The Written Word
for September 30, 2001

The terrible events of September 11 have, as a sidebar, allowed us to look at American politicians and compare them to our own. And it’s not a pretty sight.

The reason that men like Colin Powell and Donald Romsfeldt, the Secretaries of State and Defence respectively, look so superior to anything we can cough up is that under the American system the President can look at the entire nation in selecting his cabinet which not only doesn’t need to come from Congress, but by law cannot.

But what about the American politicians and those we’ve seen on the Canadian scene? Let’s look at the folks at home.

First there is Premier Minister Chretien who, after a high on September 14 when he addressed the crowd on the day of national mourning, quickly looked like the parish pump politician he is. He couldn’t get himself to visit "ground zero", the site of the World Trade Centers rubble, for two more weeks. President Jacques Chirac of France and Britain’s Prime Minister Blair made it – and who will forget the camera shots on Mr Blair when President Bush addressed Congress and the world? And the lack of camera shots on Mr Chretien who wasn’t there?

Within a few weeks both side of the 9-11 catastrophe we watched Immigration Minister Elinor Caplan fall all over her tongue as she tried to come to grips with Canada’s immigration and refugee problem and deal with the notion of a one border policy for all of North America. There was, surely, the worst cabinet minister on earth, Hedy Fry, utterly at sea at the conference on racism in Durban, South Africa. There was David Collinette demonstrating, as if that were needed, his utter lack of competence as he tried to deal with the problems of Air Canada, most of which related to Mr Collinette’s bungling of the Air Canada CAI merger. Even John Manley, usually surefooted, on my show babbled all over the place as he avoided all direct questions and simply parroted the usual preprogrammed answers for which Federal Liberal Cabinet Ministers are so famous.

Contrast this if you will with three American elected politicians in the days around September 11.

First there was Senator Tom Lasche, minority leader in the Senate and Senator Trent Lott majority leader who, on the night the president spoke, offered bipartisan support. But what stuck out was that these were bright, individual politicians that didn’t support Mr Bush because they had to out of any political loyalty, but because they had done their homework and did it from conviction.

The man who will, I predict, be the next banner carrier for the Democrats, Richard Gephardt, spent many hours under intense media scrutiny and looked the statesman as he did.

I certainly don’t say that all American senators and Representatives are superior to all Canadian counterparts – just that most of them are. And the reason for the difference is the systems under which they operate.

A member of the House of Representatives or the US Senate must show merit or he doesn’t get elected. In each case the job requires individual thinking. I’m not by any means saying that there are not political realities facing the US Congressman – there are many. But because the government doesn’t fail on an adverse vote in either American House, the member has much more independence. Because he does, the American voter knowing that, he is likely to be made of pretty stern stuff.

The Canadian politician, on the other hand, must, if he is to be successful, be a toady. In order to get ahead he must do as he is told. his instructions will come to him from the Prime Minister’s office through the Whip. Any effort at individual thought by an MP is discouraged – any attempt at individual action is stamped out immediately.

There are many parts of the American system that are unsavoury, the principal one being the amount of money it costs to get elected. But when the count is taken at the end of the day, the American political product is vastly superior to the supine lickspittles produced on this side of the border.

And whenever they open their mouths, the proof is obvious.