The talking heads of the news media tell us that Canadians no longer give a damn about politics. They think it is a yawn. That may be. It might also be that the talking heads are a yawn and they are failing to understand the problem. This blog seems to have the reverse problem. We have built a strong readership of people who seem to be quite knowledgeable of politics and they only fall off when we get onto subjects that are more of personal interest and less political.
We try not to do that too often! Yes, we know that the bloody bitumen is not as exciting as the tales of the Hair but bitumen is not just an environmental issue. It is about where Mr. Harper has been taking this country. Stephen Harper has let Canada’s manufacturing crumble in the East while he built his synthetic oil empire. Now that OPEC has called the tar sands bluff, Stephen Harper has been proved the fool.
Babel-on-the-Bay stats show is that our readership is highest when we are providing reasoned political analysis. People jump on the Morning Line when we publish it on upcoming elections and referenda. Mind you, we have a success record in forecasting elections that many pollsters and news media people envy.
Maybe the problem is that politics in Canada has become something of a blood sport. It has been in the sewer in America since the days of President Richard Nixon. In Canada, it was not the Liberals and New Democrats who took our politics that route. The politics of lies and scurrilous hate advertising is a specialty of Stephen Harper and his friends. They take every unfair advantage and every opportunity to abuse the rules and they hate getting caught. They might be embarrassed by the sycophants they appointed to the Senate but they still brazen it through.
But all politicians are to blame for the inability to reconnect with the voters who feel they have been disenfranchised. They would rather be playing at politics within their party instead of recognizing their party’s failings. They are more interested in power within their party than the need for outreach. Political parties such as the Ontario Progressive Conservatives are so top-down driven that they have allowed their membership to disintegrate and are easily swamped by people buying memberships wholesaled by ethnic groups.
We have allowed politics in Canada to become a closed shop. We are letting people manipulate our parties to their own objectives. And we wonder why the average citizen is not interested?
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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry
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