\u201cElections are pretty catty, aren\u2019t they?\u201d\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s what my 16-year-old daughter said this morning, while we listened to politicians trash each other\u2019s latest proposals for health care, taxes, or whatever. No matter what the statement, the first, predictable, response, was scorn, contempt, sneering\u2026(insert your favourite modifier here.) <\/p>\n
Nowhere is there any attempt to engage in a real debate. No, that would not be the way it\u2019s done these days. We\u2019re off and running on Day 4 of the Great Canadian Election\u2026and we\u2019re already getting tired. True, it does look like it will be an interesting contest, with no one sure about the final outcome. But like many others that I\u2019m hearing and reading, I\u2019m just a little tired of the predictable and negative nature of modern campaigning.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a leader\u2019s campaign, no doubt about it. The TV networks and newspapers are full of what the leaders are saying, where they\u2019re going, and what they\u2019re saying about each other. It\u2019s Paul Martin\u2019s health care plan<\/a>, Jack Layton\u2019s inheritance tax<\/a> and Stephen Harper\u2019s musings<\/a> about the welfare of Atlantic Canada under another Liberal government. OK, they might be party positions, but that\u2019s not the spin that\u2019s put on them. We\u2019re supposed to vote for the leader we like the best, the one we trust the most and the one who seems the most competent.<\/p>\n That\u2019s why my youngest daughter\u2019s comments are so intriguing. If what I\u2019m reading about in all the major media is true, she\u2019s the generation that today\u2019s politicians should be taking square aim at. Her cynicism and lack of real interest is a simmering problem. Or perhaps the better target might be my 19-year-old son and his friends. They\u2019re all eligible to vote in their first federal election. But a quick sampling of a few of their opinions reveal a distinct lack of interest in what\u2019s going on. Elections are for others, despite the fact that they all participated in mock election exercises in high school. They\u2019re not tuned out\u2026they just don\u2019t see politics (and government) as relevant to them. Maybe they\u2019re right. (The Globe and Mail has an interesting series<\/a> on what younger voters think.) <\/p>\n When I came of age, voting was something you did. I don\u2019t remember thinking about it much. I voted, and that was it. My father was a civil servant, and never revealed his voting intentions to any of our family. He was an old school public servant, who believed he and his colleagues should be non-political. During his career, his view fell out of fashion, as various Saskatchewan governments began encouraging, and then expecting, civil servants to take an active role in ensuring that the current government (the one signing your paycheque!) stayed in power. My Dad watched as political appointees took over from career civil servants. Eventually, he was squeezed out too, since he wouldn\u2019t agree to be politicized. I know some of what happened to him now, but at the time, I had no idea. It was only after he retired that some of what he went through came out.<\/p>\n I suppose my background influenced my own political views. I have a strong respect for our parliamentary tradition. But I still don\u2019t tell people how I vote. That made sense while I was a journalist, but now, I guess it\u2019s just a habit. When I was a reporter at the legislature in Regina, I often stayed late at night listening to the debates, even though there was no earthly reason to do so. I liked the arcane detail and the traditions. I probably would have been happy to have been a clerk. It wasn\u2019t news and nothing I was listening to was going to make it into my stories. In fact, my stories were long gone. Most of the day\u2019s news was written immediately after Question Period, which conveniently occurred at 1:30 pm, so that the TV news guys could file in time for the supper hour news. For the rest of the day, the press gallery was a pretty lonely place. Just the odd print reporter hanging around to see if anything interesting happened.<\/p>\n I\u2019m digressing\u2026back to the point that started this rambling post. I know I\u2019m a hopeless romantic, but there\u2019s little about political discourse today that attracts me anymore. Today\u2019s election campaigns are calculated, scheduled and managed. There is little that happens that hasn\u2019t been planned in advance. Sure, there are still mistakes, and they\u2019ll still make big news. And you know that voters are going to surprise us yet again. They may not end up voting the way that pollsters predict. Or they might. There\u2019s enough polls during the campaign that chances are someone, somewhere will probably get the results right. During the campaign itself, however, the comments will be \u201ccatty\u201d most of the time. <\/p>\n Back in 1993, Kim Campbell was crucified for her candid comments that election campaigns were not the place for a serious discussion about public policy. Although she paid a price for that statement (and a few others), it looks like she was right. We don\u2019t discuss serious policy during election campaigns. But the difference now is that the politicians are up front about it. They walk from one planned event to another, secure in the knowledge that they\u2019re aiming their comments at the TV, not the real people that are in front of them. (Or not, as is sometimes the case in the case of some photo-ops for the cameras.) You\u2019d think that people would be upset about it, and in truth, you do hear a lot of grumbling about the process. There might even be more grumbling this time than in previous elections. But the process doesn\u2019t seem to be changing much. <\/p>\n Will I be voting on June 28? Sure\u2026but then, I usually do. I wonder how many others will be joining me? \u201cElections are pretty catty, aren\u2019t they?\u201d\u201d That\u2019s what my 16-year-old daughter said this morning, while we listened to politicians trash each other\u2019s latest proposals for health care, taxes, or whatever. No matter what the statement, the first, predictable, response, was scorn, contempt, sneering\u2026(insert your favourite modifier here.) Nowhere is there any attempt to engage in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p88Hib-cU","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davetraynor.com\/wp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davetraynor.com\/wp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davetraynor.com\/wp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davetraynor.com\/wp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davetraynor.com\/wp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=800"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/davetraynor.com\/wp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1787,"href":"https:\/\/davetraynor.com\/wp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800\/revisions\/1787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davetraynor.com\/wp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davetraynor.com\/wp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davetraynor.com\/wp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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