Columns and Letters

Column: Frost had promises to keep; politicians have promises to make

July 28, 2021

-by Frank Macdonald

    There wasn’t a lot about July to dive euphorically into the ocean over, the water itself having been bitten by a bit of a wind chill. Perhaps it was because so much of the month went missing.
    From a business perspective, there was a drought of tourists. They had been COVID-caught beyond the province’s borders. It was COVID’s other way of toying with the human race. If it wasn’t killing us, it was busy trying to bankrupt businesses.
    From a weather perspective, it was generally overcast with a threat of showers, sprinkled with threats of sunshine. Despite the absence of July weather during July, it was difficult here on the east coast to complain too loudly. As dull as the weather was, this province didn’t need to deal with the deadly temperatures of British Columbia and the prairies, battle hundreds of forest fires, try to farm drought-drenched fields, or confront most of the climate change devastation.


    Closer to home, as in, say, all of Inverness County, July went ahead without a single parade, or major unmasked gathering. I am only aware of one mini-beer bash. This was COVID’s way of disallowing civic-minded organizations such as fire departments, arenas, legions, fishing wharves, and other annual and essential fundraisers from rising a dime. COVID, on closer examination, was meaner spirited than a Trump Republican.
    The month of July would have been virtually entertainment-free but for the thoughtfulness of Nova Scotia politicians who decided that, in lieu of summer parades, what this province’s needed was a summer election.
    With the premier’s call, seismic monitors could almost feel the excitement ripple all the way from Meat Cove to Digby. It is an election that promises…well, promises.
    One of democracy’s great flaws is its failure to be in a permanent state of campaign fever. When there is an election campaign, the province’s problems evaporate like tea water in an unwatched kettle. There are no longer problems, only solutions.
    If the Liberals don’t have the fix for this or that social failing in our society, the Progressive Conservatives are bound to quote their DYI skill at fixing what’s ill. And if the PCs aren’t quick off the mark as Do-It-Themselvers, the New Democrats are never without generally untried solutions to everything.
    The one fix that sticks out so far is the Tory’s promise to return 50 per cent of corporate taxes, provided, of course, that the corporations promise to use the those tax returns to increase the wages of their workers. Of course, the idea of cutting corporate wages to benefit the corporation’s employees is a ploy and scam going back to Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan’s trickle-down economic disasters. That’s not to say that cutting corporate taxes isn’t a really good idea! Just ask any shareholder whose dividends increase while, oddly, the buying power of the election-wooed employees dips a bit more.
    One of the problems with Nova Scotia elections is that, generally speaking, the political parties have cleaned up their act. Actually, they have been forced to reduce the public entertainment aspect of election campaigns. Under the scrutiny of a less tolerant media; and spoil sports such as ethics commissioners; as well constituencies that have been expanded beyond most politicians’ and voters’ ability to be on a first name basis, the intimacy of politics has vanished.
    There was a time when politics in this province (and elsewhere) enjoyed the benefits of the bribe. Not that the politicians would ever accept a bribe. God forbid. But the politicians weren’t above dabbling in the practice of bribery. It was a time when a mickey of rum, a.k.a. Campaign Champaign, could secure a vote. And if the recipient of such political largess was already pre-disposed to support the party, well it could mean every vote in that person’s family going ‘the right way.’
    The risk, of course, was that in many places in Inverness County, there were voters who were more unethical than the politicians, people who could play the game with a master’s touch. They could manage to stay unbiasedly drunk for the entire six-week campaign by peddling a single vote every day to every campaign headquarters. Then spend the whole of Election Day passed out.
    For better or worse, depending on the depth of your thirst, those days are now behind us.
    Many voters are still prepared to be bought, of course, but usually in the interests of their community. So, we will vote our conscience.  Or unable to escape our DNA vote as our parents and grandparents, do as they willed us to do. Or vote for the party’s list of promises that most resemble our own annual Santa Claus list.

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


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