Some Compelling Reasons To Vote

H/t Memorial March for the Victims of Harperism




H/t David Suzuki Foundation

If anyone you know is not certain whether he or she is registered to vote, checking out one's status is easy by a visit to Elections Canada Online.

Meanwhile, the truly disenfranchised are getting some help in Halifax through something called the Identification Clinic.

The Identification Clinic is a volunteer group that aims to put IDs in the hands of the homeless and the disadvantaged.

One of the group's founders, Darren Greer,

found his first clients by walking up to people on the street, and asking if they needed help. They replied with an immediate and enthusiastic yes.

"A lot of them have had ID before and have lost it," said Greer. "They are so often asked for it, and refused services because of it, that they understand probably better than a lot of us what these IDs mean."

Not only will this project facilitate access to social services, but also to the voting booth, as the necessary identification will have been obtained.

God knows, in the election we all have a vital part to play.

And Now For You Youngsters Out There

Those words, or something very similar, were often uttered by Ed Sullivan when he had an act that would appeal to a youthful demographic. People of a certain age, or, because the Mound of Sound recently chided me about my use of euphemisms, old farts like me, will remember those times.

Today, it is hard to find something in the political spectacle of campaigns to appeal to the youngsters out there. Nonetheless, comedian Scott Vrooman warns them that political disengagement, and its logical conclusion, the refusal to vote, are not viable options:

Joy Taylor Has A Mission

Ninety-two years old and still fighting the good fight.


H/t Operation Maple

If You Know Some Young Potential Voters

Please send them this


so that we can have less of this


and this

in the future.

Sidelining The Youth Vote

The potential of the youth vote, about which I have written several times on this blog, is, without question, great. The fact that only a low number of young people turn out to vote should be a source of grave concern for all those who desire real change in Canada.

Sadly, those low numbers are a cause for celebration among our main political parties, their occasional rhetoric to the contrary notwithstanding.

The math is simple. If a group does not vote, their concerns can be ignored. And the more their concerns are ignored, the less appealing the act of voting becomes to them. Case closed. Cue the status quo.

Consider the latest budget, as examined in a Globe and Mail editorial:

Much has been made of the fact that the new federal budget is craftily geared by the Harper government to appeal to specific segments of the voting population. Seniors are getting all kinds of goodies, some designed specifically for their age group and others that are available to all, but which will (nudge nudge wink wink) benefit them the most. Two-income couples with children under 18 are big winners, too, as are small-business owners.

Left off the gravy train are young people. Why? Because they are way less likely to cast a vote than older people are, and they don’t make up as large a share of the population as they used to. By being disengaged, they have now become conveniently ignorable, not just by the government but by the opposition parties, too.

Such is not good for the health of a democracy.

A 2013 Parliament of Canada study concluded that more young voters than ever are dropping out of electoral participation at all levels of government. Worse still, their apathy is permanent. They don’t start voting as they get older, which is one of the key reasons the average participation rate in Canada is dropping. A country where, a generation ago, more than 75 per cent of the population routinely voted in major elections is now lucky to have a 61 per cent turnout.

In this situation, those who do vote are courted by the parties, with resulting lopsided budgets like this last one that pander to select groups rather than promote a vision for the country. Of course, it is subsequent generations who will bear the brunt of ever-diminishing national programs, health care money, government pensions, etc.

It would be easy and preferable if we could simply blame the Harper regime, which has raised to high art vote-targeting. But that would not be the whole truth:

In the 2011 federal election, all three major parties focused on the middle class and on families. They made few direct references to youth. When they did, it was more often about “youth crime” or “at-risk youth” than it was about youth unemployment or university tuition. The parties are doing the same in this election, all led by the Harper government’s pro-senior, pro-family budget.

All are complicit in the erosion of our once healthy and dynamic democracy.

Is there a way to get young Canadians back in the game? Not in this election, unfortunately. The apathy of young voters has caused politicians to tune out. Politicians tuning them out has made young voters more apathetic. The vicious circle goes round and round. And we’re losing a generation of voters.

Our current crop of 'leaders' have much to answer for.

Attention, Young People: Here Is Why You Should Vote

This brief but powerful video should be viewed by all those who are politically disengaged, especially our young citizens:



H/t OperationMaple

A Post-Election Reflection

I don't want to comment directly about last night's Ontario election, given that it has been incisively and very competently observed by others already. However, I want to address a comment my friend Tom, who voted Liberal, made on Facebook:

And here's why the system is broken: @51% voter turnout -- up marginally from the historic low of the 2007 provincial election. The winning party gets 38.6 % of those who voted, which means in the neighborhood of 19-20 % of the eligible vote -- but they have a comfortable, some have said overwhelming, majority!

I replied:

What you say is true, Tom, but barring electoral reform, the easiest way to remedy this problem is for more people to vote. As you may know, I have no sympathy for those who say they don't vote because there is no one to vote for, or they don't 'do' politics, etc. Laziness and inertia and apathy are poor reasons not to participate in the rights and responsibility of citizenship. In fact, to be quite honest, I have little respect for the kind of self-absorption that breeds such behaviour.

We are, of course, well aware of the fact that Harper achieved his majority government with minority support from the electorate, something that has apparently never bothered either that regime or its supporters. However, I suspect we will now be subjected to a barrage of right-wing commentary that will include the claim that because Kathleen Wynne was elected by a minority of eligible voters, she did not really get a mandate from the people. Such hypocrisy, however, is nothing new, but those who are truly distressed by the Ontario results need to look to themselves to blame if, in fact, they are among the 50% who did not vote.

