Right in the centre - Words plus math should equal truth
- Details
- Published on Friday, January 8, 2016
By Ken Waddell
Neepawa Banner/Neepawa Press
“Words are important”, if I remember correctly, was the title of an English text back in my school days. It’s also a true statement. Words are important along with the story they weave, the facts they support and the opinions they describe.
Looking back on the federal election, words were indeed very important, but not nearly enough attention was given to the words of the Liberal Party of Canada. The media and the opposition both fell short of the mark, the accountability mark in evaluating their words.
Take for example the promise to bring in 25,000 Syrian refugees. It was an impossible promise, but few called Trudeau on it. He either knew it was a lie, or he was very naive. The media should have checked it out. Just do the math. The election was on Oct. 19. Nothing would get done until the government was sworn in around Nov. 1. That left 61 days to meet the promised quota. If you divide 25,000 by 61 that means 410 refugees per day. It was never going to happen, didn’t happen and nobody called the government on that pledge.
The Liberals promised to tax the rich and give to the middle class. Again, nobody checked out the words all that well. The amount that will be raised by the tax increase likely won’t cover the tax deductions. It might have been a good idea for some journalist to do the math, but math is hard. It’s a lot easier to slop a story together and hope for the best.
Math is a rather dull subject, not near as much fun as English. With the written language you can wax eloquent, reel off opinions, build a subjective case. With math, it’s a much tougher slog, things have to add up. Unfortunately, few journalists do their math.
We are seeing the importance of words in the lead up to the Manitoba election as well. The NDP are doing their very best to make a wordy defence of their record. However, it’s the math that trips them up. The debt has nearly doubled under the NDP. The budget hasn’t balanced lately, the PST went up from 7 to 8 per cent. Fees of all kinds have gone up. Just ask a home buyer about land transfer fees. By the way, why is there land transfer fees anyway?
Since 1998, we have been labouring under a big lie. Interestingly enough, that lie involves both powerful words and some math. The person who most often retold the lie was former premier and now ambassador to the United States, Gary Doer. Whenever the opposition would come close to threatening one of Doer’s positions, he would rise to his full blown height in the house and bluster “The Conservatives fired 1000 nurses”. If he was in a really feisty mood, he would storm the ramparts claiming, “The Tories fired 1500 nurses”. None of that was true, but few questioned it. Many Tories even wanted to shy away from the bombast as if somehow the bombastic lie might go way. It didn’t and today’s premier, Greg Selinger is still promoting the lie. The 1000 nurse story has been debunked by Deveryn Ross, columnist for the Winnipeg Free Press, by CJOB and others. The mainstream media doesn’t listen. If an NDP rep or a union rep repeats the old lie, the media laps it up and treats it like gold plated truth.
It’s hard to tell if the mainstream media is stupid, scared or just plain lazy. Doer and Selinger knew right well it was a lie, but that never stopped them from spouting it. It boils down to words being important, but that’s coupled with the fact that most people don’t take much time to analyze political statements. Politicians say “fired 1000 nurses,” “bring in 25,000 refugees”, “tax the rich” and “help families”. Few voters and even fewer journalists, actually analyze what’s being said. It’s sad. Words are important and so is math. Both are needed to reach what should be our ultimate goal and that is the truth.
