Let's keep ideas

Toronto Star, Letters

Jun. 20, 2005

Results matter more than broken promises (Editorial, June 19).

That the public cares more about results than about the means used to achieve them is most certainly true. However, I must disagree with your conclusion that "everyone would be better off if politicians promised results instead of mechanics."

On some level, everyone wants the same things — better services at a lower cost. With all politicians promising those results and avoiding debate on how to achieve them, distinguishing politicians at election time could amount to little more than debates about managerial competence and name recognition.

In response, all parties would be encouraged to choose leaders who were former CEOs or movie stars, no matter how lacking in political vision or courage. But government is not business and it certainly ought not to be show business. To make informed choices in the voting booth, we must each be able to gauge the feasibility of parties' promised goals by independently evaluating the means by which they propose to achieve them.

Whereas all politicians clearly must "steer clear of empty and counterproductive promises starved of ideas," it would be an error, and a disservice to the voter, to steer clear of ideas altogether. Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Paul McKeever, Leader, Freedom Party of Ontario, Uxbridge