Commentary We are conspicuously short of guarantees in a world struggling to recover from the pandemic. It is with fingers crossed that global leaders have adopted economic and health measures to curb the spread of COVID and stave off financial collapse. Each country has its own hurdles to recovery, Canada among them. With a critical federal election underway, leaders need to make their cases clearly and avoid the temptation to make promises they can’t hope to keep. “Spend now and pay later” may be the mantra of politics but there is another, more effective way of steering a country toward prosperity. By prioritizing principle over policy, leaders can underpromise and overdeliver by forthrightly facing the uncertainty of our times. First-Principles Thinking A first principle is a foundational proposition or assumption that stands alone. It has been espoused by some of history’s greatest men, from Aristotle to Thomas Aquinas, whose first …