I think we all realize that democracy in many parts of the world, including our own, is in a state of malaise. The threats we face are not simply the obvious ones like cyberattacks, shadowy sources of funding for insidious trucker convoys and rampant disinformation.
Many of our problems are from within, with leaders who stand for little but a deep avidity for winning elections. That certainly seems to be the case in Ontario today.
There is the current premier, Doug Ford, in full campaign mode as he promises to surrender over $1 billion in rebates for licence sticker renewal fees going back to 2020; henceforth, there will no longer be fees, making the billion-dollar revenue loss permanent.. As well, the ending of two toll roads will leave an additional deep gap in provincial coffers, because, according to Doug, it's our money, not the government's.
Ford is counting on people selling their votes to him on the basis of slim individual savings at a future cost of slashed programs that all Ontario has access to. And in that, he may not be wrong, as he is not the only cheerleader for this 'relief.'
Predictably, but odiously, Ontario NDP has jumped on the bandwagon, something leader Andrea Horwath seems to have a particular knack for. (One may recall that in a previous election foray, all she could talk about was helping small businesses, with nary a word about working folk.)
Marin Regg Cohn writes:
If political leftists can’t beat the right-wing premier at his own game, they might as well join him in cutting government revenues. Which is why the loudest victory lap, after Ford’s Tories rescinded tolls in Durham, came from NDP Leader Andrea Horwath.
“Today is a victory,” Horwath exulted after Ford’s announcement, congratulating her Oshawa MPP Jennifer French — a New Democrat facing a tough re-election battle against the Tories — and the local activists she teamed up with to “free the 412 and 418” highways. Never mind that Bob Rae’s NDP government pioneered toll roads with Highway 407 in the 1990s, today’s New Democrats are firmly opposed.
Next, Horwath announced she was going along with Ford’s campaign-style announcement Tuesday to remove the annual license plate renewal fee. It wasn’t an NDP priority, she pointed out — small beer, perhaps — yet Horwath pointedly refused to say how she would make up the money to pay for her party’s other priorities.
It seems that whenever Horwath's party, instead of displaying principle and integrity, pursues anything that might get them into office while still insisting they are being steadfast.
“When it comes to the amount of money that’s being refunded, all of those pieces, I’m not particularly opposed to it,” Horwath told reporters.
Yet in the same breath, she restated NDP priorities to spend more on education, housing, health care, long-term care and child care. Where would that money come from?
Apparently, she is making some of the same assumptions about the mental acuity and character of the electorate that Doug Ford is making.
What is a conscientious voter to do?
Politics is a calling devoted to power, not service. That wasn't always the case. It took courageous leaders of vision to build this country. Look at our parents, our grandparents and great-grandparents. Look at what they endured, a catasrophic depression, two world wars. Yet they looked to a better future for you and me and our children. Look at the infrastructure that allowed Canada to succeed so well in the 20th century. They paid for that. Look at the state of that infrastructure today. The leaders we elected allowed the decay in pitching everyday low taxes.
ReplyDeleteLeading a nation or a province is a bit like being the head of a large household. You have so many responsibilities and you have to deal with them all. It's not enough to put a roof over your kids' heads and clothes on their backs. You have to feed them, get them off to school, make sure they're not behind the car when you back out of the driveway. You serve them, they don't serve you.
Today it's about doing, or at least promising to do, whatever is necessary to get elected. It's not about doing what's necessary. It's not about looking to the horizon. It's about looking at your feet, the next electoral cycle.
The theme of this year's Munich Security Conference was "collective helplessness." It's about entire societies losing faith in their leaders. It's about a general sense of being left helpless as dangers loom. That's bad enough in authoritarian governments but it's lethal to liberal democracy.
The very form of governance we were brought up to cherish is in peril from those who seek power. That's why they dig in their heels whenever electoral reform is mentioned. FPTP is a means to perpetuate power without the consent of the majority of the electorate. How are we to have faith in that perversion of democracy?
Very well-said, Mound. I have nothing to add to your assessment, but it is sad beyond words that democracy has dwindled so that it is now considered astute to come up with the right tagline or catchy slogan that seems likeliest to bring in the biggest haul of fish.
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