I want my representatives to be thoughtful and engaged and to treat the people who they work with, whether on their own political side of the fence or not, with respect and in a spirit of working for the common good. This is the dream I have for our political system.

If this is the system I imagine then this is the way I should behave when I engage in a political or any other kind of discourse. In other word live the change you want to see. I have not done this in the last week or so. In fact I would say that I have been the exact opposite. After watching the provincial candidate’s debates last Thursday on our local Rogers cable I started firing off a twitter stream dismissing the two PC candidates Nancy and Cheryl. The problem is this is that by doing this I am not living the change I want to see and in fact am acting like those politicians and pundits that I most want to see this way of behaving in.

I can imagine a system where the candidates and parties respect their electorate and treat their fellow human beings on the other side of the bench with dignity and respect. I believe whole heartedly in vigorous debate and testing the merit of ideas but I do not agree with name calling and cheap political stunts. By firing of quick cheap shots over twitter I began acting like that which I most dislike.

We are now in the midst of one of the most important processes we have in our country, the process of choosing who will lead us and who will make decisions on our behalf for our collective benefit and sadly many times I do not see that change I most want to see. So I must join the efforts of some other who behave this way and help to bring about the civil society I long for.

So To Nancy Branscombe and to Cheryl Miller I offer my most sincere apologies for the way in which I have callously thrown around remarks on twitter. I disagree with many of your party’s policies but that does not mean I should act like a braying ass and I hope that you will call me on it if I start too.

To the rest of you I ask you to join with me and many others to create the place in which we most want to live. I’m asking you to join the civil society.

Sean Quigley

@sqedmonton on twitter