Justin's Faery Dust Dims

It's somehow fitting that our new prime minister is tying Canada's future to the "fourth industrial revolution" at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland this week.

Klaus Schwab in 2012

Just four years ago Davos co-founder Klaus Schwab astonished observers with his keynote remarks at the opening of the 2012 gathering of world political leaders and businessmen.  At the time, we posted a blog item that we called a placeholder in the Conversation of a Generation.  That was because we frankly didn't  know what to make of Professor Schwab's assertions that capitalism, in its present form, has outlived its usefulness.

The professor's analysis came on the heels of the Occupy Wall Street movement that caused people to question the sustainability of the gulf opening up between the economically disadvantaged and the crony capitalists who are killing their own golden goose one big slice at a time.

This time Justin Trudeau is the keynote speaker, an acknowledgement of his miraculous political upset of Stephen Harper only three months ago.  With the global economy sliding toward the brink of the unknown,  organizers undoubtedly felt that some boosterism might help. 

 Trudeau rose to the occasion  with the pitch that "My predecessor wanted you to know Canada for its resources.  I want you to know Canadians for our resourcefulness."

Neil Nails It

It took CBC correspondent Neil Macdonald to rein in this show horse: "prime ministers have to cheerlead; they all do. But Trudeau's ... happy talk is beginning to sound a bit detached from certain realties that the unimaginably important heavy-hitters in Davos are probably quite aware of".

In other words, enough of the faery dust already. When Trudeau gets back on Canadian terra firma there are real issues to be addressed with more than incantations of diversity, cooperation and inclusivity.  It's time we had more to tell our partners in counter-terrorism who didn't invite Canada to the NATO conference on that subject this week.  Provinces and municipalities deserve a better sense of how the government plans to deliver its infrastructure commitments than Trudeau's standard reminder of how many 'just  folks'  he listened to while he was wandering in the political wilderness as leader of the third party.   

Leave it to Neil to state  the obvious:  "... we must all have internalized that there is value in diversity, and that we must work together as Canadians, and that we are an incredible, wonderful, virtuous place."

"We also have problems, though. Time to get at them, no?"

Right Brain is Empty

CBC's hired mogul Kevin O'Leary is stumped by Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges' coherent description of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Hedges vows not to re-appear with Canada's answer to the Fox News mouthpiece.  O'Leary doesn't seem able to grasp plain speaking.

If there is to be a productive debate over solutions to the hollowing-out of western capitalist-style democracies, this clip shows it will take debaters who can put their case without resorting to cheap TV trash talk.  As a supporter of "Friends of Canadian Broadcasting" we understand the CBC's effort to balance the conversation by giving air time to both sides.  But surely the right can find somebody capable of representing their position without caricaturing their ideology. 

Name-calling and character-bashing. are the redoubt of the empty-headed.  Those are not the people who are going to dig America out of its slough of despair.

O'Leary reflects the most simplistic side of the argument and real life just isn't that simple for most people.  That's why the Wall Street protesters are calling themselves The 99 Per Cent.  Instead of  profiting from sure-fire formulas for capital gain, most people are struggling to feed, clothe and heat themselves.  O'Leary should try that for a while and see if his simple-mided solutions can dig him out.