We all struggle with metaphors to explain politics but the recent Toronto Star effort by Susan Delacourt of the paper’s Ottawa Bureau missed by a mile. She should leave business analogies to Star Business writer David Olive. To try to explain the recent federal by-elections in business terms seems to be a stretch too far.
Politics fails us when it is addressed as a business. The public are not consumers of politics as much as they are the owners. They have proprietary rights. Believe it or not, candidates for election are actually applying to them for the job. Involving the public in politics is always a serious challenge. And when you do involve them, watch out.
But nobody needs to get excited about by-elections. What would be the point? They are focussed in the individual electoral district. They are rarely serious. All you usually win is bragging rights. And braggadocio does not take you very far in politics.
Take the recent four by-elections:
Did anyone, for one minute, think that the voting in two Alberta ridings would produce any surprise results? Prime Minister Harper could have just appointed the two new MPs and few in the electoral districts would have noticed. Alberta is problematically predictable. There is no business case here. So there was a low turnout. Who cares?
Everything was also normal in Toronto’s Scarborough-Agincourt and the Liberal candidate rode the well greased skids into parliament. The only thing of interest was the Conservative Party’s testing their attack advertising on Justin Trudeau. Teflon Trudeau helped increase the Liberal vote percentage in an already Liberal dominated riding.
The only interesting race of the four was in Toronto’s Trinity-Spadina. By-elections are a time when you can make your mistakes and Justin Trudeau certainly did lots of that. And despite his doing everything wrong, his candidate still won. The only rebuke in the vote result was of the previous New Democrat MP who left the voters for a run at city hall.
But at the same time, Trudeau broke his word to his party and interfered in the nomination process. He picked a candidate with better New Democrat credentials than Liberal. He did not listen to the party. He acted autocratic and ignorant.
If Trinity-Spadina was a test market, all it proved was that the leader can be wrong and win. He would be well advised not to be so pig-headed next year. General elections are serious affairs.
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Copyright 2014 © Peter Lowry
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