We need to talk about resignations of elected officials in this country.  Three recent examples come to mind.

Don Meredith, an Ontario Conservative senator and evangelical pastor, is blasted in a report by the Senate Ethics Officer for an "inappropriate relationship" with a teenager.  In the past, he was also accused of inappropriate sexual advances against female staffers, and falsely claiming to have a doctoral degree.   The Government Representative in the senate has called on him to resign.  He's already expelled from the Conservative caucus.  He should resign.

Another case in the Senate blew up this month with Senator Lynn Beyak, who inexplicably suggested we should focus on the good intentions of those who ran residential schools, rather than condemning what many regard as a cultural genocide.  She also previously said some questionable things about gays and lesbians, and made what can only be characterised as transphobic comments.  An Indigenous NDP MP has called on her to resign for seemingly excusing cultural genocide and abuses against Aboriginal children.  Others no doubt will too.  She should, at the very least, be booted from the Conservative caucus over these remarks.

In York Region, former school board Trustee Nancy Elgie's case captured headlines all winter.  Elgie first denied using a racial slur against a black parent, before then admitting she called a parent the n-word accidentally, before then admitting she was suffering from a concussion and probably should not have been making decisions at the school board at all, before refusing to resign and offering a word salad of psychobabble about restorative justice, before eventually bowing to public pressure to resign in a tearful, ten-minute video.

The Elgie case is instructive.  Had she been honest and upfront immediately and apologised right away, she might have been able to get away with her suggested solution of a leave of absence and sensitivity training.  Speaking to parents, there was a sense that by the time Elgie got around to apologising, she was already so tainted for having denied the accusation, she had to go.  But getting her to resign took months, and an escalating serious of demands for her resignation first had to occur, with angry parents doing all they could to put pressure on her to resign, and on other politicians to force her to do so.  It eventually took the board chair, a majority of trustees and provincial and national politicians, and editorialists to get her out.

Throughout Canadian politics, this seems to be the formula when a politician does something inexcusable: it takes a crescendo of public pressure to overwhelm the embattled politician's attempts to stay in power to force a resignation.  It can take months.  There's something perverse about this process.  It places undue pressure on victims to make their public case as to why the politician should resign.  That's no doubt traumatic in some cases.

Do we need recall legislation?  This is a perennial pet goal of populist politicians, predominately on the right.  But it's not altogether a bad idea.

Done correctly, a process could be put in place to force politicians to resign when they commit an ethical transgression.  Codifying a process whereby an ethics officer conducts a fair investigation, based on ordinary principles of natural justice, would be a first step.  Such a report could then conclude with a recommendation the elected official should resign, if, say, 2500 of his or her constituents were to sign a petition to that effect.  Such a process would allow for both a formal investigation and require citizens to make their intention plain.

This suggestion might seem laborious, and no doubt the public pressure campaigns would still occur to try to preempt the process, but it seems evident that we need some sort of a process in place to provide for citizens the right of recall over bad politicians who have committed serious ethical lapses.  This systematic approach also provides a system to guard against less serious recall proposals that could simply be abused whenever citizens object to policy decisions, such as tax increases, that are more appropriately adjudicated at the ballot box.

Codifying a recall process for serious ethical lapses is a sensible reform that is regrettably necessary.  It should be considered as part of the government's democratic reform discussions, and considered as well at the provincial and municipal levels.

Photo Credit: Huffington Post

Patrick Brown got played, and badly at that.

For his entire tenure as Conservative Opposition Leader in Ontario, the only thing the career politician has been consistent on is that electricity rates are too high, and something must be done about it.  He's not wrong, but his blatant use of falsehoods — erroneously claiming Ontario has the highest rates in North America, when we're fairly middle of the pack, falsely attributing the rate increases to renewable energy projects, not the massive system refurbishment needed after brownouts and smog days in the early 2000s — was a particularly cynical brand of politicking.

Brown was happy to exploit justified consumer anger over rate increases — estimates suggest prices shot up by 70% in the past decade — no doubt thinking that rage against Premier Kathleen Wynne alone would be enough to vault him into the Premier's Office.  His strategy was great — so long as Premier Wynne played dead and let him walk all over her, for the next fifteen months.  But why would anyone bet on that?

Premier Wynne has been the underdog in every race she's ever ran.  And yet she stands as the Premier of Canada's largest province with a majority government.  She is not to be underestimated.  But that is exactly what Patrick Brown did.

