Novelty is a quality much prized in politics nowadays for reasons that I confess escape me. Pick up any government budget and you’ll be subjected to dozens of pages of boasting about the new things the administration has done. NDP, Liberal, Tory, it makes no difference. And when candidates are asked for ideas, what people generally mean, and what they generally get if they get anything, is proposals for policy innovation not a statement of timeless truths that should guide us out of the swamp and back to solid ground.
For instance Marc Garneau, who has been trying to gain traction in the federal Liberal leadership race by accusing Justin Trudeau of lacking specifics (with some justice), recently unveiled a major proposal: Force the CRTC to force Internet service providers “to ensure all Canadians have access to affordable high-speed Internet”. Which puts me in mind of Samuel Johnson’s old jibe that “Your manuscript is both good and original; but the parts that are good are not original, and the parts that are original are not good.”
To suggest that the Internet is useful is a good point. But hardly original. To imply that the phenomenal growth of the Internet, the profusion of devices like the iPad and the smartphone, either have been driven by government insistence on equality or would have worked out better, faster, if they had been is certainly unusual but hardly sound. And to suggest that today, when kids are about as familiar with the “pshsht pshsht boing boing” of the 14k modem as they are with the mechanical cash register sound at the start of the Pink Floyd song “Money” and take streaming of movies for granted, government really needs to boot the private sector in the rear end to get busy making this darn interweb thing work fast, is certainly original. But good? Hoo hah!
Or am I too hard on him? Is having government direct economic dynamism an idea as stale as it is bad?
Categories: Economy, Government, Liberals, Politics, Social issues
Brian Tobin suggested this way back when he was in politics. Truthfully its not a bad idea for people in smaller communities and even for people who live on the outskrits of communities that have High Speed but they don’t. Common stories of someone living just across the road from someone who has high speed but they don’t becuase they ;ive just outside the town line are not as infrequent as you may think. I live one concession outside of Tottenham and I don’t have it but the town does, same goes for Beeton and Aliston.
Without access to high speed it can severely dampen access to educational, medical(Skype consults) and other resource material. If we don’t provide this for our children we really risk having them grow up with an inferior education. Yes it would cost but how much further do we want to fall behind the rest of the world.
Frankly I’ve heard much worse ideas.