What are we voting for?

To the editor:

Two lifelong habits recently collided. One was seriously injured.

Due to family influences, I have always followed political events. Youthful enthusiasm gradually ebbed as ever more political promises were left undelivered. Yet I continued to follow politics in hopes of better outcomes.

My other lifelong habit, reading, led me to two books written by Graham Steele, Finance Minister in Darrell Dexter’s government. My faith in politics did not survive. To give credit where due, Steele wrote what I consider the most candid description of working politics I have ever come across.

Two questions arose from reading Steele. Those questions are “What are we voting for?”

Yes, that looks like only one ques- tion, but it is really two. “What are we voting “for”?” is the first.

Graham Steele made it very clear that promises made in election campaigns are made to gain support, nothing more. Statements by politicians are pre-scripted to evade issues while seeming to give answers to questions. Steele states unequivocally that job one, beginning the day after election, is getting re-elected.

Adding insult to injury, Steele shows how difficult it is to have any influence with elected officials. He states unequivocally that actions like signing petitions and holding public rallies have virtually no effect. Public attempts to influence policy are essentially futile. Further, even elected members have practically no input on policy. Policy is determined by unelected and unseen players.

If nothing in the party platform holds weight, what are we voting “for”?

“What are we “voting” for?” is, then, the second question.

If the parties feel no obligation, or intention, to follow through with promises, what is the point in voting at all? Our vote is supposed to be our most potent lever for influencing policy. If every effort to influence policy is predestined to failure, why do we bother with the exercise?

In the 2016 election campaign, Justin Trudeau stated more than a thousand times that he would introduce Proportional Representation to federal politics. Within months of gaining power he dropped PR like a hot potato.

I attended a meeting in which MP Bill Casey voiced very strong support for Proportional Representation. Given the opportunity in Parliament, Casey failed to back up his words with a supporting vote.

I used to believe it was my civic duty to vote in every election. Now I wonder “what for?”

Orland Kennedy,

Brookfield