Over the weekend, my fifteen-year old son was talking to me about what’s going on at school.
“Pop, the word “integrity” is thrown around the class a lot, but people don’t seem to know what it really means”, he said. I asked him what he thought it meant and I was gearing myself up to give a fatherly sermon on the meaning and importance of integrity. Before I could, and without missing a beat, Michael replied: “It means being honest, trustworthy, and doing what you say you’re going to do.”
If nothing else, I am an immensely proud father. With a few carefully chosen but deeply felt words that can only come from sincere conviction, my son summed-up what makes the world go round. Trust really is the fundamental basis for human progress. It is indispensable to any relationship, be it between individuals, organizations, or governments.
My business lawyer once said to me that the best contract lawyer on the planet will not protect you from someone you cannot trust. Without trust, bad things happen and progress grinds to a halt. The wheels of commerce turn only because there is an implicit trust bond between parties that enter into millions of transactions on a daily basis. When that bond is broken, calamitous things can happen. We saw that in the run-up to the 2008 global financial meltdown.
The creation of financial instruments such as credit default swaps, collateralized debt obligations, and securitized debt instruments made billions for global financial institutions and ‘sophisticated’ investors. The institutions that put their names behind them were trusted by millions of people. Driven by greed and self-interest, people in these institutions preyed on millions of trusting people. They were like fish in a barrel.
The vast majority of them could never have conceivably known that they were being ambushed. The exploitation was systemic and ruthless. It was accomplished under the so-called watchful eye of governments – the very institutions that are supposed to protect society from predators – and the good offices of globally “respected” brands. We now know that the people behind these financial derivatives knew full well that what they were peddling to unsuspecting consumers was crap. They were selling the dream of home ownership and of financial security that they knew was an illusion.
The vital glue that holds us together is trust. That goes for families, friends, business, and government.
Perhaps I’ve been lucky, but in my 25 years in the business world, I have come across very few people that I didn’t trust. When I did, it was painful. Similarly, I have known many politicians personally and was one myself. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, as individuals they are generally good and decent people.
That is why I struggle to understand the culture that envelops virtually all politicians as a group. Something happens to them when these otherwise trustworthy and decent people put on their politicians’ hat. They are prone to half-truths, blarney, personal attacks, intolerance, and sheer stupidity. I have never understood why it is that once “normal” people become politicians they throw commonsense, reason, truth and intelligence out the door. And most of them cannot bring themselves to be straight with citizens on substantive matters.
It is almost a right of passage. Every Conservative minister and backbencher seeks to emulate the likes of John Baird and Peter Van Loan, the poster boys for inflated rhetoric, and obfuscation. They compete to get on the House of Commons’ very own RidiculList.
What kind of person runs for and wins election to office, only to avoid dealing honestly with the issues we face? What kind of person reneges on their solemn pledge to the citizens that got them elected? Why is there such a large gap between the promises politicians make and what they actually do when they assume power? And why do we as citizens resign ourselves to that as the “reality” of the political system?
In her book, Moral Clarity, Susan Neiman, Director of the Einstein Forum wrote that morality is concerned with goodness, politics with power; and if war is the continuation of politics by other means, it’s because both are fundamentally a matter of the most intense and extreme antagonism. In the arena of partisan politics, she and the Prussian military thinker Carl von Clausewitz are surely right. But what are the implications for our society, our democratic institutions, and the trust that we must have in both?
In Ottawa, we have a government that was first elected on the platform of honesty, openness and accountability. Six years later, they still manage to repeat that mantra in a robotic fashion and somehow manage to do so with a straight face. The Harper Conservatives were not the first to win election on a platform that was fundamentally at variance with how they governed.
In British Columbia, Gordon Campbell was forced to resign because he was re-elected with a majority and had never uttered a word about his intentions to reform the tax system. Not a single peep. Less then three months later his government announced the Harmonized Sales Tax. No consultation. No preparation. No White Paper. No nothing. What citizens objected to was not necessarily the HST (which I happen to think is sound policy), but to what was, by omission, a flagrant lie.
Stephen Harper’s record in a variety of policy areas is no better, of course. And now, presto, he tells us from Switzerland that pensions are “unsustainable”. Months after he was elected to his first majority government – he is talking about income security of seniors now and into the future. He is doing this without ever having uttered a word about it before or during the election campaign.
Our trust bond with politicians was broken long ago, and we have resigned ourselves to that “reality” as a truism of our public life. That is a sad commentary that only we – as citizens – can fix. And I say we must.
The broader question is how does the breakdown of trust in our leaders influence the decisions they make in our name? How does it affect public discourse and engagement? What impact does it have on our kids that watch us and look to us for example and guidance? And most importantly, what do I say to my son about why he should trust those we elect to be trustworthy and do what they say they are going to?
