Recent columns: Policy is the best honesty

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty promised yesterday that he would not raise taxes if he is re-elected this fall and insisted he means it this time. -- National Post, June 4.

You really can’t do anything with this. Satire is impossible. You'd think, having issued more than 200 promises in the last election and broken nearly as many, the last thing Mr. McGuinty would want to do this time out is make any promises -- least of all on taxes, the ne plus ultra of McGuinty whoppers...

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty promised yesterday that he would not raise taxes if he is re-elected this fall and insisted he means it this time. -- National Post, June 4.

Yet there it is. He actually said it. Only this time, as the Post reported, “he means it.” How do we know he means it? After all, the last time he promised not to raise taxes Mr. McGuinty went to unusual lengths to persuade voters that this was not just another political promise, but a blood vow. He even signed his name to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation’s no-tax-hike pledge, in a splashy public ceremony.

Having subsequently raised taxes by $2.6-billion in his first budget, Mr. McGuinty would seem to have a problem on his hands. Ah, but this time is different, because this time “I’m not hiding a deficit.” But then, in 2003 Ernie Eves insisted he wasn’t hiding a deficit, either, though the Liberals often accused him of it.

Indeed, everyone knew Ontario was headed for a deficit in 2003, and a large one. The Fraser Institute issued a report, mid-campaign, predicting the deficit was on course to hit $4.5-billion. At the time, Mr. McGuinty would not say precisely how he would adjust his plans in that event, other than to suggest he might delay some of his spending proposals. But there would be no tax increase: on that he was clear.

If the deficit made him do it, as Mr. McGuinty as maintained ever since, why was it that he was still pledging not to raise taxes even after he was elected -- indeed, until just days before the budget? Why were higher taxes, and not deferred spending, the answer? Or if there was no alternative to raising taxes, why could he not at least have kept his promise to the taxpayers federation, which was that he would put any tax increase to a referendum?

But never mind all that. It isn’t only on taxes, after all, that Mr. McGuinty has broken his word, but on any number of other issues, from closing coal-fired plants to rolling back toll increases on a provincial highway to freezing electricity rates. And it isn’t only Mr. McGuinty who has shown such casual disregard, once elected, for the solemn promises made before. It has been the habit of political leaders of all parties, at all levels of government.

Indeed, if there’s anyone for whom Mr. McGuinty’s serial mendacity presents an even bigger challenge than Mr. McGuinty himself, it is his opposition counterpart, John Tory. For the damage Mr. McGuinty and his ilk have done is not just to their own reputations, but to that of politicians generally. How, then, does Mr. Tory separate himself from Mr. McGuinty in this regard? What does the honest politician do nowadays to prove his good faith? What can he do? What’s left, after Mr. McGuinty’s taxpayer pledge?

It won’t be enough for Mr. Tory just to say “trust me.” Nor are narrow attacks on Mr. McGuinty’s character likely to prevail in a long campaign. If Mr. Tory wants to capitalize on the issue, he needs to broaden it out -- to make the issue, not just Mr. McGuinty’s failings, but the culture of dishonesty that has taken root in our politics. He needs, not merely to promise to do things differently, but to present concrete proposals for how he could be held to account if he doesn’t -- and not just himself, but other politicans as well. As it happens, I have a suggestion.

It’s one I’ve offered before: a plan that would allow politicians to voluntarily assume legal liability for uttering false statements, much as people do in other walks of life, as when swearing out an affidavit, or posting a bond. The point is not to catch politicians out for every stray slip of the tongue. Indeed, it’s not even about punishing the dishonest, so much as rewarding the honest, by making it possible for the voters to trust in politicians’ honesty once again.

How would it work? Suppose there were a provision in the elections law allowing politicians to "opt in" to certain legal consequences with regard to a given public statement, should it later be found to be false. No need to prove fraud, or damages. Just that it was false. “In releasing my platform today,” a party leader might say, “I invoke Article 19 of the Elections Act.” As I say, it would be like swearing an oath. This is no more -- it is actually considerably less -- than the standard politicians expect of other professions, such as lawyers or corporate officers.

Be bold, Mr. Tory. A Truth in Politics Act, were you to propose it, would transform our politics. As a bonus, it just might win you the election.

