04/04/09
Democracy Is ... People!
I stumbled across this insightful and long-overdue article today while reading the Toronto Star over my admittedly-late brunch.
Basically, it speaks directly to the CYA's raison d'etre. As the generation who will, one day, be up there in that position, it's going to fall to today's youth (hi!) to clean up the democratic mess. The sort of ridiculous contempt for the public that is detailed in the above article is one of the big reasons that youth (and, really, people of all ages) are so stubbornly apathetic about politics these days. The powerful few have made a habit out of never caring about the people; now the people are returning the favour, in spades. Did those in power honestly think this wasn't going to happen?
Too many unaccountable and dictatorial leaders, too many bootlicking yes-men, too many flagrant abuses of power and of the rule of law -- can this strike anyone as a good thing? Sure, centralization probably helps things move faster, but at what cost? How does political expediency justify silencing the will of the people? How do we benefit if we gain everything but lose our souls in the process?
Take whipped votes, for example. The goal of full participation is admirable. But no elected representative should ever have to choose between keeping their job and honestly representing their constituents. Some day, after I've survived my Engineering program at Waterloo, I hope to be a licensed P.Eng. Professional Engineers are bound by obligation to always put the public interest first. If a P.Eng. ever forces someone to choose between their job and their ethics -- it's just one type of professional misconduct -- and gets caught, they not only lose their job but have their reputation and career ruined in public. How in God's name did we ever get to the point where politicians (who, I should think, can screw things up on a far grander scale) not only can do these sorts of things with impunity but never have to face the consequences?
What we need to do, as the leaders of tomorrow, is kick these disgusting political habits back onto the trash heap, where they belong, for all time. We have no choice -- if we fail, the cost is democracy itself, no more and no less. How legitimate would our elections be if a majority of Canadians didn't vote? That's where we're headed if we can't pull it together and act -- fast. It's going to take a leap of faith to abandon the familiar but utterly flawed practices we're used to. What the CYA is meant to do is show today's leaders what we can do, and to make that impending leap of faith that much easier for everyone. Our inexperience is our strength; we don't have to hold to tired, old, divisive practices and attitudes. We can remake politics in our own image: tolerant, collaborative, and inclusive.
Together, we can do it right from day one -- not because we can, but because we must. We owe society nothing less.
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On a separate note:
As much as this kind of article is sorely needed in the effort to kick Canadians awake when it comes to politics, it's unfortunate that the Star still lets its bias get in the way. Note how David Emerson's post-election floor-crossing flouts the will of the people while, apparently, Belinda Stronach did nothing of the sort (riiiiiight). Or how the RCMP's public leak of their investigation into the Liberal income trust fiasco is TEH BAD while the very public raid on Conservative HQ by that same RCMP doesn't even merit a mention. Or how the Conservatives' exponential centralization of power in the PMO is a slap in the face to Parliament (which it is), whereas Dalton McGuinty is doing the exact same thing on the provincial scale in Ontario and that's apparently okay (which it's not). Never mind that the Star hasn't endorsed any party but the Liberals in any election, federal or provincial, which I've been old enough to follow in my lifetime; it's their loss.
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4 comments
If I get elected, I'm not being elected to "represent" the views of my constituents. That's a fool hardy and naïve proposition. There is no such thing as a uniform view on anything, and to say you're going to represent peoples' views is inane.
If you vote for a candidate, you vote because of what that person is- the qualities and values that person represents and espouses. I don't want my MP to represent the views of my riding, because quite frankly, some of those views are undesirable, to say the very least. I vote for the person based on what I feel they can do, not their ability to puppet their constituents (who will never completely agree anyway.)
Then you say, "well, what if a majority of opinions believes proposition x over proposition y"? Oh, so we're reinforcing tyranny of the majority then? Look, you elect your representative because of who they are, not because you want your opinions to have a direct conduit to the halls of power- to believe otherwise is silly.
There are going to be unhappy people with every decision, every policy, every move- the trick is to be honest, hard-working, and do what you feel is best, not only for your own constituents, but for the wider world. Anything else is democracy run amok.
on 04/04/09 at 22:41
It's true, there's no way to represent the views of everyone in your riding -- they will, invariably, run the gamut from right to left, authoritarian to libertarian, and every combination thereof. However, if you're an elected representative and you can't figure out the prevailing opinion of your own constituents, you're either lazy or incompetent; whether you follow their conscience or your own is then your call.
The point is that you have to be responsive to their needs; your constituents are, in essence, your employers -- that's what public office is. They have elected you to represent them, not to be a witless yes-man to those above you.
Trustee: basically someone who is elected, but allowed to make their own decisions. The people elect this type of person to, at the end of the day, make the hard decisions. The "trustee" is elected and entrusted to have the autonomy to think and make decisions on their own, even if the decision goes against the wishes of the constituency.
The candidate runs on an individual platform.
Delegate: in this version the person is elected to represent the constituency too. This basically means the representative is forced to listen to the constituents and cannot make decisions on their own, therefore they are more likely to make decisions that may not take the good of the nation into account.
The candidate runs to entirely represent the constituency (or majority will in it).
Party: it explains itself. The party tends to run people of like mind and come up with the policies and whip votes. So the person could be elected, but may be forced by the party to vote certain ways, therefore prohibiting autonomy in some cases, but also in other ones allow it.
The candidate runs on a party platform.
on 04/06/09 at 11:51
Parties should be voluntary collections of like-minded representatives who want to pool their efforts and resources to achieve generally common goals. At the same time, it's NOT the point of parties to demand unswerving obedience; that's what we would call dictatorship. Voters are being turned off in droves by the posturing and knee-jerk bias of today's partisans. It's unhealthy for democracy and needs to stop -- and the only way to do that is to adopt new, more tolerant and collaborative attitudes.
The big problem with that theory is that the people who currently populate Parliament are too entrenched in their ways to change on their own. Voters are getting sick of waiting for their representatives to ditch the childish posturing. What we need to publicly demonstrate -- and fast -- is that new ways and attitudes ARE coming and that there is hope for a better political future.
Hence the CYA.
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