Ottawa

The vision thing

Dan Gardner on the federal budget.

.. the real killer is, as George H. W. Bush said, the vision thing. There isn’t one. The government has no vision.

Neither do the opposition parties. And don’t look to corporations, labour, the non-profit sector, or any other component of Canadian public life. They’re as myopic as the political leadership…

That is the sort of incoherence you can expect when narrow policy choices are not guided by a broad vision.

And no, contrary to what some commentators seem to think, the fault for this lack of vision is not Stephen Harper’s alone.

Canada is brimming with little ideas, but lacking in anything grand and ambitious. There are plenty of vague sentiments, but no clear goals. There’s lots of talk about next month and next year but little about the next decade or three.

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