Sunday December 4, 2005
Unwanted election shows strength of system
I didn\’t want another federal election. I haven\’t talked to anyone who did want one.
Admittedly, my sampling of the Canadian public is highly subjective, and a lot smaller than the sampling done by professional polling firms. Using the disclaimers so beloved by statisticians, I\’d have to describe my samples as being accurate plus-or-minus 50 per cent, 10 times out of 20 – about as accurate as tossing a coin, in other words.
Saying I don\’t want an election doesn\’t imply that I approve of the scandal-tainted minority Liberal government. I have trouble believing that Paul Martin was squeaky clean, whether or not Justice John Gomery\’s first report exonerated him.
But I\’m not convinced the Conservative party would be any less corrupt. I\’m old enough to remember the sleaze and patronage practiced by Brian Mulroney\’s government.
Has any government, anywhere, managed to resist the temptation to think of the public purse as their own private preserve, to be disbursed at their discretion?
No difference anyway
Besides, most Canadians know that it doesn\’t really matter who\’s officially in power. For anything to happen, it has to pass – like prunes — through the civil service.
Here I need to add another disclaimer: I have personally found individual civil servants in Ottawa well informed, competent, and helpful. But that\’s individuals. Collectively, they make up a mass about as moveable as the Columbia Icefield.
And everything that politicians deal with – the facts, the figures, the analysis – reaches them through the filter of that icefield.
After the last federal election, I asked some of my Ottawa contacts how much difference a new government would actually make. Very little, they agreed. A few mandarins would be shuffled to new departments. A few budgets would be reallocated. But the total money available wouldn\’t change. Nor would most programs.
Perhaps some of my pessimism derives from already feeling tired of electioneering and posturing. By January 23, 2006, I suspect I will be so fed up that if the ballot offered “None of the above,” I would be tempted to mark it.
The only people I know who actually want an election – especially in winter, especially over the Christmas season – are the politicians themselves. Like sharks circling an injured swimmer, they smelled blood, and they wanted their share of the flesh.
Strangely enough, that\’s actually a good thing.
The democratic difference
Cast your mind around the world for a few minutes. How many countries can you think of where the reigning government could be turfed out by elected representatives?
Governments fell in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and the Ukraine. But they were not brought down by opposition parties, within the parliamentary process. Rather, the people took to the streets; protests brought the country to a standstill.
In Egypt, Saudi Arabia, China, Burma – the list could go on and on – not even street protests would have any effect. And there are certainly no opposition parties with enough clout to bring down the ruling powers.
Canadian parliamentary democracy certainly has its share of shortcomings. Our parliamentarians set us an abominable model of behaviour during Question Period, for example.
Winston Churchill once said that “democracy is the worst form of government except all those others that have been tried from time to time.” (As an aside, Churchill also commented, “The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.”)
But we do not have to take to the streets change our government. Nor do we have to resort to military coups, general strikes, or terrorism.
Freedom to change…
I\’ve heard many definitions of democracy. Most of them strike me as more idealistic slogans than practical descriptions.
Democracy is not, for example, government by the people. Only a few countries (such as Switzerland) routinely determine questions of policy by a referendum. Elsewhere, the more complex the decision, the more likely it is to be made behind closed doors, with decision-makers deliberately isolated from public opinion.
Nor is democracy – at least in the “first past the post” system currently used in Canada – a means of electing representatives of the people. Municipally, provincially, and federally, a minority of voters typically elects the majority of representatives. Before the last election, 58 per cent of B.C. voters elected 77 members; the other 42 per cent of voters had just two members to represent their interests.
The definition that works best for me is that in a democracy, a government can be defeated.
That doesn\’t happen under a dictatorship, a tyranny, or an oligarchy. Such governments can hold pseudo-elections where presidents – think of Saddam Hussein — somehow receive near-unanimous endorsation. But even if voters gave near-unanimous rejection – a risky thing to attempt in many countries – the people in power would never resign.
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Consider even the difference between Ottawa and Washington.
In Ottawa, three parties could collaborate and force the government to resign.
In Washington, by contrast, nothing can remove George W. Bush and his cronies from the White House until the next election. Not even impeachment – the president might go, but the gang would carry on.
Ronald Reagan, you may remember, remained commander-in-chief of the world\’s most powerful military forces while partly disabled by the early stages of Alzheimer\’s Disease. Bush could continue as president even if diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia or Korsakov\’s syndrome – indeed, even if someone produced proof that his mouth only moved when Dick Cheney had a hand inserted into his back.
Suppose, in fact, that Bush died of a heart attack or a fall off his horse during yet another holiday. The presidency would pass down the official line of his hand-picked associates. Given the right combination of catastrophes, Condoleeza Rice could automatically become both the U.S.\’s first black president and its first female president.
But the administration itself would not change.
Ours can. And did. And will.
That, I think, is something to celebrate. Even if a winter election isn\’t.
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Copyright © 2002 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups permitted; all other rights reserved.
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