off to Nov. 27

The campaign for the Nov. 27 federal election has taken on a surreal quality. Canada, a marvellous country full of opportunity, also has a questionable long-term future because of a host of problems. Those problems are largely being ignored by both politicians and voters in a campaign characterized more by political posturing than by giving voters a clear choice about Canada's future.

What are those problems?

• First and foremost is the ongoing slaughter of 115,000 unborn children every year. For four parties, it seems this situation is acceptable as it is; the fifth party, the Canadian Alliance, will not so much as whisper a challenge to this bloodshed. As well, a $30-million royal commission on reproductive technology completed in 1995 has yet to draw any response from the government.
• Hundreds of aboriginal communities across Canada have been and are being destroyed by oppression and a culture of welfare and substance abuse. The federal government spent $58 million on a massive royal commission on aboriginal peoples that filed its report four years ago. Virtually no action has been taken on that report.
• Much of middle-class Canada, on the other hand, lives in an over-abundance that is unsustainable. Our families are half the size and our houses are twice as large as two generations ago. This over-abundance fosters environmental devastation and excessive consumer debt and is the fruit of a massive and growing gap between the rich and poor of the world.
• Canada has abdicated its previous role as a leader in helping to end major world problems such as global warming and the rich-poor gap.
• A large percentage of children are raised in fatherless homes due to divorce, abandonment or teenage pregnancy. Children raised in such homes are far more prone to academic problems, criminal behaviour and an inability to form lasting relationships.
• Much of our media are soaked with violence, sex and an acceptance of amoral behaviour. TV has reduced even politics and religion to entertainment, thus weakening the ability of the population to solve its own problems.
• Neighbourhoods have been diminished in their role as the basic local community by forces ranging from the preponderance of major shopping centres to an over-dependence on the automobile.
• Finally there is the widespread assumption that if a problem is to be solved it must be solved by either government or business. Indeed, as other trends have weakened the power of the community, government, business and the family are left as the only sectors of society that are seen as capable of addressing people's needs.

Solutions to some of these problems are not wholly within the capacity of government to deliver. But an election campaign ought, nevertheless, to be a time of discussion of our common problems and how they can be addressed. In the current campaign we are seeing perhaps less of an effort to address our major common problems than ever.

Political dialogue is hamstrung by a lack of moral courage and a lack of recognized moral leadership. Without dialogue, courage and leadership, we are a nation adrift. And the direction of our drift is not good.

The societal trends noted above induce certain qualities in the population - selfishness, ingratitude and irresponsibility among some; despair and anger among those left outside our prosperity.

The traditional left and right have failed to come to grips with the new set of problems that face Western societies. And yet our political leaders are largely stuck in the mindset of a bygone era. To break out of that mindset will take vision and courage. It will mean that we have leaders who do not necessarily give people what they want but what they need.

That has been the essential characteristic of moral leaders from Moses to Mandela. The current election campaign shows how much Canada is wandering in the wilderness. We very much need moral leaders who will earn the respect of people by helping us stop our wandering and inspire us to move in the moral direction we need to go.

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