TORONTO – We are being inundated with a barrage of “important” facts and events to tickle  (by design or by happenstance) or fancy for political manoevrings such activity normal human experience  sees as far off and out of reach for mere mortals. The main players convey the impression they have our interests in mind, or that we care and are paying attention – much like followers of afternoon soap operas of the sixties and seventies.

That may be harsh. The political stage is not absent  of serious people; they just happen to be in short supply. Readers of the Corriere Canadese are daily regaled with the events unfolding in the Italian political spectrum. If ever there were a forum replete with unforgiving, competitive, “Political Talent” , pursuing a diversity of interests rooted in history and culture thousands of years in the making, hat would be one. And yet, every now and then there are “head-scratching” decisions, like the events surrounding Boccia-gate that receive attention one normally resrves for people who matter and whose actions have pocketbook and cultural consequences.

One thinks of Mario Draghi, former Italian Prime Minister, whose international, European and Italian financial acumen, and experience, made hm a sought after “commodity” by countries seeking fiscal and economic stability and growth. Former President Barack Obama is reputed to have often said, what does Mario think [about this]? “Things augured well” in his administration.

Alas, Canada is apparently infatuated with the CV of one Mark Carney, former Governor of the Bank of Canada and of Britain. Both institutions are associated with the fiscal and economic policies afflicting Canada and post-Brexit British Isles. He is one of two “stars” at the Liberal caucus being held in beautiful Nanaimo. Mr. Carney was “invited” to lend an air of respectability to the retreat of MPs and Cabinet Ministers. The other is “Mr. Malaise” – discontented government MPs, the dynamic afflicting the government and distorting any serious discussion of issues of importance to the country. Guess who is having the greater impact?

In the current climate driven by discouraging polls for Liberals and NDP (338 Canada has the CPC at 42%, higher than the other two National Parties which share 43% of the “popular” vote), and facing a hyped-up by election in a Montreal constituency, the NDP decided to hold its caucus precisely in that municipality. It would make sense to find an excuse to bring limited resources, caucus and staff, to the focal point in the Battle to determine the outcome – how so strategically Napoleonic. Their former partner in c**** now too busily engaged in internecine recriminations in far-away British Columbia (five hours by air, to the west) to concern itself with the National interest in the outcome in La Salle- Emard – Verdun. 

The Bloc Quebecois, whose sense of “Nation” does not extend beyond the confines of Quebec, is in first place among the voting intentions of those who will cast a ballot on Tuesday September 16. Air Canada may be on strike as early as Friday. No train in Canada is capable of rushing those MPs back to Montreal to lend a hand.