Editor

What are we to make of Mr Harper's and Mr Miller's continuing attempts to control political discourse?

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad that Larry Miller has agreed to attend two debates. But there are more in the offing, including the usual radio debate on CFOS and another on Rogers TV whose audiences have certainly not made up their minds.

The difficulty for democracy is that whoever is thinking of hosting a debate may now decide not to because they know Mr Miller won't show up.

That would be a mistake because, in this election especially, we need more discussion of the issues. We, as candidates for public office, should be presenting our knowledge and beliefs, in public, from one end of Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound to the other.

And what are we to make of Dean Del Mastro recently sentenced to serve time for breaking the law and then covering it up? Yeah, I'm running for the NDP this election, but I take no joy in that story. Because it speaks to a kind of politics I find foreign to Canada.

Maybe I'm not drinking the right sort of tea, but it seems as though it's all politics all the time now. When winning is the only thing, good governance loses every time.

By good governance I mean an open way of governing that benefits the great majority of Canadians—government that relies more on evidence than on ideology and more on listening than on talking.

Call me old fashioned, but I think the old way of making politicians stand and defend their platforms is better. Then, if voters think you know a thing or two, and like what you believe, you go to Ottawa and spend the next four or five years working your tail off for all your neighbours, not just the ones who have already made up there minds..

David McLaren

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David McLaren is the federal NDP candidate for Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound in the 2015 election.