Back when I was working on the Hill, someone once told me that the secret to drafting political copy was to remember that I was not writing for a particularly enlightened demographic.

No ‘big words’ required, or wanted. No nuance or sophistication. No need to ‘re-invent the wheel’. Just stick to the message — the more simplistic, the better. I was encouraged to write for the average person with a Grade Seven education.

The ‘keep it simple, stupid’ catechism is everywhere in modern political communications. Evidently, it works. Look at Rob Ford, Donald Trump or Stephen Harper — these are men who are not known for campaigning on big, challenging ideas. And so, the people running our country and the staff running their offices are actively discouraged from applying the full extent of their knowledge and expertise to the job because — we’re told — voters can’t handle it.

Has our political discourse always been this way, or is this merely a product of the times — of an age of rapid-fire, instantly-digested and instantly-shared social media?

The Harper government’s influence certainly hasn’t helped — with its stilted language and idea-starved rhetoric, compounded by the infuriatingly robotic nature of the scripted PMO replies that have passed for dialogue in question period for the last decade.

One of the more obvious places we’ve seen this ‘dumbed down’ discourse at play recently is the federal leaders’ debates, where shallow, catchy quips and empty rhetoric are rampant, and substance is hard to find.

Take the Globe and Mail debate on the economy for example. Green Leader Elizabeth May, one of the smartest and most articulate party leaders out there, wasn’t even invited. What we got instead was a shambles — three men braying their bumper-sticker slogans at each other, leaving the audience more baffled afterward than they were when they started watching. It’s worth pointing out that the publication that hosted the debate has openly endorsed the Conservative Party of Canada in the past two federal elections — but thanks to Stephen Harper’s successful strategy of boycotting the coalition debates, only the publications with the funding and resources to do so were in a position to step up.

How did we lose the comprehensive, serious, grown-up exchanges of elections past, only to see them replaced with platitudinous, dimwitted stump speeches? Why are we OK with this? How did we lose the comprehensive, serious, grown-up exchanges of elections past, only to see them replaced with platitudinous, dimwitted stump speeches? Why are we OK with this?

The Munk debate on foreign policy was better — but only just. While it’s no secret that topics like trade, the war on terror and international development aren’t particularly easy to package for wide audiences, viewers again saw juvenile interruptions, platitudes, embellishments, even bald-faced lies — despite an agreed format many hoped would limit inaudible sections and interruptions.

Flash back to 1968, the year Canada’s very first televised leaders’ debate took place between incumbent Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, PC Leader Robert Stanfield, NDP Leader Tommy Douglas and Social Credit Leader Réal Caouette.

Subjects ranged from the eroding purchasing power of the Canadian dollar, firearms licensing and unemployment to foreign relations, NATO and medicare. The leaders debated one another with respect and courtesy, even sharing a laugh occasionally. No one interrupted. Back then, leaders were expected to behave like adults.

By the time 2008’s debate rolled around, Harper had yet to shun the media consortium; all leaders were present and Twitter had only been around for two short years. This roundtable debate saw a sophisticated and robust 360 of the issues. Harper was held accountable for his government’s decisions by four passionate opposition leaders with varying priorities. The calibre of moderation was strong, which meant few interruptions or shouting matches.

So what happened between then and now? How did we lose the comprehensive, serious, grown-up exchanges of elections past, only to see them replaced with platitudinous, dimwitted stump speeches and leaders getting away with phrases like, “It is what it is”? Why are we OK with this?

Two things happened. The first was the decay of mainstream media coupled with the advance of social media, with the attendant drop in professionalism and intellectual discipline. The second is the influence of Stephen Harper’s government, with its reliance on political messages you could write on the back of a postage stamp. It can be argued that these two factors have evolved symbiotically.

The result has been damaging for Canadian democracy. In 1968 — when politicians were expected to treat voters like adults — 75 per cent of eligible Canadians turned up at the polls. In 2011 — when Canadians had gotten used to being treated like children — just 61 per cent of us cast a ballot.

In other words, the ‘keep it simple, stupid’ mantra isn’t drawing people in — it’s turning them off. Canadians have disengaged from our political discourse. Some claim that it barely matters what our leaders do or say during debates anymore, because hardly anybody is listening. In fact, it has never mattered more.

Running a national government is complicated. It requires sophisticated decision-making skills — and a voting public that understands the need to approach governance with ideas too big to fit on a T-shirt. In short, it needs leaders willing to treat voters as intelligent people capable of making difficult decisions — and that means engaging them with richer, more sophisticated language, without being terrified of dropping the odd ‘big word’.

Jenn Jefferys is a communications consultant and columnist at The Hill Times. She is a former NDP Hill staffer and a former research and communications advisor for Equal Voice. You can follow her @jennjefferys.

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