Maybe Canadians Don't Want to Live in a Democracy

In writing a scathing article that comes out and accuses the Conservative Government of having lied to Parliament and then to the Canadian people with regard to the costs of procuring the F-35 jet fighters, Andrew Coyne ends his piece with an interesting observation: "it is about whether we live in a functioning Parliamentary democracy, or want to."

Well, elsewhere people would be morally outraged that an election was first precipitated and then fought on the basis of the government willfully withholding information concerning the largest purchase ever.

Not so in Canada.

In fact, the support for the Conservatives in the polls has hardly budged, which indicates to me that Canadians are profoundly disinterested in the manner in which they are governed. They would rather watch hockey.

After all, democracy requires engaged citizens who keep themselves informed and are prepared to hold their elected representatives accountable for their actions.

But this requires concerted effort and Canadians are notoriously lazy.

As long as we are left alone to lead our little lives, we don't care about how we are governed.

Go Leafs Go!

Millennials Are Changing the Face of Canadian Politics

Change the manner in which information flows and the power structures will soon follow.

Politics are changing in this country and for once it’s not because of the blasted baby boomers, although they have played a hand in bringing about the change because it is their offspring that is changing the face of Canada.

Unlike their parents, who are often technologically challenged, the Millennials have grown up with the Internet, and it is unquestionably an integral part of their social networks.

Mom and dad, on the other hand, grew up watching broadcast television, never ever fully realizing that they were the product being offered up to powers that controlled a consumer culture that effectively co-opted the counter culture of the sixties and repackaged it by integrating their values into creative marketing campaigns.

Yet kids are extremely hip to the follies of their parents.

The Millennials have taken the progressive elements of the baby boomer zeitgeist and stripped it of its crass conspicuous consumption.  This is not to say that the yuppie strain has been eradicated, but its effect has been sufficiently muted so the progressive tendencies of this generation stand out.

Remember this is the generation that elected Obama.  This the generation that created the huge wave in Quebec that brought the New Democratic Party to the status of official opposition, and in my opinion will elect the NDP in 2015.

It’s simply a question of cohort replacement.  As each year passes, they become a larger percentage of the electorate and they are much more politicized than their slacker predecessors, generation X.  At the same time, the older folk, who had the fear of God forced upon them, are dying off, taking with them the appeal of Christian identity politics and an overzealous respect for authority.

This is the first post-war generation that cannot be controlled by traditional broadcast media. 

It’s not that they have tuned out; they have switched platforms and, as a result, have gained collective control of what passes for communications.  For instance, the opinions expressed in their social networks carry much more weight than those heard on talk radio, or expressed by political pundits on television, or to be found in the op-ed pieces in newspapers.

Just as the industrial revolution ushered in a time of great social transformation, so will the digital information revolution, and no, it won’t be televised, but you can follow it on the web. 

Canada's Parliamentary Democracy in Tatters: A Nation of Disgruntled Democrats?

With this week's publication of the Auditor General's Report that shed light upon how the present government misled Parliament and the public with regard to the cost of procuring the F-35 fighter jets, the question that needs to be answered is whether Canadians have reached the tipping point in their belief about the legitimacy of their current system of governance.

For people like me that contest the constitutionality of the first-past-the-post voting method before the courts, our current system is far from being democratic.  The majority of votes are ineffective and thus discarded and, as a result, a party with less than the majority support of the electorate goes on to rule as if it had a majority.  Minority rule is profoundly undemocratic.

However, the majority of Canadians are not really concerned with whether or not they truly are engaged in self government.  As long as they can lead their little lives without too much inconvenience, the glaring irregularities that arise from time to time are just part of the political process.

Is this instance of a manifestation of a dysfunctional system of governance any different?

At first glance, the F-35 scandal demonstrates that Parliamentary Democracy no longer works.  Bureaucrats at the Department of Defense goaded by defense industry contractors misled the Defense Minister, who shows no signs of believing in ministerial responsibility, about the cost of the procurement. 

Furthermore, the big lie was never corrected in due process. 

The government was found to be in contempt of Parliament for withholding information about the real costs of replacing our aging jet fighters.  Parliament was dissolved.  A general election ensued.  The big lie was perpetuated during the electoral campaign and the Conservatives were returned to power, this time with a majority of seats despite the fact that they garnered only 38% of the popular vote.

This is not how the system should function.  Willful deceit should not carry the day.

So, I imagine a great number of Canadians are now experiencing cognitive dissonance with regard to the legitimacy of our political system.  It will remain to be seen whether this latest instance of dysfunction is enough to enable them to make the leap so they no longer feel that they are obliged to hang onto the status quo. 

Or, perhaps we will witness yet another round of motivated reasoning, otherwise known as rationalization, and this latest scandal will be written off as another case of same old, same old, let’s move on.

The discreet charm of the intelligent idiots.

Living in the Age of Stupid

I know that many before me have felt that they live during times in which their fellow man's limited intelligence rules the day, much to their chagrin. I can imagine how learned people felt in Europe during two thousand years of endless war and carnage, first in the name of God, then in the name of race.

In the words of Robbie Burns, "Man's inhumanity to man, makes countless thousands mourn!"

But I live in a different time and a different place.

I live in Canada, a country that is incredibly peaceful, yet incredibly complacent.

People here just want to get on with their little lives and don't want to be bothered with the details of the big picture, even if the big picture is signaling loud and clear that their children and their grand children might have great difficulty getting on with their little lives if we continue to live ours as if nothing was happening with regard to climate change.

