FFWD Weekly
Copyright © 1999. All Rights Reserved

Viewpoint by Hamish MacAulay Canadians live in a wealthy country that is blessed with stability and peace. Unfortunately, it is hard to remember this if you spend too much time listening to the voices that compete for our attention in the media and in politics. Fears about careers or even just jobs, health, retirement, personal safety and our children’s education define public and private conversations across the country. The endless navel-gazing on almost every issue of public policy has created the image of a people living in fear of losing what we have. Canadians are now healthier, richer, safer and more educated than ever before. The United Nations has consistently ranked Canada as one of the best places to live. Despite this success, the fear never goes away. Fear, whether it is personal, the kind that exists within communities and societies or one that creates a mass movement, is a human constant. Canadians, pushed by endless media coverage and the frenzied marketing plans and public relations of interest groups, partisan think tanks and every other group with an issue to promote, have managed to move beyond basic human nature into a state of constant anxiety. There can be positives to fear. Canadians’ fears have been central to our efforts at improving society and our well-being. It is an excellent motivator and Canadians have made a lot of progress towards eliminating hunger, ignorance and violence. This success has not gone unnoticed by the ever-expanding number of organizations that believe they should have a role or a voice in how government develops programs and allocates the country’s resources. These alarmists come in every political and social stripe, and, coupled with the growth of news and media outlets, they are creating a web of incapacitating fear in the Canadian psyche. To be clear, it is all the groups and media that surround the political process like a thick veil that are at work here, not the politicians themselves. Leaders in Western democracies cannot afford to create fear. Fear does not get you re-elected, so governing parties must work to overcome this trend to create a sense of well-being and trust. Governing parties, both federal and provincial, have recently discovered the art of diminishing the voters’ expectations. Fear can only convince voters of a need to spend money on programs or defence, hardly the sort of thing Alberta Premier Ralph Klein or federal Finance Minister Paul Martin want to encourage these days, so governments have no use for it as a policy tool. Opposition parties have always used fear to create disaffection with the government. Other than a government meltdown, it is their only weapon. The strident and alarmist tone of party politics, however, has remained a constant in Canadian democracy, and cannot be blamed for the current growth in angst. With the politicians innocent for once, this national insecurity crisis can be attributed to the billions spent each year by the array of groups that want to catch the ears of politicians and influence the government. It is a dance that politicians are all too familiar with, and the professionals running these groups realize they must do more than just wine and dine the politicians. In this era of governance by polls, they must win the hearts and minds of the voters if they want to pressure the government into favoring their cause. Fear is the chosen weapon for these groups in their fight for the voter’s attention. Whether the issue is education, health, crime, immigration, gun control or any other you can imagine, someone out there is dreaming up arguments and statistics with the hope of scaring you into accepting their views on the issue. Left or right, liberal or conservative, the political leanings are irrelevant; it is the tone of this endless barrage of messages that is defining how Canadians view their world. The problem is that this world view is making Canada a static nation. Alerted to the dangers and criticism at every turn, Canadians are standing still. While change is not always good, we must overcome our fears if we want to develop as a country. The fearmongers are not going anywhere, so it is up us to tune them out and search for a course that, even if fraught with danger, holds true to what we cherish.

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