Some kinds of ‘normal’ aren’t worth rushing back to
There has been much discussion, especially since the Washington riots, about Republican politicians who have followed President Donald rump down the “rabbit hole” of chaos.
New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman proclaimed in an interview with Anderson Cooper, “It is amazing to me and you’ve expressed this astonishment, that people are ready to base themselves to sell out their country to hold onto a job that pays $170,000 a year ... Please God, I hope the Russians, the Chinese, the Iranians are not watching at how cheaply these people will sell out their country.”
We are nowhere near that level of corruption and moral bankruptcy in Canada, but neither do we have real democracy either. I am reminded of the 2015 federal election where three of the four major parties campaigned on electoral reform. As the NDP candidate I heard, ad nauseam, from our current MP — and all Liberal candidates — that “this will be the last election under first past the post.”
During cross-Canada consultations our MP, at that time minister of democratic institutions, heard the overwhelming message that mixed member proportional (see Fair Vote Canada) was the preferred system by the parliamentary Special Committee on Electoral Reform, ordinary Canadians, and experts alike.
Unfortunately, our prime minister, self-servingly, preferred ranked balloting which, if implemented, would give Liberals a consistent advantage.
When it became increasingly clear that he couldn’t push that system on Canadians, the Liberal election promise was abandoned.
Friedman’s observation regarding Republican politicians applies equally to Liberal MPs who clearly put protecting their jobs above the good of their country and our democracy.
In her newly published book, former Whitby MP Celina Caesar-Chavannes details her disillusionment with Trudeau’s Liberal party. She details how Liberals made the aforementioned promise on electoral reform, as well as the (empty promise) pledge of “doing politics differently.” Tellingly, she states, “I bought into the notion that we were going to do things differently, that we were going to be bold and transformative ... and that
didn’t happen.” She continues, “This whole hashtag ‘add women, change politics’ only works if you actually change politics when you add women. Otherwise you get the status quo.
“Otherwise you get people who morph into the pre-existing structure.” Our current MP certainly, and sadly, fits that definition. So, I’m not talking about “throwing the bums out” but changing the system.
We, as citizens have and continue to, shoot ourselves in the foot. Minority or coalition governments should be the norm and not the exception. We play the shell game of voting out one false, tired majority government and then voting in yet another. The scandals of one party are swapped for the next as they settle in for their time in power. It is time for real change, change that makes politics and politicians work together for the benefit of all Canadians.
As many have said, in our rush to return to normal, we must use this time to consider which parts of normal are worth rushing back to. Our pre-corona existence was not normal other than we normalized and condoned greed, inequality, exhaustion, depletion, rage, hoarding, hate and lack. We have the opportunity to change our world for the better, economically, politically, and environmentally.
A world where we no longer allow the rich and powerful to rig the game in
their favour. As the late, great Yogi Berra once said, “When you come to a fork in the road ... take it!”
Dave Nickle, Murray Street