Election 2015: Please, Don't Think

ACROSS THE COUNTRY, CONSERVATIVE CANDIDATES have become, once again, conspicuous in their absence at election debates. If any one word was used to describe democracy it is supposed to be “participation,” but this trend of avoiding the voters while at the same time asking to be their representative is a bit confounding. It would be similar to a teacher failing to show up for a parent interview, or a doctor avoiding a consultation. The government has already provided the script to all its candidates in case their absence is missing: “I am out canvassing and meeting constituents in their homes.” But there is no evidence whatsoever to prove that these absentees have visited any more homes than those of other parties who consistently show up at debates. Call it “absentee democracy.”Pundits believe such a practice is designed to keep individual candidates from “going rogue” and deviating from the government line or the PMO talking points in any manner that could embarrass the leader or the government itself. It’s just another example of a dedicated candidate being forced into the safety of solitude as opposed to the accountable world of defending legacies and sharpening ideas.Ultimately it is the belief that citizens don’t care enough about their democracy to really hold governments accountable for such travesties that permits the practice to continue. As such, it isn’t only about liability control but the underestimating of citizens that is really the issue.For some in politics, the citizen stands as the one impediment to their grand designs. Instead of empowering or enlightening the average voter, the wish is there to keep them vague, in the dark, docile, and perhaps so totally uninterested as to not vote. It’s about as pessimistic a concept of democracy as exists and yet it appears to have been effective – at least until now.Elections can be all about the dispersal of selective bits of information designed to have you believe in change while at the same time being too disjointed to actually deliver on it. Ideally, an election should be about deeper consideration of the public estate as opposed to the hyper-simplification of it, but that’s not what modern electoral contests are about. The result of all this is the emphasis on the management techniques of democracy as opposed to its real values. And then begins the long process where we begin to devalue ourselves.We see the results of this everywhere: efficiency becomes inefficient, austerity becomes something cheap, what things are done become more important that why we do them. But it gets even worse. Prosperity is transcended by a growing poverty, costs becomes more important than values, press releases replace policy renewal, advertising trumps accountability, and, in the end, a kind of grueling partisanship takes the place of collective purpose.A citizen who begins to think contradictory thoughts during an election, who decides to step off the political treadmill of mere opinions and take a more objective look around her, can quickly spot the emptiness of it all. It is then that she becomes an impediment to the political process because she refuses to accept the shallowness of it. She begins to understand that the great progress of the last few centuries weren’t the byproduct of rational thought or management systems, but of daring enterprises, visionary leadership, and the belief that the Canadian people are at their best when challenged to develop a better, more inclusive future.Canada is in a state of uncertainty at the moment precisely because we accepted incremental structure over transformational action when it was required. For a government bent on sheer domination of the political landscape, the awakened citizen intent on action is of far more a threat than any opposition party, especially when others citizens join in the cause. The concern of our present state is produced just as much by an absence of values as it is candidates refusing to attend debates. Either way it is the belief that citizens are at their best when they’re mildly compliant and not agitated. Nothing could be worse for democracy, ourselves, or our nation.In a world drowning in political words that no longer carry meaning, the only hope is the empowered citizen, engaged and determined to place values back into the centre of the national conversation. It might be the last thing the government wants, but it’s the first thing the country needs.