You choose someone to represent you. You pay them a basic salary of $157,000 a year, plus free travel to and from work and a seemingly limitless expense account. They spend by far the majority of their time and a lot of your money trying to convince you to choose them again. The question remains, what are they doing for you?
To be fair though, it is something of a joke when a voter asks why politicians treat them as children. It is because, in some ways, we are. First of all, only about two out of three eligible Canadian voters bother to vote in federal elections. Those who do vote often vote for this politician or that for all the wrong reasons. Many vote for a political party because they always vote for that party. There are those who vote for a specific party leader without caring who the local candidate might be. The outcome of the election in any one electoral district usually comes down to less than ten per cent of voters who take the trouble to hear or read about the candidates, assess their possible contribution to the nation’s business and cast a considered vote.
What is the least understandable are the voters who feel strongly about an issue and yet never bother to find out where the candidates stand on that issue. That is how strong advocates of womens’ rights end up with a right-to-life Member of Parliament. They never thought to ask. They often get a shock when there is a free vote in the House of Commons. The Member votes without the leader saying how they are to vote.
After all, you are letting the leader of the party choose the candidate in your district. That is not only backward but the facts are that the party leader can hardly choose as well as people on the scene. The party leader’s interest is to have a Member of Parliament who will not rock the boat, who will do as told, will be there to vote as told, when required. It is not in the leader’s interest to have a Member of Parliament who has strong feelings on any issues. The leader will tell him or her what to feel strongly about, and when.
After all, you can hardly count on the party organization in the electoral district. It is highly unlikely that the strongest party organization will be equal to more than one per cent of the local voters. Most of these organizations are nothing but a shadow executive put in place by the local member or last candidate. That used to be different but when party leaders took over the selection of candidates, there was no particular need for strong electoral district associations.
Thankfully there are exceptions to that. There is almost an ebb and flow to the relative strength of these organizations. A determined opponent and a weak sitting member can be a formula for a heavy organizational effort. Electoral district associations have become greatly strengthened machines when built by a determined organizer. Then, once the need is no longer there, the organization gradually falls off to a token executive.
The one thing we can be sure of is that if the electoral district had the final say in choosing its candidate and could really influence party policy and could recall Member’s who were not responsive to their voters, it would be different. And you know what: it would also be democratic!
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