What are the qualifications for being a politician?
Listening to some pundits, politicians are expected to be super-human beings with infinite wisdom and intelligence, compassionate but firm, capable of seeing all and always knowing the right thing to do.
Put like that, I don’t think anyone is qualified for the job. I don’t know any politicians who are all-knowing sages.
For the most part, they are simply human beings, capable of making mistakes and subject to the same foibles we all have. And to expect them to get it right every time is not a reasonable expectation. It is a tough, demanding job and impossible to always do it perfectly.
There are no tests for politician – no intelligence test, no ethics exam, no test for compassion. The only test is, can they get elected? Can they convince enough voters to vote for them during an election?
For the most part, voters base their vote on the party and what it stands for. Does the party’s platform match our own personal beliefs? Do they want to help the less fortunate? Do they believe capitalism is the best system? Are our personal ethical views reflected in the party’s platform? Do we always vote the same way because that is what our parents did?
I mention this because last week Prime Minister Trudeau shuffled his cabinet. Such shuffles happen from time to time. Ministers move into portfolios; former Ministers move out. Rarely would someone stay in the same portfolio for an entire term.
But cabinet shuffles are not solely the decision of the Prime Minister. And for the leader of the opposition to blame everything wrong on the Prime Minister is politicking of the worst sort.
“After eight years of Trudeau, everything costs more,” Pierre Poilievre told a news conference, according to the CBC. “His government is a failure. It’s funny though – the one minister responsible for those failures didn’t get moved. And that minister is Justin Trudeau.”
Trudeau is not perfect but blaming the prime minister for inflation is absurd and Poilievre knows it. He is just hoping voters have a short memory. After all, during his stint in cabinet, prices rose every single year – everything cost more – and we had the worst financial crisis on record.
Todd Whitcombe is a professor at UNBC.
