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Perhaps you’re finding me cynical here or at least discouraging. But I won’t apologize, because if what we’re currently doing isn’t going to look that great in retrospect, you need to know.

If the excuse for this sort of blather is that it persuades people, it still wouldn’t be good enough

In public policy in particular I often get the feeling participants think they’re going to live about 700 years so there’ll be ample time to do the right thing once they lie their way into power. Well, there won’t. And remember, 2019 could be the year you unexpectedly died.

Oh, now you’re being cheerful, the reader may cry. And in an odd way I am. Because it might be liberating to consider what you’d do, in public and private, if you thought, “This is the one I want them to remember me by” instead of, “Just warming up here.” Would you utter polished quarter-truths, cheer blatant deceit, hurl tribal insults and waste the precious days you’ve been given on trivialities?

In a recent interview with the National Post, our prime minister defended spending money we don’t have by asking if you preferred “kids will have more nutritious lunches” to the Conservatives “balancing the budget at all cost, cutting programs and services.” As if anyone, including him, thinks that’s what Stephen Harper did or Andrew Scheer is promising.

Photo by Jack Boland/Toronto Sun/Postmedia Network

If the excuse for this sort of blather is that it persuades people, it still wouldn’t be good enough. But if it doesn’t, and in quoting these remarks John Ivison noted that Trudeau’s unpopularity ratings now rival Trump’s, what on Earth could justify doing it in what might be the brief period before he’s elected ex-prime minister?