Politics should work like hockey
Benns' Belief
If you live in this country and have a working Canada Card, you know a wee bit about hockey, if not a lot.
One of the great things about the National Hockey League is the excitement of trades. One minute your favourite hockey player might be playing for the Edmonton Oilers and then suddenly he’s a New York Ranger or a Winnipeg Jet. It keeps things interesting, avoids stagnation, and can even produce memorable teams under the right general manager.
Might I suggest that this is how politics should work, too? But instead of just involving Canada and the U.S. we can make it international – a Global Political League – in order to maximize talents. (I can already hear the libertarians sharpening their pencils and firing up their laptops, ready to expose my hidden globalist agenda. I’m going to ask you to relax.)
I think we could choose a rotating panel of 12 Canadians, through secret ballot, who would make these decisions on our behalf. They would be made up of people who could, you know, read and write and stuff. And maybe they would know the difference between fake things and truthful things – and realize that repeatedly saying a fake thing doesn’t ever make it a real thing.
Just picture how this might work. Hey Germany, Iceland, and Mexico, we’ll give you Justin Trudeau and Doug Ford, along with two first year poli sci students, for your leaders, Olaf Scholz, Kristrun Frostadottir, and Claudia Sheinbaum.
As Canada’s new PM, Germany’s Scholz could oversee a much-needed industrial policy in this country, using that nation as a model. Let’s start making things again, helped by something I like to call a strategy.
And Frostadottir, of Iceland, could lead Ontario. I know she wouldn’t build Highway 413 or take away bike lanes. I bet she’d protect important farmland and build infrastructure for electric cars.
Mexico’s Sheinbaum is an environmental scientist. She could lead Alberta and we’ll give Danielle Smith to them for free. Sheinbaum would at least try other forms of energy out in Big Sky Country, like solar and geothermal, instead of expanding the oilsands.
That’s good for Canada, but what are those countries getting in return? Over in Germany, new Chancellor Trudeau could apologize for something, while simultaneously expanding the German civil service by 43 per cent. Those are his superpowers. And in Iceland, Prime Minister Doug Ford could promise to deal with the traffic in Reykjavik by building subways under the lava flows.
The Global Political League isn’t likely to happen. I mean, the U.S. would not even be able to do a trade, considering no one in the world would want Trump, other than most Americans. (Okay, maybe Putin would make him mayor of Vladisvostok or something. Time to pump out those MVGA hats!)
We can always fantasize about the dream team we’d create in our minds, no different than wondering what the secret balance is for a cup-winning Leaf team. But some things are just too hard to figure out.
