Whither the big issues

On TVO's The Agenda tonight, dealing with the topic Broken Political Parties, a point was raised by historian Michael Bliss, Where are the big issues in this election?  Really, so very little is being discussed.  A few gifts are dangled in front of the middle class, opposition parties are trying to make headway with Harper's "narrative of control," and, of course, Harper is floating along intoning 'the economy, the economy.'

What about our climate change policy?  Oh right, our bill on climate change, though passed by a majority of MP's in the House of Commons, was killed by the Tory-dominated Senate.  How about our foreign policy?  Defense policy?  Fighter jets needed for Libya, are they now?   As the Council of Canadians asks, what about our policy on water?  Does Harper have a plan to run a pipeline from northern Alberta down to Texas? (rabble.ca) Quietly and with few noticing or calling him on it, Harper has just let these policies drift away out of sight, either as part of an overall plan to diminish the role of government, or simply to hide them from view until a majority allows him the freedom to do as he pleases.  And why aren't Ignatieff and Layton bringing these things to our attention?

Members of the panel on tonight's Agenda generally agreed that Parliament has become a place where there is little room for individual contributions by MP's, few roles for them to play, little to do other than to be a mouthpiece for the party's agenda, which is largely determined by polls of the day interpreted by fiercely loyal partisans.  A new authoritarian structure is creating a strict, vertical chain of command, and in the House of Commons, the opposing sides view each other as enemies to be destroyed rather than people to work with toward a common good.

We want more from our government than this, and we either naively expect it to just happen, or we cynically assume it won't despite anything we might do.  Either way, we don't pay much attention--apparently we rank well below Sweden, the UK and the US in terms of our attentiveness to the news.    But we cannot afford to be either naive or cynical here, and we certainly can no longer afford not to pay attention.  This is our country, and its democracy is in jeopardy.