Machiavelli: Tutoring Canadian Politicians. Photo Credit: Din Merican

“Great men are almost always bad men.”
- Lord Acton

Fortune is a woman, and if you wish to conquer her, you must beat and coerce her. And she always smiles upon the
young man, because he commands her with the greatest audacity.

The Prince
By Niccolo Machiavelli

Because the great English historian had written extensively about liberty and federalism, it should not be surprising that Prime Minister Trudeau had read Lord Acton’s work. And because Machiavelli had written his political books in the early part of the 16th century, it should not be surprising that his work contained sexist and offensive passages such as the foregoing one. What might surprise some readers is the fact that Pierre Trudeau and other prominent political and military leaders have consulted Machiavelli’s books throughout the centuries for their sage advice.

Consider two sets of Canadian political leaders. The first group includes Robert Stanfield, Joe Clark, Kim Campbell, and John Tory. The second group includes Mckenzie King, Maurice Duplessis, Pierre Trudeau, Brian Mulroney, Jean Chretien and Stephen Harper. There are many other politicians who could be placed in one of those two groups, but you may already have a sense of the common denominator of each set.

The first set is composed of nice guys (and a nice gal): people who demonstrate concern and sympathy for the rights and feelings of others. Basically, they are the people you would like as friends or relatives. The second group probably reminds you of your boss (unless of course you work for informedvote.ca. The guys and gals for whom I work are really really nice). This second group is concerned primarily with their own power and success. More concerned about being respected than loved, they are not afraid to assert their rights, and they will wield power by displaying brash confidence or by invoking great fear. They will be very firm with an unruly cabinet or fire a troublesome cabinet minister, they will exaggerate or lie to the public, and they will invoke harsh legislation or prorogue Parliament if necessary.

These descriptions are a bit exaggerated, since individuals are never purely black or white. Furthermore, a tough Prime Minister or Premier may ruffle our rights and democratic traditions, but Canada will remain a democracy and the Prime Minister will never be able to wield dictatorial powers. But you get the picture. Canadian politics is a blood sport, and in order to be a successful politician, you can’t always make nice. The most successful politicians in federal and provincial politics have tended to come from the second group, the group that is not afraid to brutalize fortune in order to seize power and to hold onto power.

Related posts:

1. The Elephant in the Room: How do we Encourage More Political Participation in Canadian Politics and an Informed Vote? This article was sparked by an earlier posting from Jason...
2. Current Democratic System Breeds Corruption in Canadian Politics: Time for a New Economic Ideology My esteemed colleagues here at InformedVote.ca have done an amazing...
3. What’s Wrong With Canadian Politics and a Warm Welcome to my First Blog Post! I am a firm believer that despite everyone’s claims, very...
4. Canadian Politics And The Media These days, Canadian politics is dominated by a surge of...
5. Top 10 Changes that Should be Made to Canadian Politics First of all, I want to thank InformedVote for giving...

Tags: canadian federal politics, lord acton, machiavelli, pierre trudau, stephen harper

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 6th, 2010 at 3:01 pm and is filed under Federal Government, Our Country. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.