Our ongoing national dialogue about state of Canadian politics is touching on some very necessary topics, like the ones covered in this article.  I’ve seen this article shared on Facebook and Twitter several times, and I’m glad that it’s being talked about. There’s one clarification I’d like to make to everyone who uses the word ‘partisan’ as a label for the people responsible for our current political morass: ‘partisan’ isn’t a dirty word.

Maybe it’s just the language geek in me, but I can’t accept an automatic negative connotation to ‘partisan’. It simply means “a supporter of a person, party, group, or cause”.  You could easily substitute the word ‘fan’ for ‘partisan’ and it would work just as well.  And just like a room full of Leaf fans, there will be a wide range of personalities within any partisan crowd. Some will be blindly partisan, committed to the cause no matter what the team does or how badly it abuses the rules of the game. But there will be a large number of thoughtful, respectful fans there too. Those fans will cheer when the team plays hard and clean, but they’ll make their disappointment known when the team starts to play dirty.

And that cuts to the heart of the problem we’re facing in the current political climate: not enough respect for the rules of the game.  Good sportsmanship demands that you care about how you win, not just winning itself. A victory made possible by exploiting the rules isn’t much of a victory at all, and it certainly doesn’t reflect the dignity and seriousness that government requires. It’s the job of the partisan to police their own team, and make sure that the leaders they support are acting in a way that they can be proud of. We don’t need leaders who are “shamelessly political”, we need leaders who avoid doing shameful things.

To tweet or not to tweet, that is the question for city council. Recently, the few twitter-friendly Councillors have sent out messages of disapproval while in council meetings, and one or two of the messages have been less than polite. The target of those rude tweets complain that the short messages are insulting, and they distract from council business. The argument over tweeting came to a boil yesterday when there was a rumour that the mayor wanted to ban tweeting by Councillors during meetings. The rumour has been mostly disarmed, turned from a ban to a request for civility and appropriate language, but there are a couple of valid questions that still need to be looked at.

First, and most important, is Twitter (and any other social media) a valid method of communication between our elected officials and the citizens they represent? I’d argue that these new forms of communication are logical extensions of an elected officials obligation to make their decisions and opinions accountable to the people. They supplement the traditional letter-writing or phone-calling that any constituent can do to reach out and ask “why did you vote that way?”. Instead of waiting for days to find out the rationale behind a decision, you can get a brief explanation as the situation unfolds. If our goal is to involve people as actively as possible in the governance of their city (and I really hope it is our communal goal) then having real-time insight into the decisions being made on our behalf moves us in the right direction. I’m not advocating for each and every Councillor to keep an eye on Twitter and respond to every question thrown at them, but they should be encouraged to keep the lines of communication open.

And of course, what kind of rules should apply to Councillor tweets? That’s a simple matter of etiquette. Any message sent while you do city business is done as an elected official, and has to hold to a level of decorum and politeness. Insulting or crude language should be off-limits for any official communication, and that extends to social media. If your Facebook account has the word “Councillor” in front of your name, then anything you post could be construed as coming from a Councillor’s office, so post appropriately.

The other part of decorum is making sure that you pay attention to the speaker and the proceedings.each Councillor needs to make sure that their tweeting isn’t a distraction from your duties. Then again, it sometimes looks like a couple of Councillors are trying to squeeze in a power nap during meeting time, so the bar for attentiveness is relatively low.

I can’t make it to City Hall to watch the marathon meetings with any regularity, but I am able to follow along by checking in on twitter. The dedicated observers in the gallery, along with the members of the press, do a great job tweeting their take on what they’re seeing, but the Councillor tweets make my virtual experience an engaging one.

On an unrelated note: I’ve received a lot of positive responses about the blog in the last week or so, including a generous donation from one reader. I’m grateful and humbled to have engaged and enthusiastic readers, and I hope that I can keep the conversation interesting and relevant to all of you. Thank you so much for reading, and to my benefactor, thank you for your kind generosity.

I’m a bit of a hipster-I usually get into bands “before they’re cool” and I grow tired of them by the time they hit a mainstream audience. I have one grievous sin against any hipster credibility though:

I like the Tragically Hip.

You see, to the fans of complex or obscure music, the Hip are a band associated with drunken loutish fans, hooting and shouting as they chase the bespectacled kids out of the room, and liking the Hip is an instant indicator of diminished intellectual capacity. To those people, that actual music and lyrics of the band are irrelevant: they hate them for their fans. So when the geeks and cool kids roll their eyes at Hip fans, they inadvertently catch me in their condemnation. One particular hipster/goth friend of mine in high school once pointed at me and said with sadness in her voice  “oh he doesn’t know who the Propellerheads are: he’s a Tragically Hip fan”. I think she even petted my big dumb head to comfort me.

It’s the cost of being included in any large membership group: you end up being judged by the lowest, most visible element, instead of those who actually represent your group. Today, the Canadian press and Twitter are ablaze with discussion on the revelation of the vikileaks source, and many are painting this as a slight to the reputation of every Liberal party member. But this staffer with bad judgement and a grudge did not, and does not speak for me as a Liberal. However, in his well-delivered and sincere apology, Bob Rae does speak for me as a member. Any organization of people will have within its members the wise and the foolish, the ethical and the sleazy, and sometimes even the good ones make bad choices. Good leaders recognize the misstep, correct it, and apologize for it happening. Bad leaders pretend that any wrongdoing is a mystery to them and they have no responsibility for their party member’s actions (though they are quick to take credit for every success).

But that’s the nature of the beast: when you’re a part of the club, you get painted with the club’s colours. And you get lumped in with anyone who has ever been in the same colours. I’m suffering through that right now. Several of the city Councillors responsible for the badly planned budget and tax freeze have their “Liberal affiliations” mentioned in any negative article, and so the anti-Liberal sentiment gets pumped up again. I only speak for myself as a member of the Liberal Party, not as a representative of any level of the organization itself, but as a Liberal I want you to know that those Councillors do not represent my Liberal values:

• A budget that draws from allocated reserve funds and creates the potential for incurring more city debt is not sensible.
• A budget that cuts $1 million to affordable housing, throwing away an established long-term housing strategy for a plan scrawled onto the back of cocktail napkin 2 hours before a council meeting, is not responsible.
• And a budget that cuts $500 000 from the funding to improve accessibility for Ontarians with disabilities is not compassionate.

So, no matter what their history or membership card may state, please believe me when I say that these Councillors are not my kind of Liberal.