All governments wear out their welcome. Try to think of ways to slow down that process. Talking to people as if they were adults is a start

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In the New Testament, St. Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians is now less famous for its doctrinal direction to disputing Christian factions in the Greek city of Corinth than for the famous phrase “for now we see through a glass, darkly.” Seeing through a glass darkly is what political commentators have been trying to do since the voters of Toronto-St. Paul’s sent their epistle (or, more accurately, epistle-off) to the federal Liberals in last week’s federal byelection.

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It’s never easy to know what “the voters” are “saying” in an election. Liberal candidate Leslie Church got 14,965 votes, which suggests almost 15,000 Torontonians are OK with how the Liberal-NDP pact is managing things — at least compared to the alternatives. That’s way down from the 26,249 votes Carolyn Bennett got in 2021, but Conservative Don Stewart’s 15,565 votes were only 1,978 more than Stephanie Osadchuk’s result in 2021. Any conversions in a riding that has been barren ground for Tories since the 1980s are important, but there’s still missionary work to do.

The crucial fact in the St. Paul’s result is that 17,316 fewer people voted than in 2021. How these people who couldn’t be bothered to vote last........

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