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By any set of metrics — pure star power, experience, policy knowledge, performance skills, whatever — it’s hard to imagine a time in provincial history when we had three leaders at the same time who were as good as these three.

Do we have the same quality of leadership at Queen’s Park today? Without casting any aspersions on the people who have the guts to put their names on a ballot and stand for office, it’s hard to argue that we do. Again, let me emphasize, I’m in no way disrespecting the contributions of any of the protagonists in the legislature today. But the fact is, the Liberals are in the midst of a leadership vacuum. The NDP’s Marit Stiles won the right to be the official opposition leader in two straight elections (Lewis won that job only once), but I suspect even she would tell you she doesn’t quite measure up to Lewis’ brilliance, eloquence or abilities to hold the government of the day to account.

And what about Premier Doug Ford? It’s true, he’s won three straight majority governments (a feat not even Davis achieved). But I don’t hear too many provincial observers saying that Ford has yet surpassed Davis’ record on being a prudent spender, improving the education system, or matching the former premier’s achievements on national unity. While Ford has demonstrated some solid chops on playing Ontario’s traditional role of promoting national unity, I think it’s fair to say he’s got some distance to go before he can claim to match Davis’ record, which included playing the indispensable role of finding common ground between prime minister Pierre Trudeau and the Gang of Eight premiers, who opposed the repatriation of the Constitution with a Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Davis very much helped get that done in 1982.

Again, no disrespect intended, but does anyone think 50 years from now, historians will give the current crop of leaders superior grades to the cast of characters we had 50 years ago?

Let me fess up to the fact that there may be a bit of nostalgia at play here. What we witnessed in our formative years may be remembered as just a little more special than what we’re watching now, during our more jaded, older stages of life.

But having talked to hundreds of people about this over the decades, I suspect there’s a lot more than that going on. Half a century ago, if you were a person of some skill and ability and felt like making a contribution to your city, province, or country, politics was a respected avenue for that pursuit. There were very few attempts to practice the politics of personal destruction, where the other side are not merely opponents, but evildoers who need destroying. In fact, when Davis’ predecessor John Robarts was premier, he took the MPPs from all parties on a train ride to northern Ontario so they could get to know each other better. When they returned, they found they just couldn’t be so vicious to their opponents, who’d been showing them pictures of their children and grandchildren for the previous week. The place was simply more collegial.

Today, party operatives whose job it is to find good candidates say their task has never been tougher. People with skill and ability want nothing to do with politics. Generally speaking, the pay stinks, many can do far better in business or other lines of work, and the personal price of a political life is too high. In many cases, security around our politicians has become necessarily oppressive, protesters now show up at their homes, harass their family members, and attack them relentlessly on social media.

Who would want this life? It’s no wonder most of the best people want to avoid it like the plague.

I’d love to leave this on an encouraging note, with a hope that politics could become less toxic, more collegial and attract people who currently wouldn’t want to be within 100 miles of any of it. But there’s not much about our times that suggests that’s possible.

I know this: we’ll never get more talented, more accomplished, or a greater variety of people to consider running for office if the game remains as vicious as it too often is. If so, we all lose out.