By Rob Granatstein ,Toronto Sun - The federal election last Monday has turned my world upside down.
My value system is entirely off kilter.
How else can you comprehend what this country did?
I used to think if you worked extremely hard, were a community leader, maybe had a good education and were innovative, you could get ahead.
That pound of sweat, the risks, they all meant something.
Then I see who some of our new political “leaders” are.
Take Ruth Ellen Brosseau, an assistant pub manager at Carleton University, who doesn’t speak the language spoken by 98% of the people in her riding and spent part of the campaign in Vegas.
Thanks to phoning in her campaign, being unable to discuss anything with her constituents, and working in another province, “Vegas” — as she’s now known by her new, NDP caucus — won by a stunning 6,000 votes and will earn more than $700,000 over the next four-and-a-half years, in a job that’s guaranteed.
And if this media darling’s popularity — shocking as it may be — holds up, she’ll be pension-eligible by winning one more election.
Clearly, it’s the Canadian dream.
Sgro, Oda win?
But voters are never wrong: Judy Sgro survived the Liberal purge? Bev Oda wins in a cakewalk? (Yep, never wrong.)
Infuriating, maybe — and newsworthy based on the massive attention Brosseau and the young, new Quebec NDPers have received. But never wrong.
Based on Brosseau’s success, I’ve asked for a job guarantee, a substantial raise, and to be transferred to one of our French papers — even though I can’t speak, write or edit the language above a Grade 6 level.
If Brosseau deserves it, so do I.
This may seem like a joke to some, but remember what Brosseau and the NDP gang of shocked kids are walking into.
They are their community’s leaders. They will have a say in making and amending the laws of Canada.
They are our representatives to the world and they are the Official Opposition.
This esteemed bunch includes four McGill students.
Did these new MPs choose the NDP table over the World Vision one, or the safe sex display, at the university job fair?
Here’s good news from the new president of McGill’s student government: “They weren’t chosen at random,” Maggie Knight told the National Post.
OK. Were they just the ones not good enough to be elected to McGill’s parliament?
Check that. One will, in fact, have to step down from McGill’s student government next year to be an MP.
Here’s the other good news.
The Stornoway Sorority is going to be rocking! Guaranteed entry for all pledges.
I have no problem with young Members of Parliament.
If anything needed a shakeup, it was the House of Commons.
While it’s called the Commons, it typically attracts doctors, lawyers, religious leaders, champions of industry — and the NDP does have some new MPs of that pedigree, to help determine the direction of our country.
We look to our best and brightest to direct us forward.
To the community leaders, who excelled in the neighbourhoods, like my friend, Mary Margaret McMahon, the new city councillor in the Beach. She built up her street cred working hard on local issues and campaigned for months.
But many of the NDP’s new MPs don’t live in their ridings.
In fact, they’d need a road map to find the local post office.
All this begs the question — have we devalued the office of politician so greatly that any disinterested, sacrificial lamb can now ride a wave of party popularity and end up winning an election — by thousands of votes, no less — and we barely blink an eye?
Some might argue that’s a great system. That anyone can be an MP or even prime minister.
But I don’t want just anyone in that job. It shouldn’t be “good enough” for Canada.
The NDP may have a very good youth program, but we, as voters, need to do better.
Even when electing opposition MPs.