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Sunday, November 10, 2024
Ross’s Ramblings: Political advisers make me nervous
Ross Robinson wonders why Premier Doug Ford would support the idea of a tunnel under Highway 401: "The costs, the traffic mayhem, the absolute guarantee of multi-billion dollar cost overruns." MIDJOURNEY

Here in our wonderful country, how many more wild and ridiculous ideas will politicians announce before we citizens scream, “Enough!”

Or, let’s all scream together, “Too much! You’re fired!”

Not to sound jaded or cynical, but it is not the politicians that worry me. Can we agree they are just the mouthpieces?

The reality is they take advice and wise counsel from their trusted advisers, theoretically the best and the brightest minds in Canada. These highly educated and well-traveled and well-paid sharpies sit around the tables of power and develop strategies that will allow our political leaders to make prime time announcements sure to attract votes.

They have paid professional pollsters and have been part of focus groups and caucus meetings, all to determine what policies will tickle the fancies of voters across our great land. After all, it’s not a matter of doing good or helping the people.

The first thought most politicians have the morning after being elected is, “What can I do now to win the next election?”

The grand daddy of all bizarre ideas has to be Premier Ford’s big tunnel, stretching under the ever-widening Highway 401 from Mississauga past Scarborough. I started to read this story in the Toronto papers, but even my open mind couldn’t get past the third paragraph. It is almost impossible to believe that this concept was verbalized by our democratically elected provincial premier.

What worries me is not that Premier Ford threw this cockamamie idea out to the press and the people. I find it frightening that his most trusted and wise advisers would come up with such garbage. The costs, the traffic mayhem, the absolute guarantee of multi-billion dollar cost overruns.

Has the pride of Ford Nation in Etobicoke lost his marbles?

It wasn’t too long ago that Toronto establishment sharpie John Tory was nearing the end of an election campaign against the political whiz kid from up the Niagara River in Fort Erie. This was a campaign that establishment darling Tory simply could not lose.

I sat having ginger tea at the venerable Stagecoach on Queen Street, when I read the headline in the Toronto Star: “Tory announces full funding for all religious schools in Ontario.”

Nobody was listening to me, but I incredulously blurted out, “He has just found a way to lose this election.”

What were his clever and shrewd buddies in Toronto thinking? He was just acting as the mouthpiece. The best and brightest Tories in Ontario had thought this strategy through — and this Toronto establishment darling had just cut his own throat. He lost. Big.

Now don’t think we have a corner on bad political advice scene up here in Canada.

It was only back in 2008 at the Republican National Convention that Sarah Palin was announced as the candidate for vice-president by then presumptive presidential candidate John McCain. Up here in Canada, in lovely Niagara-on-the-Lake, I was aghast and unable to speak.

My telephone rang a moment later and the call display indicated my fraternity brother Bob Potter was calling from State College, Pennsylvania. His unequivocal words were, “That’s it. He’s lost it.”

Potter was right. The best and the brightest Republican Party advisers and strategists in the United States were wrong.

Once again, I was flummoxed. How can such smart and dedicated and shrewd political operatives blow it so badly? Are they too close to people reinforcing their faulty thinking?

How can they be so wrong and divorced from reality?

My rambling conclusion, as I hurry to meet my weekly deadline, is that our political best and brightest are really not that bright. Are they the best we have in Niagara, Ontario and Canada.

I worry for my children and grandchildren.

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