I was struck by two significant announcements yesterday.
First, federal Conservative Opposition leader Andrew Scheer announced after meeting with his caucus today that he will be embarking on a cross-country “listening tour” to hear from party members across Canada.
Second, Rod Phillips, the provincial Minister of Finance announced that the Ontario government will be changing course and walking back some of its proposed cuts. In his remarks, Phillips used the word “listening” multiple times. Phillips told reporters “We listened to Ontarians, we listened to what they thought was working well in the plan that we had, and we listened as well to the concerns that they had.”
One CBC-Radio 1 reporter referred to this kind of politics as the “politics of listening.”
Interestingly, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has indicated that he will be meeting with opposition leaders to determine whether they can find common ground after adding his own fuel to this incredibly acrimonious federal election.
Political leaders and elected politicians, across all levels of government, are elected to serve. And service, by definition, is the act of helping or doing work for someone. The most basic way to think about service is to imagine walking into a store and being asked “how can I help you?” Good service is enabled by good listening.
In this past federal election, I heard from many Canadians who didn’t feel like they were being heard nor served. Despite media and public outcry about the nastiness of the campaigns, the mudslinging continued. And, despite climate change being identified as major priority of Canadians, some of the political parties did not adjust their policies to reflect that priority.
As a mediator, it’s a refreshing change of tact to hear that politicians may now be interested in listening to the communities they serve and might actually start listening to each other. It’s also encouraging to hear that our federal minority government is obliged to negotiate areas of common interest.
A successful negotiation is fundamentally about two sides listening to one another and finding common ground.
Harvard scholar, author and international mediator William (Bill) Ury, reminds us that true listening is not about listening to prepare a reply – it’s about listening to understand. It’s also about listening from another person’s frame of reference and perspective and finding interests in common.
Ury also talks about what he calls ‘the third side’ in a negotiation. The ‘third side’ is the community which has the ability to influence the disputing parties. In the case of Canadian politics, one can argue that we, Canadians, are the third side. We have an opportunity to support collaboration by our elected leaders. We can endorse unity over division. We can and should support a listening to understand agenda.
Elissa Hines Reimer is a Waterloo-based mediator and lawyer. Prior to re-configuring her life to focus on conflict resolution, she spent seven years investigating and prosecuting international crimes in The Hague and two years as an Assistant Crown Attorney. Before that, she spent a decade in the federal public service in Ottawa building partnerships and engaging stakeholders across the country in the health research sector.