In my end of year prognostication column I boldly state that 2016…will be rather like 2015. This is particularly true in that Ottawa will continue to try and do three impossible things before breakfast — except because it is the activist Grits in charge it will be even clearer now that the issue is the competence and capacity of the state and not an ideological conservatism that is to blame:
“The looming crisis of our democracy is the growing anger sparked by the clash between the public’s expectation that every problem can be legislated or regulated away by omnipotent government, and the reality that governments struggle every day to do relatively simple tasks like deliver the mail, build needed infrastructure and equip our soldiers. Contrary to the expectations of many, this anger cannot be appeased by the election of an activist government. It will be exacerbated until the public’s exaggerated expectations can be brought into line with government’s actual abilities.”
The piece, originally published in the Ottawa Citizen, clearly struck a nerve. It caused quite a stir in the Twittershphere and was republished by the National Post.
