"But Still We Have It"
My wife spoke on the phone yesterday with an incumbent MP from another region that lost his seat in the last election. He and his family have been friends for years and so the conversation was an open and frank one. When asked if he would run again his response was interesting. “It’s like a marriage where the partner suddenly decides they no longer desire you and want someone else. It hurts and you definitely feel disinclined to go back another time and attempt to win that person back.” A couple of weeks ago I spoke with a Conservative MP friend who had been blindsided by the NDP sweep and lost, who now questions whether the voters ever really cared about all the hard work that had been done on their behalf.This is a reality of the modern era. Losing was always hard in politics, but as voters become increasingly less grounded in national policy the price paid by MPs who have fallen victim to mood swings that have little to do with their own performance is steep. These days, Ottawa is a terribly negative place in which to function, but the MPs usually draw solace from their home community. Largely ignored in the House of Commons, they can, and do, throw themselves into community life and make their efforts count. Every good MP, and there are many, knows their future rests far more in the hands of the home crowd than with their leader in Ottawa. But when your own people reject you after faithful service, what then?As losses like this continue to mount, the ability to draw true public servants into politics becomes increasingly unlikely. Instead we get the political aspirants, people who think of the glories of Ottawa and the power at work there. Large egos drive even larger ambitions and voters become your ticket rather than your destination.Somewhere on the winding road of democracy, from the early Greek polis, to the founding of democratic nations, to the airwaves of the 21st century, the public voice has become a muddled affair. Part of the reason for that is that the true public-spirited politicians either get marginalized by their own party in Ottawa or by a citizenry that can no longer define what it wants. Frustrated by the lack of direction and attention from Ottawa, they use election campaigns to express their overall angst. Good MPs who comprehend their communities and have worked hard for the public voice to be raised become collateral damage in all the confusion that results.This is one of the important issues that citizens must confront if they are to bring about the kind of politics that matter. We hear much about citizens being ignored by Ottawa and turning away from politics as a result. But what about when communities themselves turn away from those very representatives that have only really cared about those that initially elected them? I have no real idea of how many of that kind of politician exists, but I do know that enough of them fell in the last election and that many citizens regret the outcome and their own part in it. Responsible communities do their best to keep that from happening. The good ones toss out those they elect who seem only enamoured by politics and Ottawa and keep the ones with deep knowledge of the local citizenry and a proven record of public service.As citizens struggle to find a place in politics, and as elected officials struggle to find the public, it is of no help when either group casts off the other in cavalier fashion. The bond between the elected and the electors is meant to be a sacred one in the house of democracy and we treat it lightly only at our own peril. When politicians turn a deaf ear to their home communities, they deserve to be tossed out. But when local citizens opt for newly minted MPs they had never seen before or even heard of, then the citizenry itself becomes culpable in the democratic demise. As Elliott Richardson put it not too long ago: “Although we the people have delegated limited responsibilities to those who hold public office in the interest of all of us, we, nevertheless, retain ultimate responsibility. We cannot delegate it; it belongs to us. We may fulfill it well or poorly, but still we have it.”