To start with let me say that it took me a while to come up with this column, especially since it is not directly related to real estate. The scandals and controversies dominating our news feed, complete with accusations of lying, fake news and corruption undermine our ability to not only trust our politicians but to trust each other. When the leader of the free world thinks it’s okay to lie then the average citizen starts to think it is okay as well. Not only is this a problem to know what to believe in the news but it undermines our ability to trust one another in our daily lives and in business as well. This phenomenon needs to stop before all trust is gone.
Cries of “fake news” aside we do not live in a “post-truth” world, not in the Middle East not in Europe, not in the US, not in Russia and most importantly to us not in Canada. We do however live in a world of lies. Let’s face it, we have always lived in a world of lies. Lies are and have always been part of life. We all know it is immoral, in some cases illegal and in every religion forbidden. We do our best to teach our children not to lie and we like to believe most people are truthful most of the time. Still, from time to time it happens to all of us, we lie. Most of the time we forgive ourselves and when we get caught we ask for forgiveness. Given we live in a mostly honest world, to be named a liar is still a big burden in our daily life. If you lie in business you will be punished by the court and if you lie at work you most likely will lose your job. That is all as it should be, as the foundation of our society is built on honesty and consequences for the dishonest.
Unfortunately, this foundation is under attack from the highest to the lowest level. When the leader of the free world thinks, it is okay to lie and when caught either speaks of “alternative facts” or cries “fake news” our society has a problem. This problem is compounded when these lies have no consequences. In Canada, our Minister of Defense lied about his role as a commander in Afghanistan. He lost the trust of his soldiers, officers, and many Canadians by doing so but he is still Minister of Defense. Last year in Vancouver there was a group of Realtors who increased their own profit by lying to their clients about property values helping to spur on the overheated market. The result, the real estate industry got punished by the Premier with the Foreign Buyer tax! The Realtors who lied received no direct punishment. Even pristine Harrison is not immune where certain individuals regularly put lies about Council, Mayor and other people in HHS on Facebook, again without consequences.
Why am I pointing all of this out here? It is my strong conviction that our free society will not remain free if we allow these lies to go on without consequences. Our Children and Grandchildren are watching how we deal with this evolving trend. We cannot and must not let them believe that lying has no consequences. If we think this carefully through, the end result will the loss of our free and open society. If truth and lie can be used interchangeably with the same value, our freedom will be lost.
Canada is celebrating 150 years of the “True North Strong and Free this year. Let’s all work together, that the values our grandparents and grant grandparents used to build this beautiful country will lead us to another successful 150 years of freedom and peace. Take a stand!