The days following the announcement of Stephane Dion’s Green Shift proposal have been highly illustrative of much of what is wrong in the present political system.  I don’t need to go into the Prime Minister’s demeaning “It will screw everybody” -  the level of rhetoric speaks for itself.

I’m more intrigued by the pundrity coming out of national media.  That there would be numerous opinions was to be predicted.  I am more surprised at the sheer lack of understanding of the Green Shift plan.  I spoke to one national columnist today who scolded me for supporting a plan that would ultimately hurt (his tone could have more fit the PM’s “screwed” language) the less-fortunate in society.  He said this to me because he perceived (correctly) that because I’m still director of my local food bank, poverty should matter to me.  But then he assumed (incorrectly) that I should take issue with Dion’s new initiative as a result.  Once I took him through the details of the plan that pertained to the alleviation of poverty he simply stated he didn’t understand that before.

And that’s the problem with it all.  Rather than spending time searching it out and speaking with experts (I’m not one, by the way), so many have just decided the plan won’t work.  I still find it incredible, especially considering the sheer importance of the initiative.  Whether one agrees with the plan or not, it is a serious policy effort and deserves to be treated with a corresponding seriousness.

Where is everyone about the present government’s environmental plan?  Last night I had the privilege of speaking in tribute at a reception for Gordon MacBean, a climate specialist in London, Ontario and one of the members of the ICCP - the International Climate Change Panel - that recently won the Nobel Peace Prize.  In his closing speech, MacBean apologized for arriving late to the reception.  He had just finished putting the touches on an open letter to the Prime Minister from 100 of the top Canadian scientists, claiming that the scientific debate on global warming is over and the time has come for the Prime Minister to act.  

So there we have it: Canada’s top scientists taking on the role that parliamentarians and the media should be occupying.  It is a given in Ottawa that the government’s present plan is remarkably weak, but what do we spend our time complaining about? Stephane Dion and a serious plan to address poverty and climate change together.

I am relieved this moment has finally arrived.  I will be premising my whole election campaign on the single assumption that Canadians are uneasy at the present drift in our national life.  They are collectively disturbed at the slow but inevitable decline in our national vitality and international prestige.  It is clear to me, as I think it is to many Canadians, that our great trouble at the moment is that we talk far too often in slogans and we fight old, foolish partisan battles that cheapen modern citizenry.

It’s time for a new future … and I’m ready for it.  It will be a future in which science will clearly be linked to social justice.  On the horizon is the greatest threat ever confronted by humanity (a conclusion in which those 100 scientists clearly concur).

The most significant difficulty in Canadian politics today is that we’re slipping - in our intellectual and moral strength.  Those days in which we can sincerely debate credible ideas has withered.  We have lost our way, our will, and our sense of Canada’s destiny in the world. Everything is punditry, consumerism and grade school political rhetoric that permits our most privileged leaders to use words like “crazy” and “screwed.”

Well, Dion has given us a chance to bring it back - to introduce meaning back into citizen engagement. And every citizen will be engaged by having to pay a price for carbon.  Rather than observing, like it or not, they will now be the key agents for battling climate change.  Doesn’t sound “crazy” to me.  Whatever the merits or faults of Dion’s plan, it is a plan and it is serious.  It’s the moment I’ve been waiting for … and my biggest assumption is that I believe I’m not alone.

It’s gotten pretty dumb in the House lately.  Just when we thought things couldn’t get much worse, government members in the House have taken to making the kind of outlandish comments that cast a pall on all of Parliament.

Stephane Dion’s carbon shift plan gets released tomorrow but that hasn’t stopped Conservative members from going “over the top” in their attacks, not only in the media (through purchased ads) but in the parliamentary chamber itself.  I have attempted to stay as non-partisan as possible in these pages, yet what I have witnessed in the last couple of weeks has been empty politics on a grand scale.

One called the carbon plan a “yuppy fad,” while another said we would all be resorting to candles in the near future.  Watching people in the visitors gallery today showed me quickly that they were disgusted as well.  I’d hate to think what those watching on television were thinking … and yet the attacks continue.

