Once, while looking for a party in a remote location, a few friends of mine adopted the mantra “onward, always onward.” The logic was that if they kept moving down the same path they would, eventually, find where they were going and get to the party in question. The end of this story involves a Mercury Topaz in the middle of a canola field. In short, the plan worked, right until it no longer did.
I think of this when I see someone determined to stick with the plan in spite of evidence that it’s not currently working. Take, for instance, the election campaign, where the Conservative party is imploring everyone to stick with their plan for the economy. Their plan was made in a different time, when people wanted to spend a lot of money on oil, the dollar was near parity and everyone was betting on China being relatively stable. Today none of that is true, so it’s clearly time for a new plan, because if we don’t start considering a different approach there’s a great big field looming ahead, and our economy car is headed straight for it.
But this isn’t their fault, actually, because we are in an environment where we refuse to award adaptability. The Conservative leadership may well know that plans have to change and they can’t just stay the course, because it’s clear that their plan isn’t going to be the right one at this very moment, whether or not it worked before. They can’t actually say this, because that would be admitting they’re not perfect, and it would be saying to the country’s voters that what they did several years ago isn’t the position that they are taking today. People tend to reward consistency in government rather than adaptability. As a result, if you are in government, you’re stuck with having to insist that you’re doing everything right and everything is going according to plan, even if it’s clearly not.
Which is not to say that a government shouldn’t be able to run on its record, and run on that record successfully, even in a time of relative upheaval. If that government successfully navigated similar crises earlier in its mandate, then it can use that as evidence it can handle a new crisis. In that case, it’s less about proposing you have an infallible plan than it is about proposing that you can respond to whatever the world situation actually winds up being. Given that we are a country that relies on exports, this is actually doable in theory, because a lot of the woes that affect Canada’s economy are not necessarily Canada’s fault. If China’s stock market takes a tumble, that’s on China, even if Canada is going to inevitably be affected by that market change it’s not something we caused.
The problem is that people have a notorious dislike of politicians who change their mind, which is a dangerous position to take. We should reward politicians who have the ability to look at the world around them, realize there’s a better path to take, and then set out in that direction. But there’s a perception that if someone admits they were wrong, or in this case, admits that the situation changed, they are admitting some kind of fallibility, and that’s a weakness. In reality, it’s a strength, because it allows them to turn a corner and make a better judgement. It’s the difference between making it to the party and getting stuck in a field.