I can't help thinking that we live in the Age of Stupid, the title of a mockumentary film starring the late Pete Postlethwaite, who plays a future archivist that looks at old footage from the year 2008 to understand why humankind failed to address climate change.

Given the overwhelming evidence that suggests that human activity is changing the planet's ecosystem at a rate never seen before and that global warming could bring about catastrophic climate change that would cause "countless millions to mourn", you have to be extremely thick not to get it.

Or, maybe it's just a question of the vast majority having their head up their ass, incapable of critical thought, being led by the hand by a bunch of greedy, lying, bastards.

Canada's Gatekeepers Conspire to Prevent Greens from Taking Their Rightful Place in Canadian Politics

We are well aware that Canada is considered to be among the dinosaur nations when it comes to environmental matters by the rest of the global community. Some would try to pin the blame on the present Harper government, but the antipathy towards what Greens militate for goes way beyond the confines of one political party.

At the heart of the conspiracy is the manner in which Greens frame politics which is a radical break from the colonial mindset that permeates this country. In short, Greens don't accept the economic dogma that ever increasing gains in economic growth increase the well-being of the population at large, though they cede the point that continued economic growth does very well for the top one tenth of the top one percent of revenue earners

Moreover, even if continued unbridled economic growth were not part of a cancerous ideology, Greens would still oppose the massive exploitation of non-renewable resources as a means to drive this growth. And for good reason. There is a wealth of evidence that demonstrates that continued economic growth could bring about catastrophic climate change.

Which brings me to the point of this blog post.

For those of you who read this blog regularly, you know that I find it aberrant that a million people could vote for the Greens and still be denied any representation in Parliament whatsoever. Clinging to the sanctity of our British roots, we refuse to modernize our electoral system and continue to give representation solely on a geographic basis. In the age of the Internet, we prioritize the representation of rocks and trees over people who live and communicate in a network of shared common interest.

But that's not what strikes my curiosity.

What I found completely aberrant was that we could have an extreme weather event, a heat wave in Central Canada in March, breaking all time record highs by more than ten degrees Celsius repeatedly and the best that the national media could do was to call it "wacky weather."

Let's put this into perspective. Extreme temperatures vary over time and it is not unusual to have a record cold or hot day. However, the new record usually means an increase in the range of less than one degree. More than ten degrees is off the charts. Never mind a black swan, it was a fricken flock of them.

To be expected, the event was normalized and I was treated to the typical images of young bikini clad women sunning themselves as I scanned reports in the National media.

Come on, it's not that difficult to connect the dots between extreme weather and climate change. Kids in elementary school can do it.

Indeed, there are intense discussions taking place in scientific journals. For example,
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate1452.html

But that's where the gatekeeper function comes in.

Monied interests are lobbying furiously for a pipeline to carry tar sand oil from land-locked Alberta to the Gulf of Mexico or a Pacific port. Environmentalists are resisting effectively and the last thing that is needed is to give them any ammunition for the fight for public opinion.

The easiest way to prevent people from connecting the dots is not to frame the extreme weather event as an incidence of climate change and to continue filling peoples minds with the latest news-related psychodrama.

The Gatekeepers wouldn't be able to do this if the number of Greens in Parliament corresponded to the level of support they find in the electorate. A single Green MP can be marginalized. Not so for a group of twenty or more.

Not giving a balanced report of events that give credence to ecological concerns is similar in vein to broadcasters shutting out the Green leader from participating in the leaders debate.

Out of sight, out of mind.

No wonder it ain't easy being Green.

Robocalls Show Disdain for Canadians and for Democracy

Slowly, ever so slowly, we are learning about the devious practice of automated phone calls that would prevent Canadians from showing up to the correct polling station to cast their votes.

Underhanded, you say?  It depends on your point of view.  Maybe it's just part of winner-take-all electoral politics and the ends justify the means.

After all our electoral system is not about giving fair and accurate representation to voters.  It's about winning seats in order to form a government that usurps the political power of the majority.  This is not democracy.  It is a feudal system of governance that is a vestige of the British Empire.

So, if you watch Rick Mercer's rant (I suggest that you do just for the humour), keep in mind that Governor Generals and Royal Commissions have nothing to do with democracy.  They are historical anachronisms of imperial power.

Vote Suppression is Systemic in Canada

So many people seem to be in a huff about the automated phone calls that were made during the last federal election in order to confuse voters as to the location of their polling station, thereby making it more difficult to cast their vote.

Scandalous. How could the Tories stoop so low? Canada’s democracy is in tatters!

Blah, blah, blah and more blah, blah, delivered with feigned indignation.

Let’s face the facts. Canada is not democratic. We are ruled by a professional political class. The way who will govern is determined is to play a winner-take-all electoral game in which the candidate who gets the most votes, even if it is less than 50% of the votes cast, is said to have won the electoral district.

Distortions of the popular vote you say? You bet! How do you think a majority government (sounds like the label came from the Ministry of Truth) can be formed with less than 40% of the popular vote?

If your candidate didn’t win, that’s too bad. Better luck next time. So your voice is not represented in Parliament? Don’t be glum. More than 50% of the electorate who even bother to vote can say the same.

If you are so concerned about the quality of democracy in Canada, change the fricken voting system!!!

Vote suppression occurs in every election that is held with the archaic first-past-the-post method.

Chances are that if you thought your preferred candidate had little chance of winning the electoral game in the last general election, you didn’t vote.

But that’s how politics works in Canada. The game is no longer about attracting voters to a political platform. It’s about trying to scare away as many voters from your opponents as possible while hanging onto the party faithful.

And if that doesn’t work, there’s always robocalls.