I’m not so sure this is what Ted Lasso meant.
For those unfamiliar with the Apple TV series, it follows an eternally-optimistic football coach from the United States as he takes over the reins of an English soccer club. The likable titular character offers those in his sphere a never-ending supply of homespun wisdom, including one rather famous quote about being like a goldfish.
In an effort not to have his charges dwell on their mistakes, he tells them to act like a goldfish, which apparently has a memory of just 10 seconds. It’s an attempt to put all that bad stuff in the past and focus their attention on what’s to come.
I raise this Ted Lasso reference because it seems to have infiltrated our federal election campaign.
At the beginning of the year, which was barely three months ago I should add, the country was ready to kick Justin Trudeau and his Liberals to the curb, the governing party languishing well behind Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives in public opinion polls.
Today, with a new leader at the helm, the Liberals are out in front in those polls, which last week were predicting a once-unthinkable electoral outcome: a Liberal majority. Talk about short memories.
Now, I’m willing to admit that Mark Carney has had a solid first few weeks on the job, but does that mean we should forget about the past decade, a stretch in which Canadians saw a significant decline in our standard of living?
There’s absolutely no doubt that Carney is an extremely intelligent guy, evidenced by degrees from Harvard and Oxford as well as stints at the governor of both the Bank of Canada and Bank of England. He also showed some early political savvy by stealing crucial pages out of the Conservative playbook, proving it’s darn near impossible to have a carbon tax election when you don’t have a carbon tax – a consumer carbon tax, that is.
And at a time of great financial crisis, it wouldn’t hurt to have an economist steering the ship, particularly one who appears to carry himself well on the world stage.
It all seems good, except for that nagging bit about the last 10 years. Sure, Carney wasn’t an elected member of Trudeau’s government, but as an advisor, his fingerprints can be found on its various policies and the party he’s leading features many of the same faces of the past decade.
As a voter, am I to believe that all will be different now that Carney is in charge? I guess anything’s possible, but I found even his grand carbon tax gesture, where he effectively nullified it by setting the collection rate to $0.00, had far more to do with political expediency than any reversal of Liberal approach, given it’s still in effect in other sectors.
I recognize there’s a new leader, but I’m having a difficult time believing his party, the one that voters were so fed up with they couldn’t wait for an election, will be materially different moving forward.
I guess the bottom line is that I’m not cut out to be a goldfish. I’m not sure if that makes me a Conservative or a salmon.
-Ted Murphy is the Editor of the Okotoks Western Wheel