Such is the price of indifference, sloth, and disengagement.

The Responsibility We All Must Assume

In a column entitled A disheartening year in Canadian politics published on Dec. 20, The Globe's Jeffrey Simpson recounts the corruption, buffoonery and scandals that permeate our municipal, provincial and federal governments. Whether we look at the antics of Toronto's Rob Ford, the widespread venality, graft and ties to organized crime endemic to Montreal politics as revealed by the Charbonneau Commmision, the gas plant scandal in Ontario or the diseased mentality surrounding Senategate, there seems little from which the average citizen can take heart.

In response to that column, a Globe letter-writer, Caroline Wang from Vancouver, offers an antidote that I think all of us who write progressive political blogs would heartily agree with. Rather than letting our disgruntlement and disillusionment be a reason to disengage from the political process, it should prompt all of us to channel our anger and become part of the solution:

Re A Disheartening Year In Canadian Politics (Dec. 20):

So isn’t it up to the “plenty of honourable and hard-working people” of Canada to change the unacceptable “culture of deceit, backscratching and venality” that appears endemic in political life and that caused the annus horribilis?

Jeffrey Simpson asks a good question: “How was it, with so many people complicit in the corruption for so long, that no one blew the whistle?”

If we want to see a change to the way of doing business that will promote a culture and system of legality and honour, this can only be done by Canadians who are “mad and disillusioned.”

The answer is not turning off. It is becoming more involved in order to challenge what is wrong.

Working together to stamp out the disease of “widespread, prolonged and systemic corruption” wherever it happens to be in our society is the first step to recovery.

Electing exemplary leaders who will shape our future and create a legacy that reflects and defines our national character is the only way to create the best from Canadian politics.

May 2014 mark the year that increasing numbers of us channel our inner Peter Finch and use our anger and our passion for a better Canada by devoting at least part of each day to learning more about the people and parties who have betrayed the trust that the electoral system has given them.

Citizenship on the Sidelines

Being on holiday has induced in me a certain mental torpor, so please forgive me if this post states the obvious. Those of us who write politically-oriented blogs are, of course, engaged intellectually and emotionally in the machinations of those we elect. And I suspect it is to our regular consternation and disappointment that more people do not recognize the vital role that the political realm plays in so many aspects of our lives, from the taxes we pay to the physical, social, and economic conditions in our cities, provinces, and the country as a whole. Failure to recognize those facts can lead us into some very dark situations.

While many many people have pointed out the flaws of our current first-past-the-post democracy, the larger problem, it has always seemed to me, is the failure of vast swaths of the population to even bother to vote. We all know, for example, that less than 40% of those who voted federally in 2011 had the power to elect a Harper majority. But perhaps a more current and even more telling illustration is the soap opera continuing to unfold in Toronto, one that had its genesis long before Rob Ford became its mayor, a result which has made Ontario's capital city the subject of international derision.

Was the election of Rob Ford a failure of our system? Obviously not. Those who voted for him had every right to choose as they did, as did the almost 50% who refused to vote. However, that latter choice, as the choice of almost 40% not to vote federally in 2011, means the we all have to endure the consequences of disengagement/citizen inertia.

These thoughts occurred to me upon reading a story in today's Star by Catherine Porter, in which she went to the Toronto suburb of Etobicoke, described as the heart of Ford Nation. Porter went there soliciting comments about how the people feel about Ford, and the overwhelming majority 'stand by their man.' Unlike the right wing, which tends to be exceptionally intolerant of progressives, I say they have every right to feel as they do and to vote as they do.

But I guess you can see the problem I am getting at here. Diversity of view is great, but if one part of the electorate is active and engaged, even in policies and orientations with which we do not agree, and too many others just yawn, look the other way or go back to the latest in reality television, the larger society suffers. So please don't tell me there is no one to vote for or your vote doesn't count. That is only a self-fulfilling justification tantamount to an ignoble and deeply injurious abdication of the responsibilities of citizenship.

The Tory Strategy of Fostering Voter Disengagement

I have long believed that a good part of the Conservative strategy to become Canada's natural governing party rests on a strategy of disenfranchisement. By lowering the tone of public debate, by acting in high-handed and undemocratic ways, by hobbling data-gathering apparatuses, and by employing a myriad of other tactics very ably outlined recently by Lawrence Martin, Harper and his wrecking crew have been systematically convincing more and more people that politics is not worth their time, and that their vote doesn't count. As I have written previously, that leaves the voting field open for Conservative true-believers to wield a disproportionate influence on election outcomes.

Tim Harper has written an important piece on this problem in today's Star, must-reading for those concerned about this very dangerous trend.

Elizabeth May's Current Projects

Although I detect a subtext of sarcasm running through the article, Jane Taber's recent piece on Elizabeth May is well-worth a read, as it illustrates a woman involved in a worthwhile battle to encourage political engagement on the part of young people. As well, her concerns about the electromagnetic radiation from cellphones, which some have used to try to suggest a certain wackiness, is well-founded, if recent research is any indicator.

It is good to see an MP who can think independently and critically, an increasingly rare occurrence in our presently poisoned political landscape.