I know it sounds romantic to be the voice crying in the wilderness, predicting ruin and decay, but take it from me, it’s just damned depressing.
If there was ever any doubt that Canada is being run by a political elite, the vote in the Commons last Wednesday has proven it. In a free vote on the Private Member’s Bill to have a Citizen’s Assembly on Electoral Reform, only 40 Liberals and 2 Conservatives backed the bill, mainly supported by the Bloc Quebecois and the NDP.
Entrenched political interests made sure that over a hundred from each of the two governing parties nixed the idea that common voters should have a say in how our democracy works.
This Is Not Conspiracy Theory.
This is actual data. Two-thirds of the elected members of the federal government don’t want citizens to discuss electoral reform.
I suppose its understandable. The present system is the one that got them elected. The myth is that they are there to govern on behalf of the people and to represent their ideas. In actual fact, they are there to represent the power blocs that helped them get elected: those same power blocs and economic interests that have a stranglehold on the business of the country.
The comfortable middle class (which is most of us) will sit here on the beach with our NIMBY attitude until the tsunami hits, and then we’ll find ourselves swirling in the surf, while the poor are washed away, and the rich are the last to go.
COVID gave us a good warning that we must heed. If we continue with the first-past-the-post system that favours the centrist parties and the corporations that favour the free market, then crashing companies, severed supply lines and insufficient social services will be the order of the day.
The Bottom Line
We need a voting system with more proporitional representation that requires parties to listen more to the voters and less to their economic support.