SNOBELEN: What happened to peace, order and good government? 

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I’ll confess that a couple of decades ago, my younger eyes found Canada kind of dull.

Americans had the inspirational notion of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. The French had the gallant Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. By comparison, the Canadian governing mantra of Peace, Order and Good Government felt a little beige.

Peace, Order and Good Government is the sort of organizing principle you might expect of a country that had a prime minister named Lester. Think pocket protectors and slide rulers.

But the world has devolved and words like equality and liberty have lost a little shine through disabuse, while the prospect of good government, once table stakes in the business of governing, now seems aspirational.

Heck, the simple act of separating what is real from what someone deems to be true is a daunting challenge. In a more innocent time, people assumed that governments spoke with responsibility and authority, tempering their words to align with reality. But the days of governments being tethered to fact are long gone, fatally severed by the ludicrous truths of COVID.

Five years on from the pandemic, the “science-based” decisions of government during the COVID lockdowns seem just as random as the opposing “truths” of social media experts. Fear trumped common sense.

Being able to take the government at its word should be a given. It’s not.

People should also be able to count on governments to reliably provide basic services in a reasonable time frame. Sadly, that is not the case.

Need some proof? Take a ride on Toronto’s Eglinton Crosstown LRT. This multi-billion-dollar rapid transit project was scheduled to open in 2020 after a decade of tangled traffic during construction. Except it didn’t. Hopelessly behind schedule and way over budget, the yet-to-open Eglinton LRT is the antithesis of good government.

Need more proof? Drive the non-existent road to the heart of Canada’s mineral wealth, the Ring of Fire. The Ring of Fire has held the promise of being, as then-Treasury Board president Tony Clement noted over a decade ago, the oil sands of Ontario. It’s a big deal.

More than two decades after consultations to open the region for mining began, and through a succession of governments making bold announcements, the Ring of Fire remains a dim promise locked in endless cycles of delay. We can’t, it seems, get a mining project off the planning table.

A couple of years ago, every level of government was fixated on solving one vexing problem — the lack of housing. The problem was so acute that governments took immediate action with bold promises and urgent legislation. Build baby, build.

The result of all that bluster is a reduction in the number of houses being built.  That sure isn’t good government.
If good government seems a stretch, the idea of peace and order is also under siege. We seem unable or unwilling to constrain protests that clearly stretch into civil disobedience, quell sectarian violence, protect minorities and control our borders. These are cornerstones of a civil society.

And so, peace, order and good government now have reached aspirational status.  We need governments that are serious about what they say and capable of executing on their promises. In other words, we need thoughtful, competent governance.

A few decades on, my now-older eyes focus less on ideology and more on competence. After all, life, liberty and happiness don’t mean much without peace, order and good government.