Stephen Vance, Editor
Being a politics junkie has its downside – especially in presidential election years south of the border. I get sucked in. I log on to The Young Turks (TYT) website to follow every Republican and Democratic debate and town hall. I jump between the TYT website and the MSNBC website and CBS and so on, on primary and caucus nights. For me it’s a break from municipal politics, and it’s part political interest, part entertainment.
This election cycle though, has me frustrated, at times horrified, and it has most certainly reinforced my belief that we do things much better here in Canada.
That said, whenever something crazy is happening to the south of us, I am reminded of an interview I did a few years ago with American Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges, when he suggested that what happens in America doesn’t stay in America, it eventually finds its way to Canada.
“Canada always plays the role that Hungary played in Nazi Europe; it’s never quite as bad, but they replicate many of the disastrous policies that their larger ally perpetrates,” offered Hedges. “Canada has all of the problems that we have [in America], just not with the same severity. The corporate state is global, it’s not just confined in any way to the United States.”
A troubling thought, when you consider the blatant takeover of the American democratic process by big money. The multi-billionaire Koch brothers openly vowing to round up a billion dollars to help elect the right people, Wall Street bankers gripping their claws into candidates with their investments… errr… contributions. A troubling thought, when you consider the hate-fuelled, divisive, head-of-the-pack campaign being run by billionaire Donald Trump on the Republican side of the race to the White House.
If you’re paying close attention, unfortunately it’s pretty scary stuff.
While we certainly don’t have a perfect system here, I much prefer how we Canadians have handled our electoral process. I’m concerned that we’ve slowly allowed more and more third-party advertising into our process, but that said, I think it important for third parties to be able to express their political views and support of political parties and candidates if they so choose, but we definitely need to have solid controls in place to limit that sort of activity.
Compared to the circus we are witnessing in America this year, I think Canada still has its act together. We aren’t yet subject to such antics as toying with people’s ability to vote by placing undue barriers between the citizen and the ballot box. We aren’t seeing the political manipulation of electoral boundaries as our American friends have seen – though some would argue that this has begun here with the realignment and addition of ridings under the previous Conservative government. We don’t have billionaires openly and proudly trying to manipulate the system – not that it isn’t likely happening in some way, but it isn’t brazen yet. Debates between our political leaders are still civil, and we thankfully have yet to have our politicians devolve to the point that they taunt and call names, or encourage physically accosting protestors, or discuss the size of their, well, you know…
How far behind could a dose of such things be for us here in Canada?
Do we have a racist, misogynist, borderline fascist billionaire waiting in the wings hoping to rile people into a hate-fuelled frenzy?
I’d like to think not, and not to equate the two necessarily, but did anyone notice the huge support given to a certain mayor in this province not that long ago, even after drunken stupors, racist comments, sexist comments, vulgar comments, and crack smoking videos? If not for a sudden and urgent medical issue, he might very well have been re-elected as mayor of the largest city in this nation. As it is, he was re-elected as a member of council – a different scale perhaps, and different issues perhaps, but how far different is the former mayor of Toronto from the buffoon currently leading the Republican pack in America?
It’s fairly easy to scoff at what happens in America. It’s fairly easy to be a little smug in feeling that we are above the side-show antics and unethical political strategies. It’s fairly easy to feel confidence that our electoral process is protected and sacred.
Americans used to think the same of their own electoral process. Americans used to have political candidates that at the very least acted with a certain level of decorum. Americans used to believe that their vote, and only their vote elected their leaders.
Are things perfect here? Of course not. Some would argue that our first past the post system isn’t working very well for smaller parties who routinely earn far more of the popular vote than their seats in legislatures would suggest, but we’ve got a good thing going here let’s improve upon it where we can, but most of all, let’s make sure we protect it.
