Whose fault is it anyway?

Posted by admin on Nov 5, 2008 in Issues & Ideas | 0 comments

Voting Canadians smack their lips in disbelief at the 10 million who declined to exercise their right this election, filling the air with platitudes like, “if they had all voted for someone, things could have turned out differently” or “if they don’t care enough to vote, then they shouldn’t complain.” I voted, but I’m not shocked that our voter turnout was the lowest it has ever been.

There have been a lot of promises going around for a long time: to curb homelessness, to “win” the war against terrorism and to put more money into the pockets of Canadians so they are bound to spend more time with their kids, saving them from juvenile delinquency and a life of drug crimes.

But in society’s shadows it’s a different realm. There are homeless people being shuffled around like checker pieces to keep them out of sight, and minimum wage workers getting steam-rolled by an inability to earn enough money to get out of the poverty bracket. Environmentalists despair over Ottawa’s stance on multiple issues and researchers are disappointed that politicians and corporations won’t acknowledge their studies. Aboriginal chiefs this year were imprisoned for demonstrating against the construction of nuclear power plants proximal to their reserves. On the home front, Average Joe Canuck is suspicious of the government’s complicity in high gas prices.

We tell people that if they want to change the world, they have to get active and do something. That’s easy for us to say: we have an education, money, connections, vehicles and impressive attire. But you know what? I’d wager that some of the 10 million have already tried. Some have been activists. Many have taken up lawsuits. A number have even served time for civil disobedience. Tree huggers, squatters and freedom fighters – they’ve seen more, been more and done more.

Nothing changed. Parties came and went, and the net result was the same. Same sterile bureaucracy, same inane paperwork, same impersonal condolences from political offices, but still no change in the well being of people and ideals they cared for. Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice…

It doesn’t help to tell someone they just need to keep trying when they’ve experienced disappointment again and again. When 10 million Canadian adults refuse to vote, there’s apathy at work for sure, but beyond that is a startling indicator that the problem is much bigger than the individual. In this case, we don’t need to fix our population – we need to fix the system. The optimists, the young or the naïve can take another shot at disappointment. But a lot of people have had their run and they’ve wised up. We complain about them, but they have complaints of their own.

The number of voting Canadians without the representation they want because of the way our archaic first-past-the-post system is constructed is astounding. No system is perfect, one may argue. I submit that this one has much room for improvement in making votes more meaningful. Change needs to be sparked from someone on the inside, yet even though they all state democratic reform in their platforms, the four governing parties seem happy with the status quo. Let me tell you who isn’t: this time around 940,000 voters supporting the Green Party sent no MPs to Parliament, setting a new record for the most votes cast for any party that gained no representation. By comparison, 813,000 Conservative voters in Alberta alone were able to elect 27 MPs. However, a quarter-million Conservative voters in Toronto could elect no one, nor did Conservative voters in Montreal. The NDP attracted 1.1 million more votes than the Bloc, but the voting system gave the Bloc 50 seats and the NDP 37.
Stupid apathetic masses: it’s all their fault.