On this week’s “O Show” our debate on bullying in the wake of a suicide by an area highschool student generated such an overwhelming response I feel compelled to argue my point further.

The word “bully” brings to mind nostalgic notions of Biff bugging George McFly in the 80’s classic flick Back to the Future. You know - the archetypal high school bully from a bad family that picks on the weakling until the weakling has a confidence building ephiphany and stands up to the bully. The story ends sweetly with the bully working for the former weakling later in life.

Or the ad featured on the back of comic books where the bully kicked sand on the weakling on the beach until the weakling took up weight lifting and came back looking like Atlas. Then he got the girls and all was well with the universe. How quaint.

But there is nothing quaint about today’s bullying. George McFly was not subject to online harassment campaigns, brutal beatings, or character assassinations through social media and body building certainly doesn’t stop these social media attacks.

Most importantly McFly and the weakling on the beach were never bullied to the point of contemplating suicide.

But kids today are committing suicide because of bullying. What had changed? Are they weaker? Do they lack social skills from their parents to handle a bully? Is society just too soft these days - not requiring kids to “man-up” and deal?

I reject all of these antiquated notions. Technology and changes in our culture where kids have access to adult media and adopt adult behaviours at an earlier age, makes bullying by boys and girls so insidious that it is causing wonderful people to end their lives.

So what can be done? One bullied boy in Eastern Canada stopped going to school until the school held a rally to raise awareness and support him.

Some schools go beyond the weakly enforced “zero tolerance policy” to create safe spaces and support groups. 

Parents can learn to talk to their kids assertively about school and pay close attention to telltale signs their child is being victimized.

But I think we can do better. As I said on the show, in any other context in our society bullying is assault.

Let’s stop using the “schoolyard bully” language and the rite of passage nonsense it conjures up, and call this cruel, soul crushing behavior what it actually is - “assault”.

Maybe once we give it a serious name we will start treating it seriously.

In a recent letter to the Hamilton Spectator I called out Hamilton council for having a lack of vision for the city, particularly where Light Rail Transit (LRT) is concerned. I have had multiple requests to expand on the letter so here goes:

Just a few months ago I blogged that council has done a few things well of late - such as dealing with difficult issues like area rating.

But those achievements do not translate into a vision for Hamilton.

What is vision? I define it to my corporate clients as the ability to see the light at the end of a tunnel that no one else does, and make others believe in it’s brilliance so they will move towards it.

Hamilton has been in a tunnel for decades. In our podcast last week Marvin Ryder gave perhaps the best historical perspective on the tunnel that I have heard so far. 

What keeps us in the tunnel is our acceptance that it is all we deserve - all we can afford. Acceptance of mediocrity is the polar opposite of vision.

Our Mayor loves this city and is getting it’s work done pretty well. But when he says one thing he stands for is keeping Hamilton “affordable” I shudder. That’s just keeping the tunnel as comfortable as possible - where is the light we can raise our heads and look towards? What will quicken our step and fill us with that famous Hamilton ambition?

All day GO transit? That would be great, but as someone just pointed out to me that keeps Hamiltonians getting to Toronto for work whereas LRT will help build Hamilton for people to stay and work here.

It is also misleading to frame the debate as “if we want a world class city we need LRT” because, having just returned from a business trip to New York City, becoming world class city is not necessarily the light at the end of OUR tunnel.

What we need is a vision that makes Hamilton the best it can be for future generations and LRT is a part of that vision.

For those who would stretch my analogy to say LRT is actually just an expensive, disruptive train coming through the tunnel at us, I would ask them to have more faith in our potential to pay for it and make it work.

And it is not just about the cost, it is about the rewards for our economy, environment, and image for future generations. It is about making Hamilton successful and progressive so that everyone prospers.

That is a vision for Hamilton I can believe in.

Given what we are witnessing in the pro-democracy revolutions across North Africa and elsewhere - where people are giving their lives for the very rights we may take for granted - there is no doubt Canada is one of the best democracies on earth.

But is our democracy under attack from within? I have been disturbed by an insidious theme in this election – one that suggests that debate, access to candidates, and even the election itself is somehow a burden. That the process of discussing ideas and wanting our leaders to be accountable to us (the simple people) to earn another term in office is somehow not practical and is somehow a threat to our momentum and even economic recovery.

It may have started as a clever campaign strategy to get the ruling minority party a majority. But it has become more than that as you can see in this fiery clip.

It has come to a point where some are actually suggesting that participating in debates is non-strategic or even non-essential to the democratic process. Harper famously tried to reduce the dissenting views of the opposition parties to “partisan bickering”. We have been told repeatedly that the only way to stop this laborious election process in the future is to give the Conservatives a majority with unchecked power and that too many questions from the media or more than one televised leader’s debate in either language is time-consuming.

