Action 224 Oh Canada!

Background. Mark Carney, the Canadian Prime Minister, has shown what true national leadership is. He is relaunching Canada on the world stage, independent of a domineering US, building new trade relations across the Pacific and Atlantic, strengthening defense alliances with Europe and Australia, articulating a vision of shared prosperity for all Canadians rooted in the country's shared history and acting boldly to advance that vision to reality, including establishment of a national wealth fund. Most importantly, he is bringing the Canadian people along with him through regular public addresses that relate specific government initiatives to a cohesive vision of the county's future in which all Canadians play a part, and in which all stand to benefit. Tellingly, while rationalizing Canada's heretofore liberal immigration policies around its economic priorities, the country is encouraging support from Canadian descendants living abroad through liberalized access to dual citizenship by descent, causing many U.S. citizens to take a second look north. 

It would be impossible to find a person in the Trump administration with the education, experience and just plain competence of Carney.  His credentials include: Economics PhD (Oxford), 13 years at Goldman Sachs including as director of investment banking, 6 years as Governor of the Bank of Canada during the international financial crisis, 7 years Governor of Bank of England during Brexit and Covid, various business and government leadership roles (Brookfield and Bloomburg), Prime Minister of Canada...

So what can we do to be more like Canada?  For starters, identify better leaders.

Action.  We can attend the upcoming presentations of our candidates for office, both before the primary, and after.  We can ask some broad, open ended questions in public, that will require thoughtful and original responses, such as:

(1). What is your vision for the future of the U.S.?  What are the big, transformative ideas that you will advocate to make that vision a reality?  So far, nothing of this sort has been clearly articulated by the political establishment, with the possible exception of Medicare for all.

(2).  What process do you envision for building such a vision and growing the public consensus toward achieving it?  What will be your leadership approach?

Expect that the first time they are asked such questions, most candidates will fumble, reverting to talking points with little substance.  But if they start to think we care about the future and not just about the issues of the day, they might develop some useful concepts.  At least, we will be able to judge whether they have thought deeply about anything but raising campaign funds!

Extra Credit.

(1) Carney's address to The World Economic Forum at Davos:

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=flsgJe8mN-

(2) Access to all of Carney's public addresses as Prime Minister: //www.pm.gc.ca/en/news/speeches?page=1

(3) Carney's profile on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Carney for further details.