An amateur’s view of party politics

Editor:

A friend told me about the event that made him happy at the church. His member of Parliament asked him to do a piece of work. He was a lifelong supporter of the party and felt he won the party’s trust. My reaction to this episode was a bit complicated. He is a good man and a good friend, and I was happy for him. But I support another party.

Though my honest reaction to my friend’s happiness was complicated, I was glad for two reasons. At the church, we share a table as a family. My friend presumed that I would share his happiness. This is Canada of the 21st century. Politics should not divide the fellowship of the same faith. Secondly even if he knew my political affiliation, politics does not divide us in personal relationships. We trust each other despite a different political view. It’s like a family. We may quarrel but make up soon and sit at the same table.

However, this episode also points out the problem we have in North America in our practice of “party politics.” In both Canada and the United States, it has degenerated into tribal warfare. The opposing party is seen as a nest of vipers that must be destroyed and eradicated. Emotion that accompanies hostility against the other party and its members. It’s categorical and not conditional. Whatever the opposition members say has absolutely no merit. Whatever the leaders of your own party says is absolutely right, even if it’s a mistake or bad for the country. The victory of the party is the goal, not so much as the well-being of the whole people. The government is of the people, by the people, and for the people. Not for a party. What is happening now is simply a travesty of the art of government.

Is the solution non-partisan politics? There are many examples. At the time of the American Declaration of Independence, there was no political party, neither was it a concern in the U.S. constitution. Many municipal governments are non-partisan. The North-West Territorial government does not have political parties. Another model is the government with multi-party coalitions like the ones practiced in many

European countries, Israel included. Parliament is elected by proportional representation and small parties have considerable power. In such a system, no one can afford to treat other parties in a hostile manner as enemies because there is always a possibility to form a government with them as coalition partners.

You have to treat other parties in a civilized manner. In some countries, political parties are coalitions of slightly different ideologies. Liberal Democratic Party of Japan is a coalition of many center-right factions. Often negotiations between factions within the party are more serious than between parties. However, I suspect that those models of party politics can not happen in Canada in the current atmosphere. So what to do?

In democracy, the raison-d’etre of the government is to serve people. Not the competition between different interests. Political parties exist only for expedience, not as necessity. Even within a political party, there are different opinions. It is the human condition that we are all different.

A hundred people have a hundred different opinions. Likewise between different parties, there are common grounds. When I was working for the Canadians Council of Churches, I had a few occasions when I was invited to attend meetings of members of Parliament from different parties who were active in the church. They were, for example, the group of MPs with clergy status from all parties led by a Roman Catholic priest who was also an MP from NDP. Another one was a group of MPs from all parties trying to reach a common understanding of the Israel-Palestine conflict led by a senator from the Progressive Conservative Party. In both cases, I was surprised how much consensus existed among the members of different parties on specific issues. The message from those informal gatherings was: it is more important to strengthen their positions from the perspective of their faith within the parties. I never thought like that when the battles are apparently more fiercely fought between parties than within them.

So stay civil and watch the language, because we are in the same family and differences are normal. Tadashi (Tad) Mitsui

Lethbridge