Townsman, 1991-11, Page 8lumn
If you want
changes, make
them yourself
By Jim Fitzgerald
Nature abhors a vacuum, it has
been said. Look for example, at our
great weather systems here on earth .
There is the constant cycling between
low pressure and high pressure weath-
er systems, and a constant ebbing and
flowing from one to the other as
nature tries, always unsuccessfully, to
bring an cqualibrium.
Such is the case with politics.
Lately, everywhere one turns, people,
particularly Canadians are sick and
disgusted with the whole process of
politics and are turning into hardened
cynics over the whole process. Politi-
cians of all stripes are looked upon
with lower esteem than slugs in slime.
But wait a minute, isn't this a
democracy? Don't we have represen-
tative government? Aren't the people
ultimately responsible for who gov-
erns them? Instead of asking: what do
the politicians want, shouldn't the
politicians be asking what does the
electorate want?
As a former politician, I, and the
many good people who practice this
profession, are getting mixed signals
from the electorate. For instance, one
group says we need to slash education
taxes to the bare bones, while another
group says we need to spend more
upgrading our system and on retrain-
ing to meet the changing needs of a
highly competitive world. Many are
crying for lower interest rates to stim-
ulate the economy, yet our senior citi-
zens tell us they can't get by now
because their investments aren't
returning as much. Still others point to
health care spending that is out of
control, yet are horrified that their
hospital might be closed and medical
service will no longer be around the
corner.
Who is in charge here? Look in
the mirror folks: it's you! You can't
sleepwalk anymore. You can't be
complacent. It's no longer going to be
good enough to wake up every four
years, be sucked in by some fancy
manipulative election advertising
campaign, stumble into the polling
booth, mark an uneducated "X" and
return to your slumber for another
four years. Someone has to run your
town, province and country. It should
be you.
Toronto Star national affairs
columnist Carol Goar hit the nail on
the head in a recent opinion story
called "It's up to YOU to help save
the nation."
She says, politely that the
malaise we are going through is our
own fault and we shouldn't wait for a
saviour to come along and rescue us.
She writes that the country has been
through four national leadership con-
ventions in the last nine years, and not
one has produced a leader that Cana-
dians feel comfortable voting for. It's
irrational for Canadians to rely on the
same process — a multimillion -dollar
popularity contest— to produce a
saviour. "It reinforces the notion that
Canadians should wait for a miracle,
rather than doing anything them-
selves." We might get lucky, but it's
more likely that the nation will sink
further into frustration, anger and
despair.
Goar says it's time to think in
terms of small (though not necessarily
easy) changes and simple (though not
necessarily pleasant) truths.
There is no substitute for an
informed electorate, she argues, to
which I agree wholeheartedly. After
attending a number of meetings lately
of several different political parties at
which there was abysmally low
turnouts, I am becoming frightened
6 TOWNSMAN/NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 1991
that our democracy is falling into
fewer and fewer hands.
And Goar rightly points out that
no matter how disgusted Canadians
may be with the political process, they
have to understand it in order to
change it. That means taking trouble
to learn about the issues and think
about the trade-offs.
"There is no way to rebuild a
country without effort," she writes.
"That doesn't mean everybody has to
run for office or join a political party.
Involvement could mean picking a
cause and doing something about it."
She says there will be a price to
pay for our rampant cynicism of the
democratic process because the nation
is jeopardizing its political future.
I know personally how difficult
it is for Canadians to look in that mir-
ror. Canadians don't want to hear
these things, and columnist don't like
to say them, but we must start facing
reality. We can't keep looking for mir-
acles.
As Pogo once said in the comic
strip of the same name: "We have
seen the enemy, and he is us."
* * *
It has been a pleasure and a
privilege over the past two years to
have been given free range by editor
Keith Roulston to write on a subject
about which I feel so passionately,
and to have been read by so many
subscribers who, for the most part, are
willingly to intelligently debate my
views. However, opportunities have
arisen, and this will be my last column
for Townsman, as I have taken a posi-
tion with the Ontario Milk Marketing
Board getting paid for what I now
happily do for free.
(Jim Fitzgerald is the general-
managerleditor of The Rural Voice
magazine, a former chief of staff to an
Ontario cabinet minister, and a Liber-
al candidate in the last provincial
election.)
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