Remember when blue boxes came out?  Those too were labelled yuppy fads and yet today almost everyone recycles that way, including my Conservative friends across the way.  Hybrid cars, dedicated bike paths, composting, new generation light bulbs - all of these were labelled the same way but have today become staples of responsible citizenship.

People from all parties in the House shake their heads at such banter and yet it is happening at such a vitriolic level because one party in the Commons is afraid that Stephane Dion might actually be on to something.  For weeks they have pounded home the fact that, with the economy in difficult times, introducing a carbon shift would be irresponsible.  But south of the border, both Obama and McCain have promised such stringent measures - and we all know the shape the American economy is in.  Down there it’s seen as leadership, but up here the Conservatives think Canadians are senseless enough not to see Dion’s plan for what it is: a reasoned alternative to our consumptive way of doing things.  When the Liberal leader states it’s time to pay for what we burn, not what we earn, there is a high degree of common sense in that.

Many of the older generation will recall the vicious attacks endured by Franklin Delano Roosevelt when he introduced the rather stern measures of the New Deal during a time of depression and used government incentives to get people to subtly change their collective behavior.  He was told repeatedly it would lead to economic ruin but instead the U.S. people enjoyed the most prolonged period of economic expansion in their entire history.

Stephane Dion has introduced a measure that at last deals with the serious issue of climate change and has significant third party support, even from corporate leaders. Whether it works or not is hardly the issue.  In a time when it could be foolish to introduce a carbon plan, the Liberal leader has followed in the footsteps of Obama, McCain and Roosevelt and opted for a compelling kind of moral leadership over a lax political expediency.  From witnessing the people in the gallery today, I have become convinced that Canadians in general are smart enough to know that a serious offer has been put on the table and they are also intelligent enough to watch the schoolyard hyperbole from across the aisle and find it demeaning and politically futile.

“Fossilized thinking.”  That’s what we’re hearing from the other side these days.  The more fearful they are that Canadians are perhaps smart enough to take to the idea of preserving a future for their children, the louder they yell.  Yes, Stephane’s on to something.  There are no borders when it comes to pollution and neither are there boundaries on sound citizenship.  The very idea that environmental courage and visionary leadership south of the border is seen as something worthy of a true president will find its counterpart in Canada and the braying will eventually give way to a responsible future.  But at least citizens in this country have now been given a choice.

And for the guy who made the comment about reverting to candlelight in the House today?  Maybe he should ask his wife about the advantages of subtle illumination. Perhaps someday he’ll understand it.

Today was unique in all of Parliament in that the Government of Canada, after more than a century, finally offered an apology to this country’s Metis, Inuit and First Nations peoples for the residential schools injustices.  We all took our seats in the House, while the gallery was full of aboriginal witnesses and victims - solemnity was the order of the day.

The leaders of all four parties spoke, beginning with the Prime Minister, and all of them repeated the same quote that stayed with me when it was all over - “killing the Indian in the child.”  It was obviously a quote from somewhere but there was clear truth in it and we all felt it in that place.  Three general questions ran through me during that 90-minute period.

What have we done?  The history of how children were swept away from their traditional homes and planted in places of learning is now difficult to understand. Worse still was the historical injustices that occurred, involving physical, emotional and cultural abuse.  In one of the blackest periods in our history, the Canadian government and numerous church and educational institutions succeeded in leaving an abiding stain on the collective memory of Canada’s aboriginal people.  It will be a recovery that will take decades more.

What are we doing?  It felt odd in the House today to offer a formal apology when the present Canadian government refuses to sign on to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Aboriginal and Indigenous People - something that was brought up by both the Bloc and NDP leaders.  Historic land claims remain unsettled. Millions of dollars have been cut from programs dealing with culture and communications in aboriginal communities.  First Nations, Metis and Inuit women no longer have the funds to challenge unresponsive governments through the Court Challenges Program.  What are we doing exactly?  

