From 2007 on Democracy

I wrote this in 2007 regarding the last Ontario provincial election. Seemed worth looking at again:

You know, I was thinking about it this morning while walking in the chilly morning air to work. The thing is that I don't really care at all that we here in Ontario just went ahead and re-elected the reptilian kitten-eater who has ruled, and lied to, us for the past four years. Hell, we had four personality-free chumps to choose from and the people of Ontario decided that it's better the chump you know than the chump(s) you don't know... I can't say I blame them. It's a pretty hollow victory, but then again any victory is a victory, right? (Note to campaign advisors: possible future Liberal Party slogan: "Liberals: Because You Don't Really Care Enough to Vote for Anyone Else!")

But whatever. A little ailurophagy never hurt anyone (non-feline). Nobody with the name "Dalton" can clearly be overly scary or intimidating, so the big machine fails to have a new face atop it. Whatever.

What did get me thinking in the chill winds this morning, however, was the other thing we were asked to do this week, which was to vote on changing our electoral system. The long, short and boring on this is as follows: It failed, which is hardly surprising coming from an electorate so afraid of change that they elected the same political party 12 times in a row from 1943 to 1981, but if it hadn't failed it would have made our parliament a split between 'first-past-the-post' and 'proportional representation'. It would have been a bit confusing but it would have given a greater chance to a wider number of parties to have representation in parliament. It would have looked a lot like how they do things in New Zealand and in the completely meaningless parliaments of Scotland and Wales.

The cards were stacked against it, and not just because the main party in power got there because of the old system. The main opposition, whose federal counterpart was driven to extinction a decade ago by the old system, came out in favour of it. Plus, in Ontario change is scary. The same old same old is preferable.

After all, the new system would lead to perpetual minority governments. And Ontarians (and Canadians as a whole) don't want minority governments.

How do I know that Canadians don't want minority governments? Well, because newspapers and TV keep telling me that. They keep pointing out that a minority government immediately means instability and, within a week, we'd be reduced to Somaliaesque rule-by-warlords. It is, media tells me, absolutely unthinkable that a minority government could still be effective, could be more accountable and responsible, could even (cover your children's ears) be better than handing a blank cheque every four to five years to one political party or another. Yes-men in parliament who stand up and engage in empty debate when, in the end, what the party leader wants will be - according to our media, this is representative democracy at its best. This is what Canadians long for.

Americans should know this very well - living in a country where bipartisanship is so institutionalized that Ross Perot in 1992 could get 19.7 million votes and yet not a single vote in the Electoral College, the closest Americans can get to 'minority government' is having a majority in Congress held by the party who the President doesn't belong to (like at the moment). This might explain why Americans vote at about the 50% mark. Ontario's not far off that.

Americans, at the very least, elect at every level of government (yeesh, you guys elect your fire chiefs). What strikes me as hysterical is that, at the federal level anyway, our democratically elected parliament can, theoretically, watch its bills be stricken down by an obsolete and unelected senate. Who can then, theoretically, watch its bills be stricken down by an obsolete and unelected Queen (or rather an unelected Governor-General acting on her behalf). It's true - only our third most powerful body is democratically elected. Yet we`re meant to be a shining example of democracy.

But what gets me is this - pro-senate and pro-monarchy pinheads talk a lot of bollocks about accountability and checks and balances. They talk about how quasi-dictatorial unelected people are completely necessary to make sure that elected people never turn quasi-dictatorial. If we didn't have a bunch of cretins living large off of the public pay-cheque, the argument goes, parliament would have the abilitry to pass whatever bills they like!

A blank cheque, if you will...

Nobody seems to ever point out that all of the safeguard that twits in the Senate (and/or Buckingham Palace) are meant to provide could also be provided - dare I say it even better - by (shock! dismay!) a minority government... If all of these so-called safeguards that the Senate and the Queen are meant to provide are in some way necessary, then you'd figure the additional safeguard of accountability provided by a minority government would be a good thing... something Canadians would want...

But that's not what my newspapers tell me. My newspapers are pro-Senate, pro-Queen, yet pro-Majority Governments.

And pro-taking-people-for-fools...

