The Economist as a Campaign Platform

The Canadian Liberal party is in trouble. Their leadership candidates are broke, the party its self has little in the way of money to be spent on campaigning compared to the Conservatives, and yet Canadians seem unwilling to return a majority government. This leaves us in a situation of either having nothing get done as was the case with the Martin Liberals, or to get some things done very badly, with the party in power able to pass whatever bills it wants because no one else wants an election. This situation benefits few people in Canada, and breeds disaffection with our elected leaders.

My solution is as follows. I will run for the Liberal leadership at the next convention. Instead of having expensive policy advisers or the need to rally people to the benefits of my cause, I am going to take all of my policies from the Economist. As all Canadians know, or will come to know, the Economist is the wellspring of all that is good and true in the world, and as such will craft benevolent policies for Canada, which as Prime Minister, I would implement. While some people will definitely be on the losing side of some of these policies they can not be construed in regional terms as Canadian politics increasingly seems to be viewed. These policies will not be Ontario vs. the rest or pro Quebec at the expense of the rest of Canada. Purely and simply, these will be policies suggested by a faceless technocrat in London. We managed to live under that rule for centuries, I can’t see why we shouldn’t be willing to resubmit to it now!

Some weeks may have nothing in the way of direct policy advice for Canada. If that is the case I will do my best to synthesize a policy based on something in the US, Britain, or Europe sections. Maybe I can even steal something good from less developed places in the world, but the point will be policies taken only from the Economist. We’ll see if I have enough content for a new edition of the Red Book come the next leadership convention.