What are we going to do?  This is a fundamental question because the word “sorry” will mean nothing if we don’t get this part right.  Aboriginal leaders today took all the parties at their word and accepted the corporate apology, yet they are seasoned enough to know that verbal commitments at times are excuses for inaction.  Today wasn’t just the end of a bitter piece of history in Canada, it also should be the commencement of an entire new order, a more equitable way of doing things, where Canada’s original peoples become our true and full equals.  No verbal apology is ever going to achieve that, only hard and dedicated work by all aspects of society - especially Parliament.  The task ahead will be enormous but we have now said we are sorry to the very people who will help us achieve it and their partnership in spirit and action will be fully necessary for such a great achievement.

For me today it was more about “killing the child in the Indian.”  Just looking at the aboriginal faces gathered there taught me that we took the joy and the bloom from generations of aboriginal people in Canada - we took the innocence, killed the child and poisoned the future.  God give us the courage and fortitude to make sure that this next generation of Metis, Inuit and First Nations people will live no such horror and that we will never be so blind and unjust again.

With two weeks to go in this present parliamentary session, the news cycle is fully taken up with stories on a possible immediate election, various scandals and views on Stephane Dion’s carbon shift.  My Blackberry received messages and calls all weekend, as if somethings were about to take place.

But today I put all that aside.  This afternoon my wife Jane received the Medal of Distinction from Huron College, recognizing her two decades of work in Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, Rwanda and of course the London Food Bank.  I sat down with our three children from Sudan this morning and explained to them just how special their Mom and her accomplishments really were.  I talked about her efforts feeding tens of thousands of people both here in Canada and overseas and of how she moved into conflict zones over the years and left an indelible impression in every region she touched.

Naturally enough I told them of how through her determined efforts she had freed thousands of people – mostly women and children – from slavery in Sudan.  They know all this, of course, but in many ways I was saying such things because I couldn’t help but talk about it – I was bursting with pride at her accomplishments.  And they know of their fortune.  Two mothers.  One from Africa who lost her life to save them from a miserable past and another mother from Canada who risked her life for their future.

After receiving the award this afternoon, Jane gave a moving speech, spiced with humor, about how average people could make such a marked difference in this often troubled world.  And she was fully right … we all sensed it.  One woman had opted to make a difference in the lives of others and there wasn’t a single person there who couldn’t feel the possibilities even for themselves.

This is just my attempt to make the record clear about my own political life.  In all that I have attempted there has been this intrinsic sense that I am participating in a partnership that transcends all I believed possible.  We politicians often fret over the fact that our families occupy a far larger place in our lives than people wish to acknowledge.  For many of us this month will be a time of graduation and convocation and we will stew over times lost with our children and spouses as we strive in Ottawa over the public good.  This is not only a time for those who graduate, but also for those in the political arena who have sacrificed precious moments in order to make government meaningful.  It often goes unrecognized yet it is true and full congratulations go to all those politicians in every political party who have felt the flush of family accomplishment in these weeks.  Respect is due them.

And to my wife I can only say that she knows full and well that politics will never displace her in my life.  But more than that, her accomplishments today only make me strive to be a better public servant and that I am more than blessed just to be called Jane Roy’s husband.  I can only hope not only to congratulate her in these words, but to emulate her in my actions and motives.

This past week was as wild as it was sad.  A foreign affairs minister, plagued by numerous gaffes over the past few months, ultimately committed the unforgiveable sin of leaving classified documents in an insecure location.  It was a major indiscretion and his tenure as Canada’s chief foreign representative is over.

I refused to take part in the ultimate bloodletting, in part because there was an element of the tragic in it and it’s difficult to watch such a leader descend in such rapid fashion.  My lack of participation did afford me the opportunity, however, of watching the drama unfold in real-time.  And it got me to thinking how mercurial things often are around this place.

It was a year ago that the media seemed to be enamored by the kind of celebrity culture emanating from the present government.  So and so was the “best dressed,” while another was the “most eligible” (the above-mentioned minister).  Starved for effective policy discussions, everyone seemed to take to the sheer banality of the place by occupying roles that could easily have fit into a Sex In The City episode.  This went on for months, and over a long and bleak winter season it provided something of a distraction. Other than the very serious debate on Afghanistan, it often appeared as a kind of sitcom about nothing really, like that other show, Seinfeld.

