Liberals, s’il vous plaît, take a page.

Canada, we’ve fallen behind the political curve. We had a chance to lead it just four weeks ago, to elect a government that truly cared about real people, the environment and art.  We could have been a real contender on the global stage, bringing new ideas and approaches on how to unite the world around a common agenda.  We could have decided on change. We could have got a new puppy.

Instead, we are stuck with the old thinking of the old global regime- a regime which will disappear on 20 January in the United States;  one which disappeared last year in Australia, and one which disappeared in the United Kingdom more than a decade ago.

But we didn’t really have a choice for change, did we?

By choosing Stéphane Dion as leader of the Liberal Party, and Paul Martin before him, the Liberal Party has done a disservice to Canadians, giving them  little to get excited about.  Don’t get me wrong – Dion and Martin are both good guys. They have a moral vision and the intelligence to make some things happen. Dion’s environmental policies are exciting and are what the world needs. Paul Martin was one of the creators and defenders of the “G20″ – an enlarged G8 which reflects the imperative for fundamental changes to international relations in the 21st century.

But neither are transformational leaders. And that’s what Canada needs right now.

As Canadians we have had trouble defining ourselves as a nation. We believe that even though we watch or copy all of their television, lead our newscasts and front pages with their news, dress a lot like them and want to have the same stuff as they have, we are not like them.

We have aspired to,  and in many ways,  we have achieved greater things than them in our own quiet way. We have universal health care (and please let’s keep it). We have welcomed more immigration and more refugees, per capita, than any other country. As a nation, we support gay marriage. For these reasons and many more, we are a rich, diverse and exciting nation. We just don’t know how to articulate it anymore.

And as of this week, we are behind the curve.

Globally, people are noticing.  With our government’s sole foreign policy focus being Afghanistan, we are losing the humanitarian and peacebuilding moralsuasion we once had.  For example,  Canada currently contributes a total of 160 police and military officers to Peacekeeping operations. We rank 54th in the world. (Pakistan ranks number 1, with more than 10,500).  Lester B. Pearson’s stamp on the world stage is becoming a 20th century historical footnote.

On 4 November, we saw, no,  we felt, the way a transformational leader like Barack Obama can change the world. When he won, there was a global collective sigh, followed by a deafening woop. It was like each of us had suddenly been set free. And while the same difficult problems remained, people felt they were waking up to a better world on Wednesday morning.

How did Canadians feel on 15 October?

In fact, who was the last Canadian leader who made us feel truly uplifted? Who has made us want to roll up our sleeves, with the overwhelming desire to get out and DO something. Who has brought tears to our eyes?  ( Watch any Tommy Douglas speech to see what I mean.)

Liberals, Canadians, please take a page from the US on this one. Find a leader who will get us excited. Find a leader who makes us feel that the power to change our country is truly in our hands. Find someone who will pack a gym, or a convention centre, or a stadium, with people pressing forward to catch every single word, no matter their traditional political affiliation. Find someone who can can define our great country in a way that resonates with Canadians and in a way that makes other countries look to ours with admiration and respect.

Please, find someone new.

CNN Projects…

Well CNN so far has used its weird hologram only once. And it had a little trouble hearing their reporter in Chicago, surrounded by 1000s of cheering Obama fans. Obama is looking extemely strong- even amongst voters who have very small dogs, and very large hairdos.

With about 0.001% of votes in, CNN is projecting Obama in many many places. Enough places, so far, to make me think “yes america did.”

Here are some photos from  New York election action today. 

Tomorrow, I predict the world will be a much more optimistic place.

Election morning

I love the city we’re living in. I loved it last night, when I went for a run on the Hudson river and had the  Empire State Building, bejeweled in lights of red, white and blue, in my sights. This beautiful 102-story tower, built in just 410 days in 1930,  is a true symbol of what made this the original great country. And when I turned to run the other way there was Lady Liberty – an overused icon to be sure, but when you see her for real, arm outstretched and alone in the harbour beside Ellis Island, she delivers.  She makes me teary.

But today, I’d rather be in Cleveland, Ohio. I want to feel the electric tug of this historic election. I want to visit polling stations and see people who know they are casting a ballot that could change the direction of our world.

Today, New Yorkers are too liberal and too cool to make this day feel as important as it is. This clear autumn morning they are ambling with their dogs like they do every day. They are buying coffees and catching the bus.  They will definitely go to the polling stations and they will vote the right way.

