The Bruce Report

Some overly keen fans of political campaigning now characterize the thrust and parry of the Grit-Tory polka to the polls next month as one of the nastiest in New Brunswick’s history.

Clearly, some overly keen fans of political campaigning need to get out more.

Nasty was former Prime Minister-for-132-days Kim Campbell’s mean mock of Jean Chretien’s Bell’s Palsy-distorted facial expressions in the run-up to the 1993 federal election. Nasty are the wholly disreputable claims some Tea Party activists south of the border are making about U.S. President Barack Obama’s citizenship.

But depicting Premier Shawn Graham, on some website, as a golden-haired Pollyanna, spouting platitudes about the bright side of life? Photo-shopping an image of Progressive Conservative Leader David Alward, stuffing his mouth with French fries to convey contempt for his 2008 decision to support pension increases for MLAs?

Dumb, infantile and embarrassing they are indeed. But nasty? I’ve provoked more character-assassinating exchanges with members of the general public just by walking my son-in-law’s dog around north-end Halifax.

Still, as much as I loathe the brutal nature of American-style politics, the irresponsible and truly injurious practice of ad-hominem verbal assaults, there is something weirdly disturbing about the fact that our leaders seem unable to distinguish between the monumental and the merely juvenile in their political attacks. It suggests, at some level, that those who seek our votes with lame-brained taunts and teases are either dismissive of, or blind to, the important issues that frame our future.

I’m all for church suppers. I also support safe food and clean water, and I don’t know anyone who doesn’t. We, of good conscience, can debate how best to have our holy cakes and eat them too. But, honestly, is this an election issue worthy of a province with much bigger things on its mind?

Several pundits note that New Brunswick is at a crossroads. In fact, aren’t we always? Our challenge has never been in recognizing and acknowledging our tough choices. It’s been in understanding which road leads to prosperity, and which to perdition. Which principled sacrifices and innovations pay the toll to the former? Which lazy, blinkered habits of elected office guaranty our arrival at the latter?

By now, everyone in this province with access to a newspaper or the Internet knows that an $8-billion public debt is thoroughly unsustainable. It undermines our ability to pay for an aging population’s health care, a sound and relevant educational system, poverty-busting programs, skills and language training, cultural and athletic events, municipal infrastructure, economic development, and commercial enterprise. And it is a material disincentive to foreign direct investment, immigration and international trade.

But even a grade-schooler comprehends basic arithmetic. When the minuses outnumber the pluses, you wind up with deficits. Governments, like everyone else, can perform only two rational functions to return black ink to their balance sheets: Cut spending and raise revenue. As not all spending in this province is discretionary – indeed, the single, largest line item is health care – New Brunswick is left with narrowed, even, painful options.

Though many non-essential public services must be trimmed or even slashed, particularly those that are redundant or duplicated elsewhere in the provincial bureaucracy, many essentially crucial ones must be scrutinized for the actual social and economic value they provide. How can they be made more productive and cost-effective without compromising their quality and efficacy?

And then, of course, there is the miasma of tax reform, a conversation no political party ever wants to have with anybody unless it’s discussing reductions. To be sure, across-the-board hikes on business and personal income levies are not only optically disastrous; they don’t work. They have a proven tendency to drive people and enterprises from every jurisdiction where they’re introduced. But a modest, judiciously applied, increase in consumption taxes would return tens-of-millions a year to provincial coffers.

These are the big issues this fall’s crew of political hopefuls have yet to address in their respective bids for elective legitimacy. Until they do, and with some authority and courage, it’s impossible to take any of their supercilious sideshows seriously.

Nasty?

I wish they were on matters of real substance for a change.

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