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26 Comments

Stephen:: But who would believe it?; 6/6/07 9:22 AM
Rsimpson:: AC,

"...swearing an oath..." ooooooo sounds serious, but like other system tinkering notions (like Term Limits)just how do you implement the practical side of this? Who gets to say "hey wait a minute..." and who does he get to say it to? What happens then, do we tar and feather the offender? Do we hang a politician, randomly but regularly? Presumably, but necessarily from the governing party. Do we fine and/or incarcerate them?
What happens if he makes a promise in one campaign and then goes back on it after another?
Just what constitutes a lie as opposed to a broken promise? What if Pol A1 says one thing and Pol A2 says another, cross-qualifying statements as it were?
What about the indignant? What about the truly damaged? Do they get to feed at the public trough so as to assuage their indignation? After all an admission or judgement of guilt is also an acknowledgment or assignment of responsibility. And as we well know, if government is responsible then the wallet is WIDE OPEN.
Of course the sad truth is that we want our politicians to lie to us and they know they will be well rewarded for their most creative and subtle lies.
I must admit I searched long and hard for some sense of satire in this column but it escapes me; you are just too dry.; 6/6/07 9:27 AM
DW:: AC,

Forgive me for thinking that your latest column sounds a bit behind the curve. Could it be that it really took you this long to lose your innocence on the question of political honesty? Surely there is a long enough track record of it from all parties in all parts of the country to make the Dalton Gang's chapter nothing new.

I also like how you seem to paint John Tory as some poor innocent victim of the Dalton Gang's antics. If past precedent tells us anything, it is that he is much more likely to be making promises he will not keep than not. This is not an unfair assumption that should be taken as an affront by Honest John. It is just how things are.

The truth is, the truly honest men know better than to get into politics in the first place. Without the misleading deception of spin and the politician's prerogative to change his mind once elected, there would be little chance of getting to the big kids' table. Cynical or realistic? You be the judge.; 6/6/07 10:53 AM
Anonymous:: I think tax promises from the Ontario Liberals probably fall in the same category as GST promises form the federal Liberals; radioactive and destructive for all of eternity.

Has he lost his mind? He has just done a better job of reminding all Ontario voter of all of his previous promises than anyone else could have ever done.; 6/6/07 12:11 PM
Anonymous:: Why all the nasty comments about Andrew's article?

I thought it was a good read. What Andrew says about McGuinty is absolutely true.

Canada would be better off if it had fewer slick politicians, and McGuinty is certainly one of them.

For a person like McGuinty telling the truth or not telling the turth is neither here nor there, the end game is to get elected.

Most of us don't run our lives and our jobs swaying between the truth or lying as the opportunity suits itself. But in politics it's par for the course.

So Andrew's idea is a good one.; 6/6/07 12:12 PM
Rsimpson:: Anon,

Andrew's idea is a naive one. Its impossible to define so impossible to enforce.; 6/6/07 12:33 PM
FDuquette:: Would keeping this oath, if the conditions which gave rise to its particulars changed suddenly, be contrary to the best interests of the public?
Perhaps it is also unparliamentary to deposit accountability into a legislative instrument, rather than parliamentary debate, though granted its the lack of accountability that demands such solutions. Maybe we can make an election list of needs, and contract a government to acheive them in 4 years, and nevermind the parliament.; 6/6/07 12:56 PM
Érik Labelle Eastaugh:: This is an interesting proposal, but as FDuquette points out, it may not necessarily be beneficial.

One presumes there would have be an enforcement mechanism of some kind, either a fine, or destitution. This mechanism would only be available if a politician made a promise and then broke it. However, we clearly don't want politicians to keep stupid promises, or to keep their promises stupidly, which they would have to do to avoid the legal sanction. In fact, the real value of a meausure of this type would be to discourage politicians from making either ill-advised promises or ones they don't ever intend to keep. But that's an omission, not an action, and thus much more difficult to reward.; 6/6/07 1:42 PM
NB taxpayer:: Your idea is definitely worthy of a serious debate.; 6/6/07 2:46 PM
Closet Liberal:: I'm with Erik. I'd rather politicians avoided concrete promises, especially as that backs them into corners more often than not.

During an election campaign I'd rather each party lay out as what they the top priorities are, and what approach they will take to address the priority.

eg.

We think affordable housing is an issue, we want to solve it through an increase in direct funding to municipalities combined with tax breaks for real estate companies that help out, blah, blah, blah.

