Our So-called Concern for Democracy

This election was driven, as so many have been, by excessive media concentration and financial resources on the leaders of the parties, not by broad reporting on constituencies, selective or otherwise, across the country or by even significant discussions, with very few exceptions, of party policies. Most stories began with “what are the leaders up to today” leads. Both the contempt issue and the environment disappeared off the radar quickly, for example, except when Iggy brought up the former, and not even Elizabeth May, focused as she was on winning her riding, brought up the latter except incidentally. And it isn't just the media who should be blamed: the parties themselves are responsible for this distortion in our public discourse, for they have all concentrated both air and ground resources on their leaders, and those leaders have incrementally over forty years or so undermined democracy both subtlely and overtly both inside Parliament, as Peter Miliken has implied, and structurally in their Party organizations by creating power hierarchies whereby you do what the leader's brain trust says or you're out. Add to that the well-established illusion that the grassroots has real input power, for most policy conventions are like carnival day for the workers in the field: give them a day of fun and games and they'll go back to work content. And, apparently, even ordinary MPs have little input. An ordinary MP, according to Liberal MP Jim Karygiannis, can't just walk in and have a chat with his or her leader; an appointment has to be made, and of course backbenchers have really never had any significant power.

There is much transformational work that needs to happen for genuine parliamentary democracy to be reinstated and even more to shift the public discourse to broad-based constituency considerations across the county. How likely is change? Given Harper's majority, and the powerlessness all opposition parties in Parliament, not much, and the media, of necessity, will still concentrate coverage on the leaders with the odd side-road story now and them. Enjoy the next four years.

Do attack ads really work?

Many pundits, scribes, and scriveners alike continue to say attack ads work, and several have today suggested that Iggy went down because of the attack ads. Show me some hard evidence, please. I simply don't buy it: you have to be dumber than the proverbial door knob or Big Bobby Clobber not to see through these and any other attack ads. The Harperite base obviously enjoys them, but they're not aimed at that base. They're aimed at the undecided and opposition party voters. Who really watches these except for amusement and maybe to exclaim in mock indignation, "how naughty of them" or, from the base, how "dead on"? Or am I overestimating the average intelligence of Canadians? Perhaps.

Iggy's Rebuke of Harper on Trust

You don't have to be Liberal to appreciate this remark:  it's dead on.  Indeed, it confirms what the director and I suspected during the audition experience with Hair-in-the-Fridge, which was seriously frozen last night,eh? (I can't wait for John Doyle to get back to TO.)  I found the debate appalling:  scripted, canned, vetted, safe  questions -- big media at work again; uninspiring and totally lacking in genuine passion; disturbing in its absence of what should be discussed; entrenching in its to be expected partisan spinning; and an absurd format.   There should be a live audience with real people.  And I wonder how the editorial decisions were made to choose these new TV stars.  The question itself, visual presence, gender?  Who knows since there does not appear to be an intelligible rationale.

No one will change his or her mind after that spectacle unless he or she is out to lunch.  Unfortunately, many are still out, wandering around like zombies,  who may never come back.  We have to find them and bring them back.

Suspicious, Unenthusiastic, Wary

http://bit.ly/dQhA9B

Thomas Walkom in an exploratory walk with Mark Holland around the riding of Ajax-Pickering east of Toronto  found "an electorate that remains suspicious of Ignatieff, unenthusiastic about the May 2 federal election, yet wary of Harper." Rick Alexander, the Harperite candidate, had invited him to travel around the riding, but --wait for it, surprise surprise -- the Harper regime vetoed that idea.  Ajax-Pickering, a suburban riding of Tronna,  is quite different from my own rural riding outside Ottawa,  but the flavour of the responses are not radically different  from what's I've encountered.


Here, over the last few days, as I mentioned yesterday, I've seen a slight rise in support for opposition parties reflecting somewhat  a wariness about Harper and the behaviour of the regime in general.  But   I've also seen widespread suspicions about Ignatieff despite a quality local Liberal candidate, an intelligent women with a marvelous political background. And although I'm for anyone but Harper in essence,  I actually share those suspicions to some extent, principally  because he was anointed the leader of the LPC undemocratically by a Liberal cabal -- a sort of laying on of hands --who placed politics before principle with its own members by not allowing them to vote.    What's that  old cliché?  Oh yeah, one should practice what one preaches or one's credibility is undermined.  This is also a party hard to support, in my mind, for its swift co-operative support for both the Lybian UN initiative without extensive discussion in Parliament and, of course for  the Afghan war, which has led to so many deaths.  Their tempered support for the Tar Sands is equally disturbing, and the absence of a strong privileging position on the environment and,  in particular, on their failure to recognize the urgency for CO2 reductions take them off the table as an option for me.


I've also seen the lack of enthusiasm for another federal election from many of my neighbours,too, one or two of whom are angry at Jack Layton for not compromising with Harper on the budget.  Yeah, right:  let's chastise the opposition for placing principle  before political expediency, though one could argue that there is a political subtext for all three opposition parties in their defeat of the Harper government on a nonconfidence vote of contempt of parliament, a historical decision no one seems to be discussing at all in the campaign. Go figure: the very reason for having an election is merely an excuse, an occasion, an alibi to get out there and campaign on other issues that might win the electorate over.   Even so, my answer:  we may not have wanted an election, but we sure as hell need one.


What I haven't seen is an ounce of movement away from Harper's base. Any gains for the opposition have come from the undecided.  Although that opposition is active here, it is small compared to the Harperite base.  The riding remains hopelessly a small and big C riding, characteristic of so many rural ridings in Eastern Ontario,  filled with apathetic, indifferent potential voters who have, through that political failing, in effect allowed the active base of the Harperites to succeed. The challenge here is not unlike the challenge across Canada: How do we get people, young and old, energized and politically active?  As Elizabeth May has said, "The problem in Canada is not vote splitting, it is vote abandoning."