The Bruce Report

Will three seemingly unrelated stories, tucked innocuously in the good, grey pages of the Report on Business yesterday, rouse the conscience of a drowsy nation? Or will they be ignored like so many other clarions drowned in the deafening mediocrity of our times?

 

First, read how five leading U.S. economists, hired by the Bank of Canada to conduct an external review of its research functions, conclude that these are “seriously hampered by underpaid researchers who are stifled by micromanagement and a penchant for examining irrelevant issues.” And worse: “The bank is losing top talent to elite universities, other countries’ central banks, international financial institutions, and the private sector.”

 

Then, ponder how, in the opinion of Ed Martin, CEO of Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro, “our nation has the power to take us through the 21st Century and beyond; we have the renewable generating capacity to energize households and factories from Victoria to St. John’s.” But, he says, “what we lack is the infrastructure to deliver all of this power – and without sustained action, Canadians may find themselves squandering a key competitive advantage in an increasingly competitive global marketplace.”

 

Finally, ask yourself what commentator Andrea Mandel-Campbell does: “If you could whisper in Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s ear, what would you tell him? What kind of policy recommendations would you offer up to fine-tune Canadian competitiveness and best equip the country for a rapidly shifting and increasingly volatile global economy?” She, and a few others, had that chance. Her conclusion: “For a country known for its grinding incrementalism and an affinity for talk over action, what is the likelihood of bold steps being taken?”

 

Still, if all of this is depressing, it’s even more infuriating if only because ours is nation blessed with natural resources, technical expertise and innovative ideas. We know what to do about internal trade, export development, university-based R&D, fiscal and monetary reform, and everything else that girds our progress in the world.

 

The problem is we’re just not doing it. Somewhere along the way from Chretien’s concept of Liberal entitlement to Harper’s notion of Conservative control, we lost our national purpose. We fell asleep even as we stopped dreaming.

 

The evidence is everywhere. A health care system, once the envy of the world, that’s been neglected and is now fatally flawed. A once sensibly generous social safety net that’s been allowed to fray and unravel. An economy that’s mere months away from requiring long-term intensive care. Municipal infrastructure that actually kills people before they get a chance to punch the time clock at any one of a dozen of increasingly unproductive, lay-off-riddled industries.

 

To all of this, our political leaders appear stunningly disinterested, impotent, sleepy. Their passions (if that is the word) run to the mundane, the quotidian, the cynically self-reverential.

 

The Tories want to cut $45 million in arts and culture funding, though they know these sectors generate billions of dollars a year in revenue for working men and women. The Grits want to impose a carbon tax, though they know the move is “revenue-neutral” and will not generate sufficient funds to fix what they insist ails the environment.

 

Meanwhile, both dominant parties seem willing to send their fellow Canadians to the polls next month – eventually costing taxpayers more than $100 million – armed with the spurious logic that Government no longer works. If this is true, then they broke what we, the people, trusted them to protect: a system of checks and balances that nurtures, incubates and promotes our national progress and our national purpose.

 

There will come a day when this country wakes up to its history and embraces what Winston Churchill (as quoted by Ed Martin) once said: “There are no limits to the majestic future which lies before the mighty expanse of Canada with its virile, aspiring, cultured, and generous-hearted people.”

And on that day, there will be a bittersweet reckoning: Bitter for knowing how much time we’ve wasted in apathetic repose; and sweet for knowing that we have finally emerged from our torpor to dream and do, and not to sleep.

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