With the arrival of a new year, there’s always a new crop of resolutions. Like ripened crops, new year’s resolutions begin with a seed, an idea about how you can change yourself for the better. You mull over your options - in other words, the seed germinates - such as getting in shape. You go out and get a gym membership and start going. Then as the bud pokes through the ground and grows into a full-sized crop, you realize the harvest is approaching.

Just as a farmer finishes running his/her combine over the last tract of crops and heads for the barn, signaling the end of another growing season, you retreat from the elliptical machine to your couch ready to return the earth, or your body, to its ‘natural’ state. But instead of using a combine, my tools of the trade are cheese (cheese slices, preferably processed, cheese sticks, cheese strings, melted cheese, grilled cheese, and really anything that is fried with cheese) and a deft and supple wrist for tilting back a pint without moving the rest of my torso.

Now my new year’s resolution to get in shape - other than round that is - is really insignificant to the resolution of our political class to be more civil. It’s likely, or at least probable, that all the Christmas cheer and civility toted around the country by the politicians over their month-long holiday will evaporate within one minute of the first disagreement.       

I think that most people hope that the house of commons will be civil, but I don’t think most people expect it. I also think that most people hope for truthful politicians, but it’s not something we expect. That all being said, we should expect some consistency. Truth and civility are relative concepts that can’t really be measured by the public. Consistency in decision-making is something the public can measure and quantify and is therefore something we should expect from out political leaders. 

Consistency might build some credibility, which is profoundly lacking today. However, there is both positive and negative consistency. The conservatives have consistently been adept carpetbaggers and neglectful in terms of substance. This is negative consistency. 

For instance, Harper, the trained economist, didn’t see a crisis coming and touted a ‘deficits are stupid’ mantra during the last election. Now we are facing a possible $30 billion deficit. Harper had the house of commons declare the Quebecois a ‘nation’ and then turned around and slapped Quebecers with all the rhetoric about the ‘separatists’ and a ‘deal with the devil’ in regards to the coalition. His actions are more white undershirt than blue fuzzy sweater. 

The liberals are consistently elitist, no more so than today, with a leader, Iggy, whose leadership accession rested on the proposition that he’s smart and furrows his brow better than most - for the most part. Not to mention the fact that he’s essentially disconnected from rural Canada, a place where the liberals have suffered more and more defeat. 

Then there’s the NDP under Layton, who’s push-broom mustache is atwitter at the possibility that he’ll be part of any government. You begin to wonder if he’s delusional, given that in the last election he was “applying for the job of Prime Minister.” Thomas Mulcair seems a far more credible candidate that would harken back to the days of the respectable Ed Broadbent at the helm of Canada’s conscience. 

As for the Greens and the Bloc, these parties are essentially parochial in nature, garnering protest votes based on distinct issues or geography. Although I must say it was incredibly refreshing to see Elizabeth May making a commendable challenge to the old boys club. 

So as MPs visit their constituencies over the next few weeks, pursed lips puckered for posterior peckings, don’t ask them to be civil or truthful for their new year’s resolutions, ask them to be positively consistent. ‘Truthiness’, to use Stephen Colbert’s word, and civility will be gone by February and I’ll be back to deep-frying cheese.