Did the Ontario Conservatives seriously expect the Liberals would take consumer rage on the chin for two years, and not offer a plan to mitigate the anger?  If Tories did, boy were they ever wrong.

This week, Premier Wynne unveiled a plan to cut electricity rates by 25% by rejigging the financial repayment system to pay less upfront over a longer term for infrastructure projects, and a tax cut on the provincial portion of the HST.  It's estimated to save the average consumer north of $300 per year.  Liberals are touting it as the largest reduction to hydro rates in history; I wish we'd also tout that it's the largest tax cut in twenty years, too.

How did Brown and his crew not see this coming?  Liberals have been telegraphing that they'd do something about hydro rates for months now.  And yet, there's a clip or two making the rounds on social media of an utterly befuddled, goateed Tory MPP doing his usual routine criticising the government about electricity rates, and then repeatedly laughing awkwardly, stammering and barely able to find his feet on what should have been an obvious follow-up question: "OK, so what's your plan?"  The clips are an utter train wreck, and happened at least twice.  The best the MPP can offer is "we might have a plan…by November"—that's pathetic.  Again, how did the Conservatives not see this coming?

There's fair criticisms to be raised about Wynne's plan to reduce bills. It benefits the poor and the superrich equally, for one.  But for a Conservative, it's hard to oppose a tax cut (hence why I think a greater focus on "the largest tax cut in twenty years" has merit).  So the galaxy of rightwing voices online has seized on the theme that essentially "remortgaging" the payments for infrastructure is fiscally irresponsible.  There's an argument to be made on either side of this debate.  But I suspect Ontario Liberals are just fine to have an argument over whether their plan to reduce rates by 25% is flawless, when the obvious counterattack is "OK, so where's your plan, buddy?"

Brown's let himself get boxed in here.  He can't oppose a tax cut, especially when he's already taking grief from his base over his flip-flops (plural) on pollution pricing (he now says he favours a direct carbon tax).  And while he can argue that drawing out the repayment period to lower rates now is not a flawless strategy, that only takes you so far.

His only remaining play might be to try to renegotiate some contracts.  But that's an inherently risky strategy; as we saw with the gas-plant cancellations, contracts have penalties built in to protect the contractors.  Ontario voters will be wary of someone promising to rip up energy contracts, and for good reason.  Plus, there's already evidence the Liberal government plans to do what it can to better scrutinise contracts going forward, and aims to enact broader system changes as well.  If all Brown has left is to make some vague commitments to be a tougher negotiator, he'll not really be able to "one up" the Liberal plan on the plane that matters — dollars and cents saved.

He's not left himself with much to go on, especially once ratepayers see their bills go from $140 per month down to $100 this summer.  Anger will dissipate as ratepayers see relief arriving in the mail every month.  At least that's the Liberal hope, and it seems a reasonable one.  At the very least, Wynne can say in the 2018 campaign, "I took action. I saved you around $400 over the past fifteen months.  The other guy doesn't have a clue."

In February, the Ontario NDP rushed out a half-baked pledge to lower rates between 17%-30%, knowing that the government was going to do something.  Their plan was mostly a plan to have a plan, and to ask the Trudeau government to help out.  It was pretty laughable pablum, reminiscent of Donald Trump's secret plan to fight ISIS — by asking the generals to make him a plan to fight ISIS.  But at least the NDP tried to get out ahead of the government.  They at least have some bragging rights for moving early, even if the government ultimately outfoxed them.

Yet Brown's let himself be utterly out-manoeuvred.  It's political malpractice, really.  As Trump would say, "Sad!"

Like any self-respecting, bleeding-heart, millennial liberal, I make time in my week for Pod Save America, the podcast run by former communications staffers from the Obama White House.  The show is a must-listen for those seeking comfort and community in response to the horrors of the Trump administration.

I mention the show because I've been thinking about something Jon Favreau, Obama's former chief speechwriter, has noted a few times.  It's a line of Obama's that I think I only now have begun to understand: "I'm asking you not to believe in my power to create change — but in yours."

The progressive euphoria that catapulted Obama to the White House nine years ago largely withered in his first term, as the daily grind of governing led to unmet expectations.  This is all a lot of preamble to get me to Canada, where many progressives, it seems, are complacently content with our boy Trudeau.

I've written elsewhere I've always liked Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but with a certain wariness, as if I always want to first kick the tires.  But I volunteered on his leadership race and went all in during the summer and autumn of 2015 on Team Trudeau; I helped run four winning campaigns for his candidates and helped plan out the youth campaign that won 88% of constituencies with university campuses nationwide.  Like many, I knew we needed to oust former prime minister Stephen Harper.