Those days landed with a sudden thud this week, as it became apparent once again that politics is after all a serious business and distraction can often lead to serious neglect or even a security risk – for politicians as well as the media.  The months of constantly heckling, of bullying and needless rancor, while somewhat entertaining at first, have assisted many of us in coming to the conclusion that the real serious work – the parallel parliament – suffered as a result of our neglect.

We’re now starting to hear about “serious” members being considering for cabinet, or “quiet and efficient” politicians as candidates for something higher.  David Emerson, the interim foreign affairs minister, is lauded as “sensible, no-nonsense, efficient” (there’s that word again) and “capable.”

Maybe the days of the fancy suits, low-cut dresses and staged photo-ops have reminded us that we failed to keep our eye on the ball.  Efficient is the new “sexy,” and maybe over the next few months it will lead us back to good governance.

So, it’s out in the open.  Stephane Dion recently announced his intention to put in place a new carbon reduction initiative.  The response has been predictable - mixed. The government has had a field day, claiming falsely that it will add 50 cents to a litre of gasoline and that it will hammer middle-class Canadians. The NDP has slammed the proposal as well, even though they claim to be the party of the environment.

I don’t want to get into the partisan stuff here.  Rather, I think all of us as Canadians need to apply our perspective.  Have recent polls not shown that the average citizen in this country wants action on climate change and a positive vision of how we get there?  Haven’t all political parties spoken in rhetorical flourishes of the need to battle global warming?

The reality is that this initiative is a test on two fronts.  Yes, it is about politics and political parties.  The ultimate solutions will require policy changes; that takes legislation and that requires the parties to take the lead. Until a couple of weeks ago, that wasn’t happening, but now that it has, we politicians are doing what we’ve repeatedly done in the last few years - taken anything that’s meaningful and speaks to the future of Canadians and cut it to shreds through partisan design.

But this is also about Canadians.  Just how well do they see their own future? We are told by numerous pundits that Canadians are light years ahead of where the politicians are.  Really?  If that is true and the polls show that they want bold action on climate change, then wouldn’t Dion’s new venture qualify as visionary leadership? “No,” these same pundits say, “because Canadians don’t want any sudden moves when gas prices are high and launching a carbon initiative in such a time is just a dumb idea.”

Better they would have said that the average Canadian is dumb.  And in that veiled assessment is the greatest irony - an unqualified belief that Canadians think only of their wallets.  I refuse to believe it.  This will be the first generation since World War Two where our children and grandchildren will be worse off economically than ourselves.  I believe Canadians think about that.  University costs will continue to soar. Parents thinks about that. In a couple of decades the polar ice cap will be gone and Greenland will lie mostly barren. Rising ocean levels will devastate coastal communities, and, according to the UN, there will be up to 400 million climate change refugees.  I can guarantee you grandparents don’t want their descendants facing that.

Let’s be honest. The political battles lines are finally drawn because of an initiative taken by Stephane Dion - the political side of the equation is now in place. Now it’s up to Canadians.  Soon they will get the chance to either create a sustainable future for their children and grandchildren or they will send the Liberal leader to the woodshed or perhaps even obscurity. At least one person has made the decision to lead and the political world is in spinning turmoil over it.  But at last it’s been put on the table and the days of political inaction are over. Now it’s up to Canadians. Europeans made that adjustment to carbon reduction during difficult times and they have adapted. Many American states and some Canadian provinces have made bold political moves on reducing carbon and they’re moving their citizens into sustainable futures. Numerous companies and corporations in this country are already “going green” and finding prosperity in the process.  Maybe it’s our time as a nation. We’re either world leaders or we’re not.

One thing is clear: a single leader stepped forward and called us to a plan that shows some dynamic environmental leadership. His move surprised many and delighted a few, myself included. It’s one thing to show this kind of vision when the public is craving it but another thing entirely when we don’t know how citizens will react. The only way to settle the debate is to have an election for the sake of our children.  My money is on every single parent and grandparent out there who understands exactly what I’m talking about.  Let’s get on with it.

