Promises, promises, promises!

The Liberals specialize in making lots of big promises, and only coming through on some of them. This is why they’ve earned the nickname: Lieberals! But was their conduct really more unethical than that of our new government?

The easy answer is yes, because political parties shouldn’t make promises they aren’t certain can be kept. This seems like a pretty straightforward statement. But is it really? What about political parties who make promises that can only be kept if the right conditions fall into place. Is their conduct unethical?

My answer is that it depends on the statistical probability of those conditions falling into place. If their plan takes for granted that the price of oil will quadruple in the next five years, then it is totally unethical because the chances of this happening are next to zero. No debate there. Now, if they assume that oil prices will increase by 20% in five years, then it is still less unethical because the chance of the price of oil climbing 20% in five years is far greater than the chance of it quadrupling. This may also seem obvious, but bear with me.

Here’s my third question: What if the government based its promises on excessively pessimistic forecasts. This would assure it of being able to keep all of those promises, but does that make its conduct any more ethical? Well, you mightn’t agree with me, but I actually believe that basing policy on predictions as conservative as the price of oil falling by 40% is just as unethical as taking for granted it will climb by 20%. I say this because if the government uses excessively conservative financial predictions, it won’t be able to promise nearly as much as if it were using optimistic financial forecasts. This means that even if the economy does well, we will still be getting government programs based on the economy doing badly.

The Liberals have made a number of audacious promises, and the ones they came through on, such as the Child Care Agreement, were amazing pieces of legislation. The Conservatives have come through on most of their promises, but none of them were particularly ambitious. So, even though the Liberals broke a number of promises, they still did a better job than the Conservatives.

Let’s think of this as a big hockey game in which ambitious promises are shots. The Conservatives have taken no shots, and never missed the net, the Liberals have taken 50 shots, and they missed the net 40 times. So who wins? The Liberals, because as Wayne Gretzky brilliantly said: You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.