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Canada ducks the pandering gap

I don’t know about you but I would really like to be pandered to. By politicians, I mean.
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I don’t know about you but I would really like to be pandered to. By politicians, I mean. I’d like to be told sweet lies, offered meaningless trinkets or outright gifts of cash, told how important I am, indulged in flights of fantasy, thought of as right when everyone with half a brain about some subject or another is called wrong or, even better, silly elitists.

I mean, I’m a white guy. A white, middle-aged guy at that. Oh, I know I’ve got some strikes against me when it comes to living up to the mantle of responsibility white, middle-aged guys are supposed to live up to. I spend about as much time in an average year watching and talking about sports as I do solving the riddle of cold fusion. I spent enough years in university to qualify for membership to the Elite Club, though, like most clubs, I’ve avoided actual membership. And somewhere along the pathway to adulthood I was hung with the worst kind of baggage, the kind that forces me to see the bigger picture, to measure things in terms of social good as opposed to simply what’s in it for me.

Still, I feel gypped.

Yeah, there was that GST thing earlier in the stealth tenure of Little Stevie Hapless. I was pretty excited about having a point knocked off the GST, even more excited when he shaved another point off a year later. I was especially tickled that so many elite economists got their knickers in a knot over that wildly populist plan, calling it irresponsible and even foolhardy. Being such a wonkish intellectual himself, I really thought Stevie’s inner economist would cave to more reasoned arguments, but in the end, he roared through like one of those NASCAR drivers white, middle-aged guys are supposed to be so enthralled with and lowered the GST… for the Little People. Admittedly I was mildly disappointed when I used the opportunity to make a big purchase — a gallon of milk instead of two litres — and discovered there wasn’t any GST on milk. Oh well. It was the thought that counts.

That’s the great thing about pandering. It’s all sizzle, no steak. I have to admit, I don’t know exactly how to express that metaphor in vegetarian terms. But then, I might be accused of pandering if I figured it out.

And as much as I want to be pandered to, I don’t want to be accused of pandering. You may be amused, shocked even to discover pander has more or less the exact same meaning as pimp, at least historically, meaning back in the distant past when words actually had meanings. I guess that makes people who are successfully pandered to Johns.

There’s been a lot of hand-wringing lately in, well, let’s call a spade a spade here, Canadian elite circles about the productivity gap between Canada and, oh, the rest of the world. Canada, they say, is not productive enough. We’re falling behind such powerhouses in the productivity race as Singapore, India, China and other places where people haven’t mastered that Zen riddle: live to work, or work to live, Grasshopper.

Canadian bidnizfolk are particularly bedeviled by this productivity gap. They’re pissed off because the lack of productivity means there’s less wealth for them to strip out of their companies. I mean, there’s only so much excess profit a guy can generate moving jobs offshore and downsizing. Through the pernicious combination of lagging productivity and higher personal taxes, Canada’s high fliers just aren’t keeping up with their counterparts elsewhere.

Not so Canada’s working classes. All the bragging rights inure to the blue and white collar workingfolk of the country. In the past quarter century — 25 years for the math-challenged among us — Canada’s full-time workerbees have enjoyed a run-up in earnings from $41,348 to $41,401. That’s $53 hard-earned bucks, buckos. Better than a Twoonie a year. Not being enough to tempt a panderer to rent me a hooker, I’ve spent my $53 on big jugs… of milk.

In the productivity-fuelled race to the bottom among working people, Canadians have actually managed to hold their own. At least until you factor in inflation. But only some smarmy, elite economist would stoop to doing something so low to spoil our high.

No, I believe Canada’s larger problem isn’t a productivity gap — it’s a pandering gap. Much as we deserve it, Canadian politicians simply aren’t stepping up to the plate and pandering to our base instincts as much as they should. Certainly not as much as American politicians. While we’ve always lagged our neighbours to the south, we’re now falling behind at an increasing pace, thanks to the never-ending presidential primary season that runs from just after one election to well after the next.

Take just one recent example. It was duck hunting season in Alberta last week. Oh, true, in most enlightened places duck season generally flies around in autumn when the summer-fattened ducks head south for a winter of leisure beside some scenic body of water as opposed to spring when they’re on their way north to make more ducks. But like so many things, Alberta goes its own way on duck hunting too.

That the choice of weapons this year was a Syncrude tailings pond instead of a Remington 12 gauge pump, actually belies the notion that Canada lags in productivity. Without wasting a lot of time hanging out in blinds drinking good Canadian rye or even firing a single shot, Syncrude bagged more than 500 ducks with a toxic brew of what elite environmentalists like to call caca and productivity-worried bidniz guys like to call, profits.

Ed “F*#% the Ducks” Stelmach, premier of all Albertans, could have used this flocking mess to pander to enviroweenies and other bleeding hearts. He could have apologized for cheerleading Alberta’s headlong rush to tar sands prosperity. But he didn’t. Ignoring a great opportunity to pander, he more or less said, “They’re just ducks, for chrissakes!”

Stevie Hapless on the other hand, with an ever-watchful eye on his minority government, came this close — thumb and index finger held very close together — to pandering when he called Alberta’s duck-off a, “terrible tragedy,” sending personal condolences to both Daffy and Donald.

If Canada’s ever going to narrow its pandering gap those dummies better wise up. An opportunity like this just cries out for a bold initiative. Perhaps they should have rounded up all the semi-productive French chefs around the country and announced there’d be duck confit for all Canadians. Vegetarians excluded, of course.