How does one maintain his or her own inner identity in the turmoil and power playing that come part and parcel with life in Ottawa?  It’s a question that doesn’t normally come to mind but the recent attention of this issue raised by the recent Maclean’s article has prompted numerous responses from other members of parliament confessing to struggling with such realities.

Some expressed great love for their own spouses and families and yet felt the sharing of such sentiments seemed out of place in parliamentary circles.  A couple of others voiced the desire to actually speak out about the lack of decency in the present House activities but worried of the fallout from their own party leadership.

What’s good about this is that well-meaning politicians are now at least expressing a collective desire to not just bring decency back into parliament but to also bring themselves back as well.  They came into these hallowed walls over the years, brim full of ideals for public service, but have lost some of the initiative over time.  The very fact that they have voiced such things brings on the possibility that some kind of change could in fact take place.

I have had to explain that I am more than the simple sum of all the elements of my background.  Sure I’m a Liberal, and of course I am a man of a reserved religious faith.  My family is terrific and the social causes I’m involved in give meaning to who I am.  But the important qualities I bring to political life I have largely acquired and developed on my own.  I possessed those qualities, acquired after years of hard work and at times failure, when I first came into parliament.  They are in my possession and I refuse to sell them off if it means I can get noticed by my party or even by parliament as a whole.

I have traveled a lot and my familiarity with tragedy has produced in me both a desire to enjoy this world but to improve it at the same time.  At times these two realities come into conflict.  This is especially true in political life.  I want to be part of a team, even be noticed for the contribution I can make.  I would enjoy it.  Yet the struggles I have witnessed have taught me that my life doesn’t count for much if I can’t stay consistent to my own beliefs.

Whenever that moment comes where I know that by behaving in a certain way that might be uncivil or uncaring I could achieve a certain political end, I am forced, by the sheer suffering that others endure around the world, to opt for being who I really am - their lives are more important than role playing.  It’s a hard trade-off, yet in my struggling through it I have discovered other parliamentarians who have expressed similar inner conflicts.

This particular parliamentary session could reach for a higher level and perhaps find a certain modicum of success only when we permit that inner struggle within to find outward expression, even if it results in a certain political loss.  In the end it’s a test of our political legitimacy and authenticity, and the experience of the last week has taught me that there are many in this place who serve for all the best reasons.  However, it’s time for us to speak up.  In failing to do so, we not only fail ourselves but all those whose witnessed struggle taught us to be caring individuals in the first place.  It’s time we showed up.

We can’t help it and we all do it.  As politicians we all follow our own press in the hopes that those who voted for us know that we are, in fact, active in our public lives and following through on our commitments. Other than public meetings or individual correspondence with constituents, the best way to get the word out is through the media.  We’ve all had our share of it, and at times we might not like the outcome, but we know it’s a necessity in present times.

There are those moments, however, when an article or photo appears that digs below your public persona and takes a more intimate look.  That happened this week when Maclean’s magazine published a two-page spread on my struggles in Parliament.  I knew it was coming but wasn’t quite prepared for the intimacy of it. But the writer did a very credible job of not only explaining my difficulties but also my hopes as a politician.

Politics is something of a jungle where you are torn between doing the right thing and yet somehow staying in office and being relevant in your political party. More than that, you are torn between the local interest and the national interest, between the private good of the politician and the general good.  I believe the really good politicians have something else on their minds in Ottawa besides just thinking about the next election.  It takes a certain amount of personal courage though because our public self has to be faithful to our private self.  Political courage only works if you can keep your private self alive in a very public arena.

Those seeking the public limelight for the sake of re-election get the queasy feeling likened to a butterfly that is pinned under glass, with no sense of habitat, genealogy or connection to nature.  The tragedy of modern politics is that we suffer so much to give such disconnected and lukewarm meaning to public office.