When you take all of these statements together and repeat them across Canada, a campaign strategy for a majority government becomes a troubling narrative that moves us farther away from the democratic principles of Freedom of opinion, speech, press and mass media, General and equal right to vote (one person, one vote), and Good Governance (focus on public interest and absence of corruption).

I’m not suggesting any of our political parties are anti-democratic. I am suggesting that some of the rhetoric of this campaign if unchecked can lead us down a precarious path. 

 No government winning a majority is worth promoting to Canadians that our election process with all its frustrations is anything less than precious.

I know, I know, Harper won the debate. No argument here – he didn’t get defensive, didn’t take the bait, didn’t even break a sweat.

Iggy was nervous, stumbled on his words and seemed to reboot himself throughout. Not the great Harvard debater we were expecting. Even when he made a dent in Harper’s impenetrable veneer he looked down with self doubt. He has to get rid of that nervous lip licking too.

Layton had some good moments like the Iggy attendance expose, but the old lame NDP complaints bogged him down (they are too lame to relist here – trust me you know them). I was reminded of a line from Dickens’s Christmas Carol when he lamented how Harper had changed “You are changed Ebenezer, gold and gain are all that matter to you now!”. And I would be remiss not to mention the yellow complexion – for a man fighting against concerns his health problems are hurting his party’s vitality, he should really have made sure his make-up artist got the tone right. Awful.

And then there is Duceppe, well, he is Duceppe. Punchy, funny, and surreal to watch a separatist argue in a federal debate. Can’t take him seriously in that format and I was raised in Quebec – I care about that province and what the Bloc has to say, so I can be informed enough to protect our national unity. (His god awful 8’0s tie and the piercing-eyes-of-hate didn’t help him either).

So given the decent but unremarkable performances of the opposition, Harper clearly won by not engaging them in their attacks, but instead sticking to his message like crazy glue.

Here is where he did not do himself any favours. While his performance definitely did not hurt him (and I can almost feel the hangovers this morning of elated Harperites) it did not do anything to advance him or address his major negative: 

The impression that he has to TOLERATE the Canadian people’s interference in his efficient operating of the country.

In the debate his decision to keep referring to the parliamentary debate process as ‘bickering’, and his assertion that an election was an interruption to more important things like running the country was disconcerting to say the least. Doesn’t he get that we are watching the debate because we are engaged in the election? That the election matters because every leader must be held accountable? That the cost and time spent on elections pales compared to money being spent on let’s say – fighter jets – and the time is well worth it to preserve our way of life? Who does Harper think Canadians are?

Looking exclusively at the camera to connect with us at home showed a dismissive attitude towards the others and the debate itself. Explaining policy positions like we are all slightly inept didn’t help either.

As a result of the debate I still don’t know who I will honour with my vote. The opposition leaders didn’t impress. And while Stephen Harper didn’t add to his negatives, he did reinforced them.    

For anyone who observes politics, you can likely predict what messages Harper and Ignatieff will use during this election based on the history of how each party approaches issues and voters.

Conservatives will emphasize importance of economic stability and position their issues in the context of a world in conflict (when isn’t the world in conflict?). They use fear of change and the unknown to prevent us from being seduced by uncertain and supposedly expensive progressive ideals.

Liberals on the other hand try to appeal to our aspirations for a better society and the ideals of equality, education for all etc while maintaining they can be fiscally responsible (not tax and spend liberals as the charge goes). They are counting on our desire to move past stable and great, to be even better to each other and the world.

Sure there are nuances to these ‘cynical fear’ vs ‘naïve hope’ narratives each election cycle, but we have seen them played out by the left and right on both sides of the borders so often as to predict them with some accuracy.

So given we know what the messages will be, the key advantage is message control. Controlling the news cycle. Shaping the conversation at the water cooler. Making the opponent’s negatives stick and your best talking point become public truth.

Message control is tricky stuff. Listening to Harper’s kick-off speech after meeting the Governor General and Ignatieff’s response gave a clear signal as to who has the advantage so far.

Harper dismissed the whole contempt of parliament historic charge against his government by whipping up fear about that old ‘liberal coalition with the seperatists’. The media fell right into the trap. He even used the ‘secret agenda’ nonsense the liberals tried to use against him in past elections against the liberals. Messaging genius.

And Ignatieff took the bait hook, line and sinker. He was so far on the defensive about coalitions he barely squeaked out his hope and joy agenda.

The battle for message control quickly took over Twitter with conservatives masterfully tweeting about ‘Count Iggy and his coalition’ while Ignatieff kept wasting his 140 characters defending his position. (You can see my comments to each leader on Twitter @LauraBChattin)

So two days in, Harper is winning the message control game and if this keeps up, the election too.

And if Ignatieff stays this clueless on how he is being out-messaged he will have no one to blame but himself.