Federal Election - what happened to long term planning?

With only a week and a day to the federal election I feel that the political junky in me has been very well behaved. I have purposefully avoided using this forum to rant and rave like I do at home and with friends… but something happened this morning that made me decide to break my fast.

I ran into a couple of neighbours on my walk to work this morning who were deeply involved in a debate over which party/leader/local MP had done the most for our riding since the last election. Although I don’t know these two individuals that well, I do have a lot of respect for their intelligence and ability to think for themselves. Which is why I was a little surprised at the narrow focus of the conversation – they were only discussing what had occurred since the last election, and we all know how long ago that was.

Many people fault corporations for their short-sighted, immediate-term thinking based almost exclusively on quarterly shareholder returns. The big players in HR consulting all agree that this kind of short-term focus is not only unhealthy for the organization as a whole, but has a definite and proven negative trickle-down affect on everything from the frontline workers to the consumer and therefore eventually the shareholder.

If we’ve really accepted that this philosophy of immediacy is so bad for business, then what on earth makes us think it would be good for the country? Let’s all take a deep breath and agree that no matter where you land on the political spectrum, the issues of the environment, the economy, education, health care, immigration, etc. have long-term impact, were long-term in development and are long-term in the solving. I humbly suggest that this time around we vote based on which party/leader/local MP we believe has the soundest long-term strategies around the issues we care about, and the conviction to follow-through in the long run.

Oh yeah, and while I'm at it I can't resist saying - if you choose not to vote I choose not to hear your complaints.