Election promises are the lifeblood of politics. We may complain about how facile these promises often are, and how easy it seems for politicians to break them — but nobody has come up with an alternative.

Let’s face it. A politician who stands in front of a crowd and vows to carefully weigh every issue, consult widely and come to a reasoned decision that may need revision some time in the future (as circumstances evolve) will never be able to compete with a politician who vows to slash income taxes, nationalize the banks or “build that wall.”

Successful election promises are straightforward, understandable and realistically achievable. They distinguish one party’s offerings from those of its rivals and set a distinct tone. Well-crafted, they offer a real alternative to voters. The Trudeau Liberals offered several well-crafted promises in their 2015 election campaign — on Syrian refugees, the middle class tax cut and the expansion of Canada Pension Plan. These promises made it clear how the Liberals were going to distinguish themselves from the Harper Conservatives and set the government on a new course. And they delivered on them quickly.

Successful promises don’t always mean good policy, however. The Harper government’s decision to cut the GST rate from 7 per cent to 5 per cent after it was elected in 2006 is a case in point. It was successful — particularly with Conservative supporters — because it showed that Harper could deliver on a pocketbook issue quickly and decisively. For right-wingers, it had the bonus effect of shrinking the ability of the federal government to expand its reach by constraining its revenues.

But virtually every economist around agreed that lowering the GST robbed the government of needed revenues and made it more dependent on personal income taxes — a sure way to decrease the incentive to work and to hurt growth. Broad-based consumer taxes are the modern way to go. Reducing the GST was a step backward for Canada.

Likewise, the Liberals’ decision to overturn the Conservatives’ decision to raise the eligibility age for Old Age Security to 67 from 65 can be seen as a successful promise — because it probably attracted baby-boomer votes to the Liberals and helped them win the election. And it was easy to implement.

But clearly it was bad policy. That became clear this week when Finance Minister Bill Morneau’s own economic advisory council said as much, urging the government to raise the eligibility age for both OAS and the Canada Pension Plan to 67 as way of encouraging aging workers to remain in the workforce for longer. A higher retirement age would be a logical response to the demographic reality of an aging population — but it’s bad politics, so the Liberals will stick with their original promise.

At the time, no one in Justin’s entourage had any solid reason for thinking he had the slightest chance of winning the election. Under those circumstances … hell, why not promise an end to first-past-the-post? At the time, no one in Justin’s entourage had any solid reason for thinking he had the slightest chance of winning the election. Under those circumstances … hell, whypromise an end to first-past-the-post?

Then there’s a special category of election vows, which I’ll simply call the “dumb” ones. These are the kind of promises that are close to impossible to execute and inevitably leave the politician looking like a con-man — or a liar.

A classic example was Jean Chrétien’s promise, repeated whenever anybody would listen, that if elected in the 1993 election, the Liberals would scrap the GST, implemented by the Conservatives under Brian Mulroney two years earlier and still widely hated. “I say that we will replace the tax,” Chrétien vowed. “This is a commitment. You will judge me by that. If the GST is not gone, I will have a tough time the election after that.”

It was a dumb promise because the GST was a logical tax. It replaced the obsolete manufacturers’ sales tax that was leaking government revenue like a scheme designed by a financial planner in the Cayman Islands. And any replacement that would achieve the same revenues, as the Liberal party platform promised, was sure to end up looking pretty much like the GST.

It was a bit like Donald Trump’s promise to repeal Obamacare. It’s a fine promise if you want to leave 20 million or so Americans without access to health care, as many Republicans dream of doing — but perhaps the working class Americans who actually voted for Trump feel differently. The real problem is that Trump has promised to replace Obamacare with “something terrific” that will be “far less expensive and cheaper,” while allowing healthy, wealthier Americans a way to drop out of the system. What that terrific something is, nobody seems to know. So — bad policy, dumb promise.

Which gets me to Justin Trudeau’s recently-dumped electoral reform promise, which should probably get a special award as dumb promise of the year. You have to remember the context, of course. The promise was made in June of 2015, when the Liberals were sitting in third place in the polls and appeared to be going nowhere.

At the time, no one in Justin’s entourage had any solid reason for thinking he had the slightest chance of winning the election. Under those circumstances … hell, why not promise an end to first-past-the-post? It was clearly a throwaway that nobody had bothered to think through.

Anyone who had thought it through could have told Trudeau that this kind of promise can cause no end of hassles. Changing the voting system typically requires a consensus among political parties, which is virtually impossible to achieve because the current system usually favours the party that’s in power. Try convincing your own MPs to dump the system that just got them to Ottawa.

In the absence of party consensus, you have to seek a broader public consensus. But referendums are notoriously dangerous (ask David Cameron) and most members of the public don’t care enough about the electoral reform options to even bother to inform themselves about what the alternatives are.

So promising a swift end to first-past-the-post, with all the legal and technical changes that implies, was always going to be a non-starter. And for no visible electoral gain. On that score, legalizing marijuana was a much smarter offer.

So what do you do with a dumb promise? The Chrétien Liberals allowed the GST replacement idea to dog his government for three whole years before finally conceding it was a foolish idea. Trudeau has decided on a swift mercy-kill for his electoral reform promise after 16 months in power.

For those serious students of democracy who think the electoral system could use some reform, here’s the bad news: There may be time enough for voters to forget how dumb Trudeau’s promise was before they get a chance to hold him accountable in 2019.

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