Everything has changed for Canada and the world...

 “Zelinskyy is a dictator without elections and Ukraine started the war,” words uttered both in writing and orally by the occupant of the Oval Office yesterday.

All the multiple threats of tariffs, trade war, take-overs in Greenland, Gaza and Panama, withdrawal from the Paris Environmental Accord and the WHO, the demolition of USAID, plus the evisceration of the federal government under the ruse of ‘eliminating waste, fraud and abuse,’ pale to the obvious obsequious pandering to Putin by the orange dictator of America.

For Canada, this marks a significant shift in focus from the need to address primarily, or exclusively economic and fiscal and trade issues, to a focus on geopolitics and this shift needs to be made urgently. No longer are the protocols, the language, the subtlety and the patience that characterize diplo-speak-and-act, adequate to meet the situation. World leaders are stunned and gob-smacked, off balance and nervous and they would be sleeping under a rock if they were not. Can the EU coalesce around the need to provide security troops in Ukraine, should a peace be arranged? Can the EU and Canada scramble fast enough to ramp up both security and trade agreements and deals that might give NATO some ‘oxygen’ as it gasps in the Emergency Room of geopolitics for its very existence? Can world leaders align with conviction and muscle and commitment, those who espouse, believe in and embody the basic tenets of democracy, including the right to vote, the right to free speech, the right to personal security from a malignant government/state, and resistance to the oligarchical, right-wing, white supremacist and nationalist winds that are sweeping across much of the globe?

We in Canada are in the midst of two elections, the first for the provincial government of Ontario, the nation’s most populous province, the second for leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, and Prime Minister. It is the national debate and discussion that seems most relevant and cogent here and now.

Two candidates, Marc Carney and Chrystia Freeland currently, according to polls and Elections Canada fundraising data, lead a pack of some 5 candidates. And both the prevailing theory, and public opinion hold that Mr. Carney, the former Governor of both the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England, holds a significant lead over Ms Freeland. It is his ‘resume’ that has galvanized many members of the Liberal Party, those who will cast a vote for leader. Balancing the books, splitting the operating and the capital budget, in order to achieve ‘balance’ at least in one area, is an idea at the top of the Carney list of proposals. His primary focus, and expertise, it must be acknowledged, is economics, fiscal and monetary policy. And at a time when the cost of living is paramount in the minds and pocket-books of Canadians, the perception of any likelihood of a Liberal victory in the upcoming election seems to ride on the wave of both how to “deal” with the Trump threats against trade and Canadian sovereignty (he wants our natural resources, especially water and minerals and energy), and how to fix the Canadian economy. Canadians, too, especially Liberals, it must be acknowledged, really gravitate to a ‘winner’ a kind of projection of a leader to whom we can look up and admire, as if such a personage, whether the most appropriate or not, is our choice. And rising levels of anxiety foretell a return to ‘previous, reliable and dependable’ modes of both thought and behaviour. As pollster Nik Nanos puts it, “The race is Carney’s to lose!”

In this space, contrarian views seek revisiting, reflection, and uploading. And, based on the convergence of all the ‘dots’ on the radar screen of this scribe, especially given the global rise of a less than 1% of super-rich wannabe oligarchs, and the umbilical cord to power that leaders like Putin and Trump offer, their hooks are likely to remain firmly embedded in power for some time to come. And the relation between dictators and sycophants is based on more than money; those who write cheques are symbiotically enmeshed to their tyrants in and through their acts of adoring and adulating and flattering those tyrants. Who needs whom more is a question begging both untangling and doctoral research projects.

From the perspective of a low-middle-class octogenarian, this Canadian sees Mr. Carney, with respect, as a fitting image, if not actual mirror, of the elite mentality, ideation and imagination of the elites with whom he has worked his whole life. Some might call this reverse snobbery, the lower class being resentful of the upper class. I reject this judgement in this case simply because the future of Canada in a boiling global cauldron eclipses any notions of personal animus or prejudice based on this scribes resentment of the upper class.

What Canada needs is a Liberal leader and Prime Minister who has lived in  refugee camps and has lived with complex struggle from the beginning, as well as through the halls and libraries of various universities, and in the news rooms of multiple major news organizations. The perspective attitudes, imagination and resourcefulness that can really only come from such a broad, varied and challenging life story differ significantly from those bred in the board-rooms of national banks. It is not that those who have worked in national banks are less than, from the perspective of human dignity, personal worthiness or ethics. It is more that, in this case, the sensibilities of the board-room are not congruent with the nature of the exigencies that Canada and the world face. I know, personally, neither Mr. Carney nor Ms Freeland and I have no personal need to lean to one or the other.

It is simply and exclusively a deep-seated perception and attitude that keeps repeating the notion that a popular banker, although favoured by a majority of Cabinet and members of Parliament, and certainly in possession of vastly larger contributions from a considerably larger cadre of donors, is less fitted, and paradoxically less ‘complex’ and ‘subtle’ in imagination, in sensibility and in both compassion and empathy, a discernment that unsuccessfully begs empirical proof. Intuition is guiding and directing these keys, on this very cold February morning, only a couple of weeks prior to the March 9^th voting day for Liberal Party leader.

Amid all of the roiling geopolitical currents, at root, I want a government that puts the plight of the least among us (in our neighbourhood, province, nation and globe and that includes Ukraine and Palestine!) at the top of the decision-making totem of options…and keeps its eye on the victim. While the world is trumpeting extreme macho, alpha-male sexism, ageism, racism, and exclusion, I defer to a leader whose depth of experience and perception and attitudes slightly overshadows (perhaps by 51-49) those of the leading candidate. And Ms Freeland remains my choice as my reasons continue to become more clear.