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“Pop, the word “integrity” is thrown around the class a lot, but people don’t seem to know what it really means”, he said. I asked him what he thought it meant and I was gearing myself up to give a fatherly sermon on the meaning and importance of integrity. Before I could, and without missing a beat, Michael replied: “It means being honest, trustworthy, and doing what you say you’re going to do.”
If nothing else, I am an immensely proud father. With a few carefully chosen but deeply felt words that can only come from sincere conviction, my son summed-up what makes the world go round. Trust really is the fundamental basis for human progress. It is indispensable to any relationship, be it between individuals, organizations, or governments.
My business lawyer once said to me that the best contract lawyer on the planet will not protect you from someone you cannot trust. Without trust, bad things happen and progress grinds to a halt. The wheels of commerce turn only because there is an implicit trust bond between parties that enter into millions of transactions on a daily basis. When that bond is broken, calamitous things can happen. We saw that in the run-up to the 2008 global financial meltdown.
The creation of financial instruments such as credit default swaps, collateralized debt obligations, and securitized debt instruments made billions for global financial institutions and ‘sophisticated’ investors. The institutions that put their names behind them were trusted by millions of people. Driven by greed and self-interest, people in these institutions preyed on millions of trusting people. They were like fish in a barrel.
The vast majority of them could never have conceivably known that they were being ambushed. The exploitation was systemic and ruthless. It was accomplished under the so-called watchful eye of governments – the very institutions that are supposed to protect society from predators – and the good offices of globally “respected” brands. We now know that the people behind these financial derivatives knew full well that what they were peddling to unsuspecting consumers was crap. They were selling the dream of home ownership and of financial security that they knew was an illusion.
The vital glue that holds us together is trust. That goes for families, friends, business, and government.
Perhaps I’ve been lucky, but in my 25 years in the business world, I have come across very few people that I didn’t trust. When I did, it was painful. Similarly, I have known many politicians personally and was one myself. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, as individuals they are generally good and decent people.
That is why I struggle to understand the culture that envelops virtually all politicians as a group. Something happens to them when these otherwise trustworthy and decent people put on their politicians’ hat. They are prone to half-truths, blarney, personal attacks, intolerance, and sheer stupidity. I have never understood why it is that once “normal” people become politicians they throw commonsense, reason, truth and intelligence out the door. And most of them cannot bring themselves to be straight with citizens on substantive matters.
It is almost a right of passage. Every Conservative minister and backbencher seeks to emulate the likes of John Baird and Peter Van Loan, the poster boys for inflated rhetoric, and obfuscation. They compete to get on the House of Commons’ very own RidiculList.
What kind of person runs for and wins election to office, only to avoid dealing honestly with the issues we face? What kind of person reneges on their solemn pledge to the citizens that got them elected? Why is there such a large gap between the promises politicians make and what they actually do when they assume power? And why do we as citizens resign ourselves to that as the “reality” of the political system?
In her book, Moral Clarity, Susan Neiman, Director of the Einstein Forum wrote that morality is concerned with goodness, politics with power; and if war is the continuation of politics by other means, it’s because both are fundamentally a matter of the most intense and extreme antagonism. In the arena of partisan politics, she and the Prussian military thinker Carl von Clausewitz are surely right. But what are the implications for our society, our democratic institutions, and the trust that we must have in both?
In Ottawa, we have a government that was first elected on the platform of honesty, openness and accountability. Six years later, they still manage to repeat that mantra in a robotic fashion and somehow manage to do so with a straight face. The Harper Conservatives were not the first to win election on a platform that was fundamentally at variance with how they governed.
In British Columbia, Gordon Campbell was forced to resign because he was re-elected with a majority and had never uttered a word about his intentions to reform the tax system. Not a single peep. Less then three months later his government announced the Harmonized Sales Tax. No consultation. No preparation. No White Paper. No nothing. What citizens objected to was not necessarily the HST (which I happen to think is sound policy), but to what was, by omission, a flagrant lie.
Stephen Harper’s record in a variety of policy areas is no better, of course. And now, presto, he tells us from Switzerland that pensions are “unsustainable”. Months after he was elected to his first majority government – he is talking about income security of seniors now and into the future. He is doing this without ever having uttered a word about it before or during the election campaign.
Our trust bond with politicians was broken long ago, and we have resigned ourselves to that “reality” as a truism of our public life. That is a sad commentary that only we – as citizens – can fix. And I say we must.
The broader question is how does the breakdown of trust in our leaders influence the decisions they make in our name? How does it affect public discourse and engagement? What impact does it have on our kids that watch us and look to us for example and guidance? And most importantly, what do I say to my son about why he should trust those we elect to be trustworthy and do what they say they are going to?
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