Sunday November 23, 2008
Giving a voice to smaller groups
We had a municipal election last week in Lake Country. Ho-hum!
Our local council has six councillors. Four represent the four communities amalgamated to form a new municipality. Two others are elected at large, representing the whole district.
All but one of these were re-elected by acclamation. I don\’t know if that reflects universal approval of their performance, or an unwillingness to tolerate the abuse heaped on councillors who offend a few constituents.
With only one councillor to elect, in only one ward (along with a school trustee and a fire hall referendum) voter turnout was predictably low – just over 16 per cent.
The city of Kelowna had the opposite problem. Voters there had to choose among 36 candidates contesting 12 council seats. Kelowna has no ward system, so all voters had to vote for all candidates.
Kelowna ballots looked a little like California\’s bewildering lists of propositions intended to determine state policies.
Kelowna had a slightly better voter turnout – just under 22 per cent. (The tiny community of Wells managed the highest voter turnout in the province with 92.5 per cent.)
Columnist Ron Seymour argued that Kelowna was big enough that it should implement a ward system. Had those 36 candidates been more or less evenly distributed among four wards, Seymour suggested, each voter would only have to learn the strengths and weaknesses of eight potential councillors.
Critics promptly ridiculed Seymour\’s proposal. In letters to Seymour\’s editor, they insisted that a ward system would promote parochial interests. Councillors should have the interests of the whole city at heart, not just a part of it.
A mental disconnect
The very next week, equally irate letter writers condemned CanWest\’s decision to eviscerate CHBC, the Okanagan Valley\’s “very own” television station.
Perhaps you don\’t see the connection. Indeed, that\’s often part of the problem – people fail to see the disconnect between two stances.
CanWest is Canada\’s communications empire. It owns two television networks, Global and E!; 15 television stations; and 26 specialty networks on cable. Its daily newspapers reach five million readers in ten major metropolitan areas; it also runs 27 smaller community newspapers.
In other words, CanWest is big. It even has a radio station in Turkey.
It\’s also losing money.
CanWest\’s biggest liability is its flagship, the National Post, the newspaper founded by the former Lord Conrad Black of Crossharbour.
In the yesterday that Black likes to imagine, newspapers were the primary shapers of public opinion. Black himself has many strongly-held opinions. So Black created the National Post as a platform for his views.
To reduce its losses, CanWest decided to cut five per cent of its staff, or 560 of over 11,000 employees.
CHBC was the hardest hit, losing 40 per cent of its staff – 22 of 53 people – even though it was one of CanWest\’s more profitable operations.
CanWest management claimed the cuts would not “affect the levels of service to the Valley.”
As Jim Jenkins retorted, in an irate letter to the editor, “They are trying to tell me that a man sitting in Victoria with a map of Kelowna on the wall is comparable to having a local studio provide a local perspective. Do I look that dumb?”
Everyone is parochial
Why pick on CHBC? Obviously, because it\’s a long way from where CanWest\’s directors live and work. Kelowna is simply not on their radar.
After all, if you live and work in Toronto – or in Winnipeg, Vancouver, or any other metropolitan centre – and have most of your associates there, you\’re likely to favour that location, aren\’t you?
That\’s the peril of any at-large electoral system.
CHBC had no voice in CanWest\’s boardrooms.
The first winter vacation Joan and I took, we visited the Caribbean island of St. Lucia. Britain and France fought 14 wars over this insignificant island. Each time one country\’s forces won a costly victory, its parent nation traded the island back again in exchange for other treaty concessions.
St. Lucia itself was a pawn in a larger chess game.
Just like CHBC.
School District 23 struggled with the issue of representation last year, and still does.
Three of its seven school trustees are elected by relatively small regional zones; the other four all come from Kelowna. There was pressure to elect all seven at large, supposedly providing more proportional representation.
But Kelowna has 83,655 eligible voters, more than ten times Lake Country\’s 8085. What chance would an outsider from Lake Country have of cracking the top seven? Let alone someone from even smaller communities like Joe Rich and Ellison?
Layers upon layers To receive this column regularly via e-mail, send a request to [email protected]. E-mail subscribers also get excerpts from correspondence about these columns. Please forward a copy of this column to anyone who might be interested in subscribing.
If you want to order my books, you can call 1-800-663-2775 in Canada, 1-800-328-0200 in the U.S., or order them on-line at the Wood Lake Books website.
For a lighter look at ethics, faith, and life, I recommend Ralph Milton\’s weekly e-newsletter Rumors. You can subscribe to it at the Wood Lake Books home page in Ralph Milton\’s Site, or by sending a note directly to [email protected].
It\’s also worth pursuing Charlene Fairchild\’s United Online site. Another site worth visiting is David Keating\’s \”SeemslikeGod\” page.
Wards are, in fact, the foundation of our political system. Except that in the larger context, they\’re called ridings or constituencies. We vote for someone who will make sure that Ottawa or Victoria pays attention to our interests, our concerns, our needs. So that transportation funds don\’t all go to Ontario\’s Highway 401 or Vancouver\’s TransLink complex.
Taken to an extreme, the concept of representing smaller areas could be described as cumbersome, unwieldy, and time consuming. A dozen or so households would name a person to represent their interests. Each dozen representatives would choose one of their number to carry their concerns forward. And so on.
Layers upon layers of representation…
And I ask, what\’s wrong with that? Every person\’s views would be taken into consideration. Representatives who lost the confidence of the people they represent could be recalled, challenged, or replaced.
Isn\’t that better than taking a blind stab on a ballot, hoping that a person you don\’t know might be responsive to the concerns of distant people they don\’t know?
I don\’t always expect to get my way. But I do want to have my views taken seriously. That can only happen if I have a voice representing me in decision-making circles.
=====================================
Copyright © 2008 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups permitted; all other rights reserved.
=====================================
PROMOTION PLUGS