We think the middle income earner pays too much in taxes and deserves a break. We will strive to provide a direct reduction in income tax for the middle income bracket.

Avoid the direct costs (as any numbers will be unrealistic), say we will try to or endeavor to rather than we will or will not do.

Parties need to leave themselves an out, makes it a more honest process.; 6/6/07 3:06 PM
Anonymous:: Oooh, Andrew is sooo mad about evil Mcguinty not being aware of just how dishonest the former government was.

And slick? Is that a joke? If he was at all slick he would be cruising to another victory and in no danger of losing to the likes of John Tory.; 6/6/07 4:23 PM
Andrew:: If you ask any man-on-the-street what is the number one attribute they look for in our political leaders 9 times out of 10 the first thing they will say is "honesty" or "integrity". It seems to be the missing ingredient that Canadians yearn for. And how hard can it be?

McGuinty and this crop of Liberals have done a great deal damage to the faith the electorate have in our democratic institutions, and that is tragic. It will take a long time to repair the damage.; 6/6/07 4:39 PM
Gord Tulk:: One or both of two things would need to happen to make lying/promise-breaking more difficult (Read: punishable):

1. Workable recall legislation. That's how Ahnold got his start. McTwitty wouldn't have broken his first no new taxes increase if the electorate was able to rapidly trigger an election.

2. More autonomy for MLA/MPs. If they were able to vote their minds or at least their electorate's minds without fear of reprisals or causing the defeat of the government they could prevent the leadership from acting unilaterally.

Certain readers/posters on this blog would shout that I am recommending american-style political reforms (horrors). I would counter that parliamentary-based solutions would be fine by me if their were any.; 6/6/07 4:48 PM
Anonymous:: Good article, stupid idea. Unenforceable, unquantifiable and unintelligible. What happens if situations change?

Plus, there already IS an accountability function in politics - it's called an election - perhaps you've heard of it?; 6/6/07 5:02 PM
GREGM:: This post has been removed by the author.; 6/6/07 5:57 PM
asarochester:: In this example, it is safe to say the politicians lie because they think we are stupid, and mostly, they are right. For Dalton, given that his government has been the recipient of a tidal wave of revenue over and about his health tax; you'd think, he might at lease feel sheepish enough to promise to repeal at least part of it. But implicit in his no new taxes promise is that he will never, under any circumstances cut them either. With $20 billion in new revenue since 2003, that takes a lot of contempt for the taxpayer...; 6/6/07 7:50 PM
Steve L.:: if the voters don't have it in them to mete out deserved punishment, forcing the issue makes little difference. so yes: stupid idea.

this is why you should vote Conservative, federally and provincially. not necessarily because Conservatives are more competent, but because voters treat Conservatives very differently from Liberals. under Liberal governments, everyone sleepwalks their way one mishap after another. if, by chance, they accidentally toppled a Liberal government, they panic and make hay out of anything and everything related to the non-Liberal government that should not have been. you can even count Andrew Coyne among this lot. who has he written more against: the Liberals or the Conservatives? hard to tell.

at least, under a Conservative government, voters will be more willing to take the government to task for things that shouldn't have been done. and this will be a better country for it. not necessarily because the Conservatives are more deserving of governing power, once again. but definitely, this will be a better country for it.; 6/6/07 8:06 PM
Meany:: Why not just have some recall legislation, with teeth? The oath is unenforcable, how can you tell what a lie is, what a fib is, or when circumstances changed and they had to go back on a promise? You can't, but you can always get politicians judged in the court of public opinion if the public has the ability to recall a host of politicians whenever they are mad enough. For example, if a group of private citizens collected enough signatures, can't we have a referendum on dissolving the legislature, or something similar? Elections aren't THAT expensive, I'd say the cost is definitely worth it if using more direct-democracy gets people to trust the political process more, and become more engaged.; 7/6/07 12:57 AM
KRB:: Their campaign "test run" that day of basically running against Mike Harris, and claiming Tory as a Harris clone, pretty much fell flat, didn't it?

If Tory and his team are smart, they can win this thing.; 7/6/07 11:38 AM
r a:: Another Coyne hobby horse.
Remember Bill Clinton arguing about what the meaning of "is" is? That's exactly what would happen in the Court of Electoral Accountability; with parallel processes taking place in the media and the legislature. The whole thing is too ridiculous for words.
Voters could easily make McGuinty's promise-breaking a big deal - if they wanted to. They have evidently decided its not as big a deal as AC and others think.; 7/6/07 3:08 PM
Andrew:: Meany makes an excellent point about recall legislation. I will be adding this to my "to-do list".

