As politicians score point with loaded sound bites, does it matter if they avoid details?
“You can’t have a debate on such a key issue as the modernization of social programs in 47 days,” Conservative Leader Kim Campbell said during her unsuccessful 1993 election campaign.
The quote, widely interpreted to mean elections are no time for serious issues, was ill-advised. But it seems obvious that Campbell was trying and failing to articulate an absolute truth: that in election campaigns, complexity is washed away in waves of superficial, and often misleading, sound bites.
- Canada’s trade deficit narrows dramatically as exports surge
- Election 215: Mulcair says Harper is “weak and vulnerable” on TPP talks
- Trans-Pacific Partnership hits snag, no deal reached
That’s why in our current election, one of the most crucial issues facing Canadians — trade — is being reduced to caricature. The danger is that instead of a discussion of serious and complex issues, we will end up with a cartoon debate.
‘Oh, yeah?’
We don’t just want Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny taking turns shouting “Oh, yeah?” at each other. But neither do we need to be dragged through the detail of the trade deal. Campbell was right.
Negotiations among 12 nations bordering the Pacific Ocean ended on Friday without a deal, but more meetings are scheduled.
As a regional radio news reporter in Saskatchewan in the 1980s, tasked with making the original Canada-U.S. trade deal comprehensible, I can attest to the fact that sparking interest in the details of a trade deal is a hard sell.
The fact is trade deals are complex, affecting us decades into the future, and not even experts can foresee exactly how. Some of the things that will affect us the most are so nuanced, not to say boring, to
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