Democracy Is Really In Trouble!!

The voter turnout in the recent provincial election has sunk to a dismal 48%, down a full 10 percentage points from 2005. For a more in-depth discussion of this phenomenon in Canada, read my earlier post to this blog, 'Voter Turnout is All Relative in B.C. Politics'.
Commenting in the Vancouver Sun three days after the May 12th election, Harry Neufeld, B.C.'s Chief Electoral Officer said, "(c)learly people believe in democracy and the voting process. But they don't vote and they lie about it." Have truer words ever been spoken and what are we prepared to do about it?!?

Government Propaganda/Have I Finally Made The 'Big Time'?!?

Parksville-Qualicum MLA, Ron Cantelon, caused to be published a very political sounding advertisement in the Parksville-Qualicum News last November. It was 'short and sweet', basically saying: increase in B.C. K-12 education budget since 2001 - 23%; decrease in student enrolment since 2001 - 13%. Feeling that such a use of statistics without any elaboration was not being very forthright, I wrote the following 'Letter to the Editor' to the Parksville-Qualicum newspaper, as well as the three Nanaimo newspapers - none of them chose to publish my letter:

Dear Editor,
Following the format of a recent pre-election advertisement surrounding student enrolment and government funding for public education in B.C. placed by Nanaimo-Parksville MLA Ron Cantelon in local newspapers: Increase in MLA's salaries since 2001 - 38%; Decrease in number of sitting days since 2001 - 26%.

Then, in the middle of December, Shirley Bond, B. C.'s Education Minister, caused to have published a 'Letter to the Editor' in the Nanaimo Daily News and Harbour City Star newspapers in response to two submitted by readers, parts of which she took issue with. Part of the message in that letter was virtually identical to what Mr. Cantelon had written in his advertisement (who says the government doesn't make good use of their large media and communications team?!). Therefore, just after Christmas, I submitted the following letter to those same two newspapers:

Dear Editor,
Having become somewhat of a cynic when it comes to matters political, I have to admit that I never would have expected that someone like B.C. Education Minister, Shirley Bond, would have the time to peruse local papers like the Nanaimo Daily News/Harbour City Star for items to respond to (B.C. government funding schools at historic levels/B.C. government funding of schools is at historic levels, Dec. 18/26/08). Given the myriad challenges in public education, I would have thought that she would have many, far more weighty matters to deal with in order to earn her $150,000/yr. salary. As it is, she has taken a large, complex issue and tried to placate us with a few, simplistic statistics.
She writes that "this government fundamentally believes that local boards of education are in the very best position to make decisions for the students in their communities". I think it has become obvious to anyone paying attention over the past number of years that, since the government controls the funding, there are only 'painful' decisions to be made. Another way to look at this is that it leaves the 'dirty work' for the local school boards. The government also reserves the right to fire the entire duly elected school board if they don't like their community-minded decisions (I see this as the main reason why school boards timidly accept unacceptable learning conditions in many of their classrooms).
In closing, and in the same spirit as the Minister's letter (where she basically says: increase in B.C. K-12 education budget since 2001 - 23%; decrease in Nanaimo-Ladysmith student enrolment since 2001 - 13%; ), let me offer my own set of 'coupled' statistics: increase in MLA's salaries since 2001 - 38%; decrease in number of legislature sitting days since 2001 - 26%.

What is especially interesting is how these two papers chose to use my letter. The Daily News ran it (Education Minister's letter far too simplistic, Jan 10/09, the bolded text indicates that part of my letter which was not published) and then Walter Cordery wrote an editorial piece using my letter as 'the hook'. The Harbour City Star only ran the editorial piece (Thin skins fill letters pages, Jan. 13/09), making reference to my letter printed in the Daily News.

Voter Turnout Is All Relative in B. C. Politics

I find it somewhat amusing to read the recent musings from the media (and others) about the historically low voter turnout in the recent federal election here in Canada. It has been reported that the 59% number was the lowest since Confederation and, while the fact that there was really no reason to have called this election (as a matter of fact, it broke the 'New' Conservatives own fixed election dates legislation) since Prime Minister Harper admitted several times that it was likely that he would have another minority government (which is precisely what happened) may have kept some people at home, some perspective on this number might be helpful.
In the last provincial election in May 2005, the voter turnout was 58%, which is quite comparable to the recent federal election figure, even though that was the lowest ever.
So far, the pundits and assorted other politicians are suggesting that it might be due to a certain amount of cynicism on the part of voters (gee, you think?!). However, a look at the most recent voter turnouts in municipal elections makes the federal result look downright stellar by comparison.
In the British Columbia, province-wide, municipal elections in 2005, the governments which probably have the most impact on the average citizen's day-to-day existence, we saw the following sampling of voter turnouts: Burnaby -25.5%, Central Saanich -28%, Colwood -24.8%, Coquitlam -23.3%, Courtenay -25.0%, Delta -34.8%, Esquimalt -32.5%, Fort St. John -26.0%, Kelowna -31.5%, Ladysmith -23.3%, Langford -21.3%, Langley -19.7%, Maple Ridge -30.9%, Nanaimo -35%, New Westminster -26.2%, Oak Bay -28.7%, Pitt Meadows -27.0%, Port Alberni -28.1%, Port Coquitlam -19.4%, Port Moody -17.5%, Richmond -25.9%, Saanich -19.1%, Sidney -9%, Surrey -35.4%, Vancouver -32.5%, Victoria -26.4%. So, you see, it could have been far worse. [UPDATE: in 2008, in my own community of Lantzville, voter turnout sank to an abysmal 21.6%! It's bad enough that our local Council ended up being elected by something like 15% of the registered voters but, if you don't make the effort to vote for Council, you won't be voting for school board members either and they manage the education of our children and have a budget of ~$110 million!

Why this large discrepancy between the federal and local government elections one can only speculate. My own opinion is that it has a lot to do with voter 'laziness' - in the federal and provincial campaigns, we have the party leaders splashing their faces everywhere there is a flat surface so, we can get everything we feel we need to know in a few quick 'sound/video bytes'. We can then translate that party information to our local candidate and, ta-dah, problem solved! Municipal elections, where few of the candidates actually run on party platforms and the budgets are much more modest so there is very little radio and television advertising, really make us have to work to try and figure out who would best represent our concerns on local Council/School Boards.
Another factor may be that, again because of the 'party system', in federal and provincial elections we would typically be choosing one candidate from a list of maybe 4 - 7, while in municipal elections we usually have to select 6 - 8 people out of a list that may contain 20 or more names (and that doesn't even count the School Board elections). This then becomes too much like work so we find it easier to go and have a beer! What this all demonstrates to me is that, although we want to enjoy all the benefits of a democracy, most of us are not willing to invest more than a few minutes (no, as the numbers above clearly demonstrate, most of us are not willing to devote even that!) in selecting those that will represent us for the next three or more years. By and large, we want to be able to 'bitch and moan' when our local government does something that we don't agree with but, clearly, most of us haven't earned that right!