And ra makes a good point about how difficult the enforcement would be given the complexities and nuances of language.

The democratic system works best when people are engaged in it. We must all do more to get our fellow citizens to pay more attention - and to think.; 8/6/07 12:43 PM
Stephen:: Honesty is really something that people form an opinion about and how "honest" someone is depends on the issue. Clinton is a good example, he never promised the eletorate that he wouldnt have an intern perform fellatio on him in th eoval office...but people felt he had broken some deal...largely because he denied he had had sex with that woman....some defended him some changed their monds about him.

I agree with the objective, more honesty and integrity but contractually obligating someone to it kind of misses the point.

This is where scrutiny from opposition and press matter along with debates and elections. It is too bad debates are so scripted now. The advantage of the US primary process is it very much vets a candidate for certain things but not all things. Certainly harder to hold contradictory positions over the length of primary and presidential elections.

The price of lying....I still think that has top come at election.

Tory making the pledge is all fine and dandy but I dont think it would have the intended purpose.

As for recall....not a big fan of it, unless you have significant reason to call it, like 66% of the potential voting elecotorate signing up for this. You do need to prevent nuisnace stuff...and recall should only be able to take place in the first two years of a mandate. After that a real election is closer where people can get to the MP at the time.

But once again I am not thrilled by recall i the first place....; 10/6/07 3:44 PM
Meany:: I agree recall legislation can also be tough, because how does on set the threshold for signatures for example that must be collected before a vote is declared? Too high and it's pointless. Too low and you have partisan recall initiatives starting the day after the election. BUT besides recall, we could also have more direct democracy, with citizen initiatives appearing on the ballots during elections. They manage to do it in places like California all the time, why can't we? Don't like the Health Care Tax for example? Collect enough signatures and let's have a vote on it. The initiative can go straight from the ballot box to the Lieutenant-Governor for assent. Lots of direct democracy things can be done so that people can feel like they have more of a say in the political process and become less jaded by seeing their politicans make a promise one day, and break it the next. Take some power away from those politicans and put it directly in the citizens' hands may fix the problem, and as far as I can tell it's the best remedy we have because no "oath" will ever work because we could not make it enforcable.; 11/6/07 3:34 AM
Alex Sloat:: First off, his raising of taxes without a referendum wasn't just a violation of his pledge during the campaign, it was a violation of provincial law at the time. I still have no idea why the lawsuit trying to overturn the tax on those grounds didn't succeed, because what McGuinty did was blatantly illegal.

Secondly, recall laws are the obvious solution. You need a threshold of about 10-20% of the electorate, ideally - it's attainable, but only in severe circumstances. Truth legislation isn't a terrible idea(though I'd include an out allowing them to break their promises after a referendum), but recall serves more and better purposes.; 11/6/07 12:07 PM
Anonymous:: The flaw in this suggestion is that the party leader will only be called upon to respect his vow if his party forms the government. And if the vow is no longer convenient, passing legislation to repeal the particular section of the Election Act will be all that is required. A repealed statute can have no effect. Didn't McGuinty have to repeal a Taxpayers Protection Act in order to implement their health premium? It's that easy.; 11/6/07 10:24 PM
Anonymous:: I would suggest that an appropriately symbolic, and financially meaningful piece of collatateral for a politician to pledge would be the entire value of his public service pension. It is a piece of personal collataral that all prospective politicians have to offer, and it eliminates the practical problems of posting a bond ahead of time, or of collecting a judgement.

Presumably, the public would take this sort of pledge seriously, and the politician even moreso since he would be placing at stake a *personal* financial asset that is likely to be worth several hundred thousand dollars.

Side benefits of this approach:

* the longer you've been a politician, the more you have to lose

* fittingly, you can only lose your "honour" once

* an individual MP/MPP could make a particular pledge that might be important to him and his consituents, though not a province-wide issue during election time. If later on while in government his party takes a stand opposed to his personal election pledge, this could be a powerful level to get him to keep his personal word to his constituents.

- Daniel; 13/6/07 12:21 PM

Policy is the best honesty

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