Can't Trust the NDP

I tried posting this fake poster on Reddit, where by and large they didn't seem to geddit.

Hint: it's pro-NDP.

Progressive Talking Point: Battleground Ontario

If we do see a federal election in 2011, Canada's largest province will be in the curious position of waging two epic battles almost simultaneously. While that's bound to increase Ontarian cynicism to record levels (and as a result, bring down turnout), it's inevitably going to affect the way the two battles turn out.

Every province in Canada differs on the degree to which that province's local voting trends and federal voting trends overlap. Varying down the years, the Ontario provincial political spectrum has been at times quite unlike the federal one, yet at the moment the two line up remarkably closely. If someone tells you they support the PCs locally, a betting man would put down money that that person supports Harper's party federally. And similarly McGuinty and Ignatieff drink from the same pool.

Yet one gets the sense that neither Hudak nor Harper, both ascendant in Ontario, would see much advantage in helping each other out. To a certain extent they might guess, correctly perhaps, that conservative successes at one level will automatically lend a glow to the other party, while the failures of one could potentially be downplayed as an example of the differences between the two. Ontario Liberals are eager anyway to paint Hudak as the next Harris. Hudak is probably undecided how snugly he'd want to get into bed with Harper seeing how polarising Harper remains in Ontario and seeing how he has a pressing need to present himself as his own man.

Meanwhile, you imagine that Ignatieff and McGuinty will be doing everything possible to avoid excessive association with one another: both struggle to maintain popularity among party loyalists, to say nothing of swing voters.

Both of these elections will be won and lost in Ontario by the conservative parties' abilities to build on strengths and avoid alienating moderates. It's looking good for the parties on the right in Ontario at the moment. Both federally and provincially (especially the latter), each Liberal Party can expect a solid drubbing. It's tough to avoid the sense that it's too late for either party to turn their fortunes around.

So where does this leave the NDP? I word that in the singular, because the NDP is the only one of the three in Ontario with organisationally-codependent federal and provincial association. Effectively, we're discussing five, not three or six, parties. And one of those five parties might well need to step into the ring twice in 2011 in Ontario. Will this help or hinder them?

Well, on the one hand both Jack Layton and Andrea Horwath are charismatic and well-liked figures. Horwath is more of an unknown, but I've seen her taken seriously in local media to a degree that Layton himself rarely is. Horwath also has a clear advantage over Layton in that she has no gun-registry issues to affect her perfomance in the Northern Ontario ridings that are crucial to both branches of the party. The other thing Horwath has that Layton would like is an extra five percent or so, by most polling standards. While the order of (Progressive) Conservative, Libeal, NDP, Green is the same both provincially and federally, the Ontario NDP poll at about 20% while the federal NDP in Ontario trend around 15% - that missing five percent most likely traditional Liberals turned off by Dalton McGuinty. If (a) the provincial election happened before the federal one, and (b) the Ontario NDP performed to, or exceeded, expectations, there might be a rub-off effect. Ontarians at least would get used to seeing the name NDP as a contender again. Alas, it'll happen the other way around, which might possibly even clip Horwath's wings a little.

No matter: what remains is that they are both likeable people, both capable, given the opportunity, of stirring up little-man passion, and both with a vested interest in co-operation and in presenting themselves as co-operative. If we do have a federal election in 2011, I do hope both would commit themselves, in Ontario, to a full year of campaigning: really, Layton can only help Horwath and Horwath can only help Layton. I think the non-right in this country regularly shoots itself in the foot by sniping each other instead of going for the prize of siphoned-off conservative votes, but since both Liberal parties could really see themselves bottoming out this year, both branches of the NDP would be silly not to present themselves as the alternative. Populism, that one and only tried-and-tested way for the left and right in Canada to circumvent the Liberals and steal votes directly from each other, doesn't play as well in Ontario (except perhaps in the north and Oshawa) as it does in much of the rest of the country. So attacking the Liberals it's going to have to be. And while that gnawing sense of anxiety that exists among New Democrats that attacking Liberals elects conservatives will certainly not go away, I have to imagine New Democrats across the province would relish more than a little the chance to take Messrs. McGuinty and Ignatieff down a rung or two.

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