Eric Osuorah

The cynicism & hyper partisanship on this site can be exhausting. I see criticism of Conservatives like @erinotoole & @lraitt for agreeing to serve on the Prime Minister’s Canada-US relations advisory panel. Some say it represents “patronage.” To be clear, membership on advisory panels like this are not paid positions. Sometimes they will offer modest per diems for longer meetings requiring travel. But there is no material reward for participating in work like this. If anything it represents an opportunity cost for busy people who give up paid work or billable time in order to participate. In other words, it’s not patronage. Cynics, brace yourself: perhaps what motivates people to set aside partisanship and do voluntary work like this is an authentic sense of duty, of public service that puts country ahead of party. To the partisans who think it’s disloyal to accept a role like this: please remember that severely normal Canadians do not see the world through your hyper partisan lens. They expect Canadians to work together across party lines to help defend the country from external threats, like Donald Trump’s aggression. (Remember Stephen Harper appointing John Manley to lead the advisory panel on the Afghan military deployment; or appointing Gary Doer Ambassador to the US.) Finally, to Conservatives: one of the most unattractive feature of the contemporary left is its tendency to politicize absolutely everything. Don’t repeat their error. Conservatism is not a rigid ideological doctrine requiring loyalty tests and the demonization of our political adversaries.