Here there are no campaign posters. There are none of those awful attack ads. Everyone is talking and writing about the liberal pundits – Rachel Maddow, Keith Olberman, Campbell Brown – I don’t even know who the Fox news guys are.

So as this day goes on, I’ll watch the polls everywhere else, on tv and on the internet.

But because this is New York where people know how to celebrate, tonight is going to be just great.

The world outside your window

Barack Obama and John McCain have duked it out publicly on foreign policy twice. During both debates, McCain and Obama  talked about the same foreign policy issues: Iraq, Iran, Israel, Russia, Georgia, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Sudan,  with a couple of sentences on  China, North Korea and Cuba thrown in for good measure.  They predictably hold different views. Obama, broadly speaking, embraces diplomatic engagement and fundamentally believes that every human should enjoy dignity.   McCain, broadly speaking, embraces punishment, and doesn’t trust foreigners. 

But on foreign policy,  both candidates, during both debates, spent a lot of time speaking about military solutions, and not enough about the other ways the world’s (still) most powerful nation can work to influence the globe for good.   

What do the candidates think of the United Nations, for example? It’s an imperfect institution and is often (rightfully) criticised for its incredible impenetrable bureaucracy, its neverending meetings, its committees and sub-committees, and sub-sub committees… It also fails to achieve consensus at critical moments in history. That’s politics.  But the UN and its specialised agencies also work, effectively, to find and stop infectious diseases before they spread, to fight polio and measles, to advocate for the rights of refugees and to educate children.  

Last night, one questioner came close to squeezing out the candidates’ views about the UN  when he asked whether the US would wait for UN Security Council approval to defend Israel, if Iran attacked it.  John McCain did not hesitate: “..we would obviously not wait for the United Nations Security Council.”   But that’s all he said about the UN. McCain went on to talk about a “league of democracies” that would try to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.  Was that supposed to be a capital L and capital D? 

Barack Obama was not  so quick to the knockout punch, but said it was important that the US does “not give veto power to the United Nations or anyone else” when American interests were at stake.  He went on to talk in much more detail about conducting effective diplomacy with Iran to ensure it was never in a position to attack Israel.

And what about international development assistance? Just two years ago was the “year of Africa.” The G8, under Tony Blair’s leadership, made African development the central issue for the G8. No one asks the US Presidential candidates about this. At a time when US national security is a top issue for Americans and people on main street are suffering due to Wall Street’s follies,  most Americans aren’t asking about the ways their country can help others.  

The candidates certainly don’t bring it up as a priority area.  But scratch deeper and it is clear that Obama has given issues of international development and of the United Nations a lot of thought.

His website includes detail on all of the issues he cares about. This includes a lengthy and substantive explanation on foreign policy including the need to alleviate poverty in Africa, and a link to his strategy to Promote Global Development and Diplomacy. This includes more detail, with a pledge to double international development assistance, support debt cancellation for the most heavily indebted countries,  to increasing funding to the Global Fund to fight HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria, and to ensure  that “best practices – not ideology” drive US funding of HIV/AIDS programming.  That means, for example, that women and men who need access to condoms can get condoms – not a Christian sermon about abstinence being the best option.

As for the UN, Obama talks about the need to strengthen the capacity of the UN “..to prevent and respond to deadly violence.” That is a start. Obama also wants to see the US provide “the political leadership required so that UN missions are backed by workable political strategies” and that the US “pays it peacekeeping assessments on time.” He also calls for more UN reform – so with Obama, the UN is by no means out of the woods.

But at least Obama has THOUGHT about the UN and his written these thoughts down and made them easy to find on his website.

Look at John McCain’s website. He doesn’t even have an “issue” called foreign policy. There are many many domestic issues including his call to have Roe v. Wade overturned, and for law-abidin’ Americans to carry guns. But the only foreign policy area he touches is “Iraq,” where he says the troops will stay as long as the Iraqis need them.

Even dyed-in-the-wool Republicans care about the welfare of Africans, and they might not like the UN, but they’ll have a view on it.  John McCain doesn’t even think it’s worth publishing a few lines about them on his website.

At the next debate, I’d like to see the two candidates asked specifically about these issues. Let’s hear how they really feel. This would be more informative than another rehash of the “bomb bomb bomb Iran” song, or the tired “naive and dangerous” line. And it might show the people of the world which Presidential candidate has thought about them in human, and not just military terms.