Toronto Star writer Thomas Walkom has been an icon for progressives in Canada for many years. If there is a left-of-centre stance possible on an issue, Tom will most often take it. Readers expect it of him. Those readers must have felt let down when they read his take on Bill C-23—the one the Tories call a fair Elections Act. Tom does not think passing the bill will be the end of civilization as we know it.
Tom points out that last time some election changes were rammed through the House over opposition objections, it was the Liberals doing the ramming. The objections at that time were mostly over banning third party advertising. Mind you the Supreme Court agreed to the ban and judging by the third-party TV commercials voters saw in the last provincial election in Ontario, we should also ban them provincially.
But the current election bill has far more serious problems. This bill blatantly serves Conservative fund-raising activities and discourages the votes of many who might be expected to vote against them. The bill denies the Chief Electoral Officer responsibility for promoting voting and also denies this independent authority the powers to enforce the rules. So far, the government has found no non-partisan authority that will agree to what they are proposing.
But Walkom seems to think that the 61 per cent turn-out of voters in the last election is a more serious problem. He wants more people to vote when it is obvious that many are not interested. Why he wants people to vote if they do not care makes very little sense.
For too long we have been saying it does not matter how you vote, just vote. All that time, we should have been saying, ‘stop, think and then vote.’ Maybe that is what is wrong in this country; we might just have too many voters who do not know what they are doing.
The truth is that what is turning off the voters is politicians who fail to engage them in the political process. Our political parties are not going to the schools to tell students about their parties and the fun of getting involved. We are letting universities and community colleges bar political activity on campus. Parties send out crap and call it political literature. They run dunces for office who only do what their parties tell them to do.
And then there is the news media. This is the greatest barrier of all to citizens getting involved in the political process. The media ignore the nebbishes who are chosen by their party leaders to run for office. They ignore the lack of democracy in the parties. Hell, when it comes to the political process in this country, the news media have not got a clue.
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Copyright 2014 © Peter Lowry
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