All three parties, both levels of government. These were not, it must be stressed, casual slips of the lip, minor items at the bottom of each party’s wish list. They were central planks in their platforms, often the major point of divergence between them and their opponents, in some cases arguably the key to their victory. The taxpayers’ pledge, for example, was vital to McGuinty’s efforts to shake the tax-and-spend label the Conservatives had hung on him: he would not have won without it. In many cases, moreover, the sins were not of omission—a failure to do something they had promised, against which they could plead the crush of events—but of commission: things they had promised not to do, but went ahead and did.
Facts change, of course, and a politician has a right to change his mind, the same as anyone else. But in none of the examples cited do the explanations, of unforeseen circumstances and unexpected deficits, ring true: we’ve simply heard these stories too often. The promises, rather, were in most cases of a kind that simply could not be kept: they were that foolish, and the people who made them knew it at the time. The point is not that politicians should persist in policies they know to be disastrous, just because they’ve promised them. The point is that they should not make such promises in the first place.
This is not politics as usual. It’s something far worse. It is not just corrosive of public trust. It makes it impossible for the public to form any sort of judgment about the people who seek to lead them. Elections are not referendums, of course, and a platform is only one of the criteria by which we choose between leaders. But how can the public assess even the general direction the candidates would take if they can have no confidence in any particular piece of evidence offered to that effect? It is not an answer to say they can “throw the bums out” at the next election, when the question of who said what four years before would have to contend with 40 other issues. The public should not have to choose between honest government and health care. It should be a given.
That it plainly is not is reflected in growing public disenchantment. Elections Canada surveys find this breakdown in trust to be the primary cause of declining voter turnout—to all-time record lows, if anyone has forgotten. It is the most common response when voters are asked what questions they would put to their leaders at election time: why should we believe you?
The mystery is why we put up with this. We do not, as a rule, in other areas of life. If a company lies to consumers about its products, it faces stiff fines or worse. Likewise, if it cheats its investors: a prospectus cannot be false or even misleading. There are laws against libel and slander, as there are for those who fill out false information on welfare or immigration forms: all enacted by the same politicians who grant themselves licence to tell worse lies to many more people.
Even within the political world, there are provisions against lying, in certain circumstances. Politicians are forbidden to lie to each other—witness the odium of Oda—or about each other, a provision in the election laws of Canada and eight of the provinces. But lie to the public, about a major campaign promise? All part of the game.
To be sure, free and feisty political debates are critical to democracy. Any proposals to police political speech, even to prevent out-and-out deception, must be viewed with skepticism, as certainly they would be if applied to the media. The only known Canadian attempt, British Columbia’s electoral fraud law, has avoided such stifling effect mainly by being almost impossible to enforce: it requires complainants to demonstrate not only that the fraudulent promise affected the outcome of an election, but that they personally suffered damages as a result.
But the problem remains. It is not so much that liars are prospering, as that honest politicians have no way of establishing their bona fides: so discredited is the profession generally that everyone is disbelieved equally. So perhaps the solution lies not in some blanket ban on political lying, such as the ethics-in-government advocacy group Democracy Watch has proposed, to be enforced by a public complaints process—a recipe for abuse, I fear, and anyway, not something the parties are ever likely to accept. Perhaps, rather, it is to let politicians opt in to legal liability if the claims they are making prove false.
Again, there are examples of this in private life: from bonded couriers to sworn affidavits, people have found ways to show they are trustworthy, by willingly assuming certain penalties if they are not. Suppose, then, there were a provision of the Elections Act, which a candidate could invoke at his discretion to cover particular statements or documents—such as a platform—with provisions for fines or other sanctions if they are found to be materially false. No gotchas over some stray comment on the campaign trail, but when they really needed to be believed they’d have some means of persuading people.
Such statements would no doubt be drafted with caution, as they are in private life, with conditions attached to cover different eventualities: “We will balance the budget, provided the economy grows by more than two per cent annually.” Fine. Voters could decide how much weight to attach to them accordingly—as they could any declarations issued without such backing. Over time, I have a feeling opting in would become the norm, rather than the exception.
I can think of no other single measure that would do more to restore public faith in the political process. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it? It is broke. Let’s fix it.
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