Since then, in broad strokes, the Trudeau government has done a lot of what progressives like, particularly on tax policy and a focus on economic equality — clearly the animating issue of the Trudeau braintrust.

But the government has also clearly disappointed liberals, notably on pipelines, democratic reform and now in the largely symbolic differences only approach to the Trump administration.  For me, the inadequate federal funding for healthcare and the accompanying cynical game-theory approach to federal-provincial negotiations is also a major irritant.

In response to when I feel disappointed by the Trudeau government, I can't help but think of the Mary Louise Parker character in The West Wing.  An activist working for a women's organisation, her character says she loves the Democratic president, but "will keep poking him with a stick" to ensure he stays as progressive as possible.

That's how I feel about Justin Trudeau.  He needs to do more and do better.  Healthcare funding clearly seems an afterthought to the government, which is maddening given the exemplary work physician Health Minister Jane Philpott seems eager to do, if only the treasury would give her the funding.  The "nice tweets, though" response to Trump is equally annoying, though I suppose there is a realpolitik allowance we ought to concede.  Other issues grate, too: electoral reform, the Saudi arms deal, and the refusal to fully follow a court order to fund Indigenous education comparably to non-Indigenous students.

I spoke with a few friends who are staffers on the Hill.  All admit the government has true progressive instincts, but MPs — particularly those from the more rural seats that won Trudeau such a strong majority — hear from their small-C conservative constituents, and worry about moving too far too fast.

Progressive Canadians need to do something about this.  We need to speak up — I loved seeing friends posting on Facebook they'd called their MP or protested at the US consulate in response to Trump's Muslim ban.

But we also need the NDP to get out of its bizarre zombie-state with Thomas Mulcair as the half-defenestrated leader.  The inefficacy of the NDP as a force in progressive politics over the past few years is something I look back on with a great deal of regret.  The NDP's attempt to compete for power helped give Harper his tenure as prime minister; worse still, it neutered the "conscience of Parliament".  They need to get back to being a principled, progressive voice.  I'm glad their leadership race is finally starting.

Worse still, we've lived in a world lately of a rather strong Conservative Opposition whose leadership race — with its nonsensical views on climate change and economics and its shameful embrace of Islamophobia — dominated headlines.  It's no wonder the Trudeau government feels its main threat is from a rejuvenated right.

David Moscrop is a PhD candidate in political theory at the University of British Columbia.  We've tweeted back and forth about the need for Canadians to stand up and insist this government ups its game.  I've written about hoping Trudeau steps up to own his reputation as the global poster child for liberalism, and we've seen some signs of this in particular on his recent trip to Europe and in meetings with the elder statesperson of the West, Angela Merkel.  But he has to do more, he has to aim higher, and, as Moscrop suggested to me recently — we have the responsibility to push him there.

A frustration with the "Team Trudeau" election campaign was the disconnect between the rhetoric of "building a movement" and the reality that what the Trudeau braintrust really wanted was to create and sustain an electoral machine, not a movement to push for progressive policy.

My point is this: winning elections matters.  Activists need to be prepared to be, as Teddy Roosevelt said, "in the arena".  But we didn't elect Trudeau in the hopes we can leave him be and he'll just do everything we want.  We need to recognise the wisdom in Obama's line.  We need to believe in our ability to create meaningful change, and we need to insist our government's ambitions match ours.

It isn't enough to win votes.  We have to see true results, meaningful progressive policy enacted, even if it requires passionately speaking up and demanding more from the government.  Election Day is merely the start of the work we have to do as citizens.  Democracy happens daily.

Since Trump became president, I can't get Leonard Cohen's "Anthem" out of my head: "they've summoned up a thunderclap, and they're gonna hear from me, they're gonna hear from me".

Trudeau needs to hear from us, not just from the loudest voices on the radical right.  He needs to hear there is a passionate, progressive population out there demanding he do his best, wants him to aim higher, wants Canada to truly be the progressive beacon the world hopes we can be.  In today's fraught global environment, we have the responsibility, perhaps now more than ever, to be worthy of that global reputation.

And, for progressives, we all share an added burden: we have to learn how to push our government to be worthy of our ambitions, whilst still doing what we can to ensure they win reelection, or it will all be for naught.

Democracy is messy.  But let's make it work.