Our very own Political Philanthropist

I have waited a few days before posting anything about Ken, because I am pleased in the end with Stephane as our Leader. But, I cannot say enough about Ken Dryden's approach to politics, which is different from anything else that I have seen in a very good way.

Last week I protested that silly article out of the UK comparing Ignatieff to a 'philosopher king'. The author got it wrong - Ken Dryden is much more in line with those characteristics as described by the ancient and great political philosopher.

Stated simply and as a condition of functional democracy, Plato needed representatives who would innately act on behalf of the 'collective interest' rather than their own 'self interest'. Only those who were enlightened were capable of behaving this way, and this is what Plato wrote was central to functional and pure representative democracies.

This is where modern democracy breaks down and why western and Canadian governments rely on external mechanisms of accountability, such as parliament (an adversarial one) and the Auditor General. However, these institutions are not adequate in making effective the functioning of political systems without the risk of scandal.

Nothing can even compare to Plato's vision, even if modern ones are still called democracies. What we have instead perhaps is the best of many bad form of government (except for Harper's, which lags much farther behind).

After having observed number 29 make his political decisions over the last few months from a sort of "side car" view, I see what doing politics differently is all about. This great man did not enter politics or seek the leadership because he is ambitious. He is not involved because he wants to exert further influence because of his ego. Nor is he doing it for his own gain.

Ken Dryden is involved in politics because he believes in sincerely in making this country better for all Canadians. His Big Canada is all about making Canada stronger by making its component parts stronger. As Pierre Trudeau adopted official bilingualism across Canada as a means to unify and identify, Ken's vision does the same, without the backlash.

The Liberal party is very lucky to have this man sitting in the front row in the House, one seat away from our new Liberal leader.

He was a hero of mine when I was a boy and now he is even more so.

Way to go Ken!