There was a time when people simply trusted their governments with the really big decisions. Those were times when people also had little choice or option. But this isn’t so much the case these days, Mr Editor. In fact, those “olden” days are long gone — and rightly so.

It isn’t just their votes that people want to exercise. It is also their right to know and their right to have an opinion and to express it. Advances in technology have also made the dissemination of information that much easier, instant even, and the advances are here to stay.

The internet has opened opportunities to engage voters who by and large are better informed, and certainly more opinionated, and who are far more accessible than ever before.

But there is also one other significant factor at play here: these are also tougher economic times for a lot of people, not just here in Bermuda but around the globe. Some are anxious, some are angry, some are both, and almost all of them are concerned for their future and that of their children.

This can colour how they see things playing out. To make the point, I lift a line from a retired politician in Canada, Bob Rae, who was until retirement the interim leader of the Liberal Party. He has just published a book, What’s Happened to Politics?, and the title pretty well tells you all you need to know about the subject matter: themes from past and future columns, huh? (I can also hear you now: what is it with these guys who write about what’s wrong once they’re out? But I digress)

Mr Rae was also a former premier of the province of Ontario, whose socialist New Democratic Party (NDP) won the government back in 1990 in the teeth of a recession and he remembers to this day what one of his Cabinet ministers reminded his colleagues around the table back then: the water buffalo start looking at each other differently when there’s no water.

While we may not be familiar with water buffalo in Bermuda, we get the point. It is not just a case of finding out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out (with suitable apologies to Warren Buffett).

As the NDP found out, much to its electoral chagrin (it lost the next election), turning around an economy is no easy task. Economic inequality is a difficult nut to crack, too, at the best of times, which these times clearly are not.

But try we must. So the cry goes forth: let’s work together. Put aside differences and let’s all row in the same direction. If only. Sure, and if pigs had wings, they would fly, as Mother used to say, but they make damn unlikely birds.

Still, we have within our grasp the potential to turn things around, but it will require a whole new approach to government. The same old, same old begets the same old, same old — or worse.

One of the biggest complaints is that there is altogether too much politics or politicking and without reference to the facts. But whose facts?

There also happens to be more than one means to ferret out “facts”, and what we need to do — and can do — is develop and enhance the means by which the facts can become a part of our political discourse.

I am not talking about a need for more ministerial statements or lengthier ministerial briefs or more press conferences or more paid-TV appearances. They can continue, and they will, but what we really need more of are opportunities to challenge, to test and to probe the decisions of our government. This means having access not just to those who make the decisions, but to those who are responsible for the work on which those decisions were based and, of course, to those who will be responsible for implementing those decisions.

This is where parliamentary committees come in. Back benchers, Opposition and Government, get to fulfil the role they are meant to play on our behalf as members of the Legislature and, by keeping under close and constant scrutiny what’s being done and spent, hold our government to account. Public hearings mean voters get to listen in and, where invited, make representations.

Like me, I expect you can think of any number of projects that merit examination, such as, for example:

• This proposed PPP for a new airport; and all of the documentation that has preceded this project. Or not

• The St George’s hotel; ditto.

• King Edward VII Memorial Hospital’s new Acute Care Wing; long overdue.

• Bermuda Tourism Authority; who will get the opportunity to explain under questioning what it is it thinks that we do not understand about its work, the salaries and the bonuses, all to achieve a better, well, understanding

• Those “allegations”; about which the court has made no determination, but about which there are any number of unanswered questions arising, which deserve to be asked, and answered, in the sunshine of public scrutiny

Our Legislature should not simply be confined to orchestrated cheerleading on the one hand or constant carping on the other. There is a lot of hard work that can be done and should be done between the two extremes. The opportunity, the resources and the encouragement to move in this direction could go some way to not only improving our political discourse and changing the political culture, but building confidence and, yes Mr Editor, restoring trust.

P.S. Happy Labour Day weekend everyone. May you never ever labour in vain.