Shoot me now! I just watched the Maclean’s Debate online, and I’ve figured it all out.  People are being disillusioned about politics because politicians are disillusioned with people.  I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to figure out.

Every time I heard yet another message dropping from two of our political leader’s mouths, I say those guys on the screen think I’m a complete idiot.  And they all make it sound like they’re trying to relate to me and my concerns at the same time. How can Trudeau and Mulcair spend the better part of two hours talking, but saying absolutely nothing.  And the reason they can do that is because they lost the meaning of public policy.

Here’s a primer on public policy.  You actually have to identify a problem, study solutions, and decide what the policy is going to be before you go out and implement it.  The problem with our politics is that we think it’s OK to avoid taking a stand and being decisive.  Or rather, we reward people for not making a decision, and the politicians who do this carry on, and they may actually be your next prime minister.  Yikes!

Committing to study something or to further consultation as a “promise” is really code for ‘I don’t want to make a decision today that may have dire electoral consequences.’  It’s the kind of mushy middle politics I despise.  And two leaders in last night’s debates showed this in spades.  Elizabeth May was completely right to ask Tom Mulcair what his position on an environmental issue actually is.  Mulcair stonewalled May by committing to consult.  That’s that folks.  No need to look under the rug.  No need to challenge our leaders to anything more.  We are no more clearer today than we were yesterday on this issue and where a potential future prime minister stands on environmental approvals of our natural resources.

My goodness.  The amount of times I heard about the need to talk to people, to hear their concerns, and then come up with a policy that these people themselves want, well, the Mint would be running out of nickles if I were to have 5 cents every time I heard it.  And, to make matters worse, we allow this stuff to pass for public policy like it’s OK to not have made the decision before people elect our leaders.

And then, when it comes to declarations of winners and losers, the media gave the mushy middle response of consultation and indecision a pass, and some even rewarded Trudeau and Mulcair for their evasiveness by saying that Trudeau wasn’t a complete embarrassment (and therefore won… are you kidding me?) and Mulcair looked prime ministerial.  It’s a sad day for politics when May and Harper’s responses, which are complete with concrete policy decisions, get whitewashed by that kind of punditry.

Let’s be perfectly clear: Anytime you hear a politician tell you that they will consult before making a decision, it means they haven’t made a decision nor want to. It’s the perennial kick-the-can-down-the-road response.  It buys time.  It conjures images of politicos setting around the camp fire to hash out the problems of the nation while singing Kumbaya with every citizen that wants to join in on the chorus.

Look, I’m not saying politicians should never consult, but if they’re coming to an election that had a fixed date etched in stone for the past 4 years, I’m going to tell you that my expectation is that all of our political leaders should have done their consulting already.  There is no magical switch that says political leaders can only consult once in government.  No, quite the contrary.  The opposition, while in opposition, has a duty to consult with Canadians while holding the government to account.  If these opposition leaders are suddenly only going to start their consultation when they occupy 24 Sussex Drive, then they haven’t been doing their job in opposition for the past 4 years – and shouldn’t be granted the keys to power as a result.

Canadians should be demanding concrete answers from our political leaders, not this fluffy garbage that passes for public policy today.  If voters are tired of the same old, everybody-does-the-same-thing-type politics, you have yourself to blame for rewarding that kind of indecisive leadership.

From a public policy perspective, May and Harper won last night.  Easily.