On the History of Broken Promises

Given that the decision to extend Canada's Afghan mission is only the latest in a string of broken campaign promises, one pundit suggests we exempt all candidates from telling us what they'll do once they get elected.

Macleans.ca blogger Paul Wells has an interesting take on the government’s plan to leave some Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan until 2014 to conduct training missions. Everyone, even the prime minister himself, acknowledges this is a major reversal of the policy he campaigned on, which was to pull out all our soldiers by July of next year. So, Stephen Harper broke a campaign promise. “But what if the problem isn’t promise-breaking but promise-making itself?” Wells asks. He notes that “the fully-costed, detailed and itemized campaign platform is actually relatively new in Canadian politics,” and can be traced back no further than Jean Chrétien’s 1993 Red Book. Wells argues it’s not necessarily in our best interests to hold politicians to the details of their campaign promises, especially on unpredictable issues like a shooting war in Asia. Reality can change, and we want leaders who can adapt. So why make them promise anything? “Is it possible to return to a time when character and background were all leaders needed to campaign on?” Wells asks. He doesn’t describe what this kind of campaign would look like, but perhaps it could be reduced to a single-night, televised Canadian Idol-type event, with competition categories that include the Baby Kiss-Off, the Awkward Dance With Local Children, and the Pork Sandwich Chow Down.

Norman Spector’s Globe and Mail piece reveals a flaw in Wells’s logic, because it points out that even after Harper was elected, he asserted that troops would not be left in Afghanistan after 2011. Surely Wells doesn’t expect that we shouldn’t hold politicians accountable for anything they say, ever. “Will the Prime Minister get away with having misled Canadians on this issue for the better part of a year?” Spector wonders. It “depends on the opposition parties and the media.” Given that the opposition Liberals were the ones who suggested the plan in the first place, and most media outlets appear to support it, you’d have to say that Spector’s prediction that “it looks as though Mr. Harper will get away with it,” is a good one indeed.