Overall the media has been kind to me in my life as a public servant over the last 30 years, but when the stories dig personally - and they should - it can be a tad embarrassing.  At least that’s true in my case. And yet, in truth, I couldn’t have it any other way.  My political life and private life must meld together lest I lose my way in Ottawa.  Missing my wife is something I must express or else I soon learn not to mention her and eventually live in private despair.  Bragging about my seven children and one grandchild is important (though I’m sure boring at times to my colleagues), yet it must be done because I have partly found my way in life because of them. Publicly struggling over my political life permits an intimate look for my constituents of how, in my desire to serve them, sacrifices have been made that at times are painful. Permitting the media to witness my personal disappointment at partisanship gone awry gives the citizen hope that what they are seeing is the same thing I am and that their instincts on this are correct, thereby keeping Parliament more accountable.

And so I read through the Maclean’s piece with an abiding sense of embarrassment at being so vain as to quickly open the article to see what it said. Because it was so honest, I felt humbled and elevated in the same moment.  Why?  Because only by digging into my personal life; only by opening myself up to a journalist; only by risking the revelation of my flaws and strengths, did the story actually get me … and get me right. It spoke of my tears and my hopes, my frustrations and flushed sense of pride at others in parliament who have found success.  Yet above all it did me the great honor of revealing that I cannot separate my private and intimate life of family and inner struggle, because I might lose my way as a public servant and become that butterfly under a glass. I remain deeply grateful to the journalist for being honest about me. More stories like this about politicians would personalize political life and make us more human again.

A final note - The title of the article - “The Last Decent Man in Ottawa” - jumped off the page at me and brought the greatest discomfort.  The reason?  Because it’s not true.  I have been privileged enough to work with numerous MPs and ministers from all parties and I find them all to be faithfully “decent” and concerned with the doing the right thing. I write this as sincerely as I can because I work with these individuals every day and in many ways I am impressed.  The fact that I was more open than others about my inner struggles and very blessed personal life, doesn’t make me more decent - just more open, that’s all.

Listening to all the arguments in Parliament leaves one with the impression that we still live in a time of no limitations.  We continue to act as though there are plenty of resources to go around and I’m troubled that a true sense of urgency hasn’t yet gripped all parties.

We have consumed for so long that we feel invincible in a way.  As perhaps the greatest generation of consumers, we follow a kind of collective delusion that is quickly leading us into a place of few options. Like our friends south of the border, we have fooled ourselves into thinking that our economic prosperity has left us in a place of perpetual freedom.

For far too long we have felt we have a limitless supply of natural resources and we don’t know how to think any other way.  But if the Al Gore event in Montreal taught me anything, it was that those days are gone and in their place is coming a time when we all have to change our expectations.  I believe we know this in our minds as parliamentarians but we continue to reason as though we have limitless resources, limitless wealth, limitless fossil fuel supplies, and perhaps the most delusional of all, limitless growth.  Add to this list limitless progress and you can see that we have reached a strange era of disconnect - aware enough of the effects of climate change but not yet at that place where we are willing to legislate as though we are entering a time of limits.

It doesn’t matter how much new oil is found; our refining of it is choking the planet. And yet we proceed as though we’ll manage our way out of this mess somehow. Like others before us, we have held to a blind belief that technology will win the day and lead us into a new era of, dare I say it, “limitlessness.”  Yet creeping around the edges of our collective consciousness as parliamentarians is the silent acknowledgement that we can’t hope to cure the ills of industrialism by adding more technology.  Without admitting it to our constituents or to the media, we are slowly comprehending that the days of endless resources are over.

And yet because we can’t admit it publicly (to do so would be to acknowledge our own failure to act) we appear frozen in place, incapable of acting in a way that provides sensibly for our children and those that follow.  Having had so much to assist us - researchers, pollsters, scientists, public concern, and, yes, even Al Gore - we have failed to recognize that since the days of endless consumption are drawing to a close, we must begin to lead the Canadian public to a place of deeper responsibility and citizen commitment. Perhaps that moment will come, but it yet eludes our grasp.  More on this to follow.