The Bruce Report

You know the New Brunswick election is diving down the rabbit hole when a social networking site becomes the arbiter of all that’s right and proper in political campaigning.

But there he was, His Holiness Pope Twitter, taking David Alward’s Tories to task this week for impersonating Shawn Graham’s Grits in an account the former rather blandly named @NBLiberalParty.

PC campaign manager Daniel Allain explained it was all a deliberate goof – a satire, if you will – designed to showcase four years of wretched government and broken promises. Still, the ubiquitous web platform was having none of it.

Apparently, using Twitter to mislead the public is a no-no. And clients who do so are subject to a constant, 24-7 stream of Justin Bieber tweets (“I just brushed my teeth”, “Can’t find my bagel”, “Gurlz are sooo cool”).

Fearing the worst, perhaps, Allain changed the account name to @NBLibsExposed, though he did seem more disgruntled than chastened by the experience. “Hey, it was just a parody site,” he told CBC Radio on Wednesday. “It was no different than the Liberals’ www.wheresalward.com.” And when asked why he didn’t take the high road in the first place, the budding Voltaire quipped, “It may be unfortunate, but in life you have to make decisions.”

He’s right, of course. In life, decisions are, indeed, things to be made.

Every day, for example, I must decide to peruse one, or more, of New Brunswick’s English-language dailies to understand what is meant by Premier Graham’s statement, “As Liberals we have as a top priority to treat seniors with dignity and respect.”

Not like those despicable, jack-booted Progressive Conservatives (one reads between the lines), who would just as soon kick demented Uncle Wilbur to the curb before wasting one more tin of puppy chow on the gasping, old geezer.

And how do you suppose I deliberate the Grits’ claim that “families are important” in New Brunswick? Is the corollary that they’re only important to members of the provincial Liberal Party, which could explain why both the Tories and the NDP are ambivalent about the premier’s determination to inaugurate a statutory holiday in February? Ah yes, there they go again, those heartless righties and lefties, pulling at the frayed ends of our once-cherished community values. For shame!

Still, what about the PC’s emerging devotion to the arts? Do I decide that Alward has staked a singular claim to this worthy field of endeavour, just because he says so? Or do I also lend credence to Graham’s promise of support for English and French dancers, writers, painters, sculptors, and musicians?

And when the Tory leader insists on reviewing public and private pensions in the province, does this necessarily mean the Grit leader is intent on leaving the status quo? Or does he, too, want greater clarity, accountability and justice in the way retirement plans are administered – as he has said several times, at many whistle stops during this campaign?

So many questions; so few answers. Except one.

Like many New Brunswickers, I’m having a hard time discerning the crucial differences between the Liberal and Progressive Conservative visions in 2010. In fact, their essential sameness, on most matters, is the eerie salience of this election.  

Both parties are replete with honest, dedicated men and women who are stuck with an insupportable budget deficit of more than $750 million, an $8.5 billion long-term debt, and no coherent way out of the morass in which they find themselves.

Both parties genuinely want the best for the province’s communities, businesses and industries, but neither has even the foggiest notion about how to pay for its promises. Here, too, they are virtually indistinguishable.

Economic development, taxes, spending cuts – these are all landmarks in the undiscovered country that is post-election New Brunswick. And right now, it’s where politicians of all stripes (let alone angels) fear to tread even in their fertile imaginations.

Sorry, Twitter, but the joke – that is, parody – is on you.

No one’s impersonating anybody around here.

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