Canada needs a New Year's resolution on political speech. Lake Superior State University in Michigan has released a list of 15 words and phrases it wants to see "banished from the Queen's English for misuse, overuse and general uselessness." It includes some tropes familiar from U.S. politics in the past year: "toxic assets," "shovel-ready" and "teachable moment." Canadian public life, too, brims with terms that ought to be cast aside in 2010.
Take "going forward or "moving forward" These are phrases that can convey an action that is, or will soon be, under way (akin to "going ahead" or "proceeding"; for example, "The project, after much delay, is going forward"). Much of the time, they are needless addition, expressing a passive but vacant hope that something will happen.
Countless officials have promised, "We will review this policy going forward." Many alternatives would better describe a government's intention: "We will review this policy soon," "We are always reviewing this policy," or (and this would be a refreshing admission) "We have absolutely no intention of reviewing this policy."
Provincial politicians and business leaders are especially dependent on this crutch, or its cousin "as we go/move forward." Ontario politicians have used "going forward" in the Legislative Assembly 385 times in the last ten years, and Saskatchewan MLAs have done so 19 times in the most recent session.
National examples abound. Somehow, the federal government's annual budget - a perfectly serviceable term that is, by definition, the government's annual plan for the economy and public finances - has become Canada's Economic Action Plan. This marketing is a smokescreen; it is time to bring back the budget. Indeed, the usefulness of a term propagated by a government is inversely proportional to the number of capital letters it contains.
Federal opposition leaders have already paid the price for their crimes against language. Michael Ignatieff's placement of the government "on probation" was clever, but empty; when he "revoked" the probation, the government suffered no ill consequence. Jack Layton got rid of his omnipresent "kitchen table" last year after not enough Canadians joined him there by voting for his party. (On the other hand, some language habits, newly acquired, are apparently harder to drop: Mr. Ignatieff keeps insistin' that in his big Canada, he will not be needin' any Gs.)
Finally, two words ought to be retired, not because they have been misused, but rather because they connote the misuse of government power. Here's to a quick exit for "redacted" and "prorogue" from the Canadian vocabulary in the coming year.