dvsuk.net

Institute for Research on Public Policy

The IRPP published one of my term papers, “Two for One: Building a Versatile Canadian Priorities Agenda,” on their website.

Thanks to professors Dobson and Touhy for putting on a superb capstone seminar at the University of Toronto’s School of Public Policy and Governance.

Canada’s Next Great Prime Minister aired last night on CBC. I came in third place. If you missed it, don’t worry! The show, plus some deleted scenes will be posted at http://www.cbc.ca/nextprimeminister/ soon.

Congratulations to Amy-Marlene, and all the best to Robert and Gabriel. Thanks to everyone who supported me along the way!

* UPDATE * Here’s the show!

Dear Friends,

As many of you know, we (David Suk and Kaleb Ruch) held a community event on December 13th, 2008 as part of our participation in CBC Television’s Canada’s Next Great Prime Minister Competition. For all of you who didn’t get a chance to see us in person, we would like to share a little bit about what we did and why we did it!

We both believe that it is essential that Canada’s politicians engage with Canadians and each other in substantive and constructive dialogue on the issues that matter to Canadians. As such, we chose to hold a public debate at the Speaker’s Corner in front of Toronto City Hall.

One important theme in both of our candidacies is the economy, and these days, the Canadian economy is under strain. One symptom of tough economic times is that more Canadians have difficulty feeding their families. At the same time, food banks and soup kitchens find it more difficult to raise the money they need to run their activities. We both believe that the importance of Canadians coming together to support these organizations is beyond debate. As such, we made our debate into a session of “debate-busking.” We asked passers-by to listen to our ideas for a time, to ask our opinions on any issues that they were particularly concerned about, to give us their views, and finally, to leave a small donation for the Daily Bread Food Bank.

Our event was a great success! In two hours of debating, we collected $60.17 for Daily Bread! Thanks to all of you who came out, and to those of you that didn’t we hope that you will consider making a small donation to a food bank or soup kitchen in your own community.

Sincerely,

Kaleb Ruch
David Suk

I made my first post in CBC’s Canada’s Next Great Prime Minister forum a couple of days ago. The 80+ contestants are creating quite a buzz, discussing everything from Responsibility to Protect to violations of the Canada Health Act. I will be making regular (weekly or biweekly?) contributions over there, and cross-posting them here for those of you that would like to hear what I have to say, but don’t have time to wade through hundreds of posts.

_______________________________________

Hello All,

Wow! CBC has harvested quite a crop of concerned Canadians. I am happy to see the many good ideas and compelling arguments that have appeared in this thread so far. Most of all, I am delighted to see my fellow contestants so passionate about building a better Canada. Our country needs all of us! Perhaps CBC would considering reworking this competition into “Canada’s Next Great Parliament” . . .

There is one theme that is missing from the thread, and I would like to bring it to everyone’s attention. Many of you have brought up the deplorable conditions on Canada’s reserves. But did you know that more than 50% of Aboriginal Canadians now live off reserve?

It can be tremendously difficult Aboriginal people living off reserve to access social services because of jurisdictional disagreements between Canada’s various levels of government. Provincial governments are hesitant to provide many services because they claim that Aboriginal people are the responsibility of the Federal government. The Federal government claims that once an Aboriginal person leaves his or her reserve, the provision of social services (such as health and education, for example) to that person becomes a Provincial responsibility. The result is an inadequate array of social services accessible to Aboriginal people living off reserve.

In my video-platform (http://www.cbc.ca/nextprimeminister/candidates/davidsuk.html) I suggested that “the three E’s” – Energy, the Economy, and the Environment – are a set of closely related challenges that Federal and Provincial governments must tackle as a package, together. Well a cooperative approach will be needed in other areas of policy as well, including Aboriginal affairs. All levels of Canadian government must come together to ensure that urban Aboriginal Canadians have equal access to adequately funded social services that take into account the disadvantaged position of Aboriginal people in Canadian society.

What do the rest of you think about the situation of Aboriginal Canadians living off reserve?

Best,

David Suk
http://www.cbc.ca/nextprimeminister/candidates/davidsuk.html

Pooping puffins, Bill Cosby sweaters, and off-colour jokes. Is that really what the media think our federal election campaign is all about?

There is little doubt that the state of political discourse in this country has reached new depths. As this long-awaited, little-loved campaign has taken form, any semblance of a real dialogue about the issues this country faces has been sidelined by an onslaught of coverage about gaffes, attack ads, opinion polls, and other vapid frivolity.

It seems absurd to think that we should struggle to make this election “about something”. The global financial system is in shambles and the economy is struggling to absorb the shockwaves. All of the national parties are offering fundamentally different game plans on climate change. Our intentions in Afghanistan remain as muddied as ever. And then there is the sustainability of our health care system – the issue everyone loves to forget.

Yet, it took only a few short days for the puffin to dominate election coverage. Since then, there has been a steady stream of contrived scandal and intrigue – from sweaters and piano skills to gawkiness and a broken-down airplane, from local candidate gag orders to the Agriculture Minister’s off-colour if innocuous joke about the tainted meat crisis.

From our politicians, the inevitable reactions have become clichéd. Feigned outrage and indignation. Calls for apologies or firings. Negative ads and mean-spirited personal attacks.

But if the politicians have indeed fallen off the wagon, the media are unquestionably their earnest enablers. In this evolving world of political journalism, the politics-of-personality rule.

Campaign 2008 coverage features armies of pundits, party hacks and bloggers, all pontificating on the importance of two-point changes in the daily tracking polls. Columnists analyze the rise and fall of the “party brands” as if they were types of toilette paper. The same tired series of narratives about the leaders are constantly repackaged, relentlessly referenced.

Meanwhile, Canada’s many troubling policy challenges – quaintly referred to as ‘the issues’ – are marginalized and trivialized. Even when the issues are discussed, the focus is on the “politics of policy” – how an issue polls, who it plays to and how it can be sold.

This shallow, scandal-driven media environment has done much to produce the venomous – even juvenile – question-period exchanges amongst our MPs in Ottawa. It’s becoming a vicious circle that worsens the tone of the politics, lowers the quality of public debate and turns people off of both politicians and journalists.

The fourth estate is a central institution in any well functioning democracy – a reality that entails both prestige and great responsibility. Yet, when confronted with this issue of the deterioration of public debate, the reaction among members of the press generally ranges from indignation to denial. They blame the politicians for their viciousness and vacuousness. They lament the complexity of the policies. And they point the finger at us, the voters, for not mobilizing behind any of the issues or, worse, for not caring.

If none of this criticism really hits home, here is one essential truth that might: the politics-of-personality coverage has become boring and repetitive. These days, we’ve been scanning the newspapers rather than reading them. We’ve been changing the channel more quickly than ever before. So a word to the advertisers: it’s the issues that matter, not the puffin.

- André Côté and David Suk are students at the University of Toronto’s School of Public Policy and Governance.