Right to Community - The Meddling Factor

For the American colonies life was becoming increasingly frustrating. The denigration they experienced from their political masters in England was further enhanced by countless tiny acts of subterfuge that made the life of the average colonialist eventually unbearable. The needless addition of the Stamp Tax, the Townshend Acts, and the Coercive Act effectively hampered the life of average people and businesses. Each time some transaction was negotiated, another imposed tax from England found its way into the deal. British interventions were effectively hindering average life.Added to the financial meddling were countless acts of political artifice, especially when it came to the colonists selecting their leaders. King George III ensured that many such community elections for offices like judge or land claims were rigged to favour England’s preferred choices. Benjamin Franklin eventually concluded, “He seems blind to the possibility that people act from any other Principle than that of interest.”We get a taste of how this feels with the revelations of these last few days concerning meddling in the last federal election to suppress the vote so as to favour the government’s chances. It could be criminal at worst, surely embarrassing at least. A small firm in Western Canada hired by the Conservative Party says it placed about 10 million calls from 200 accounts during the election. False information was transmitted in those calls to confuse voters and lower the turnout. Elections Canada received enough complaints from ridings across the country to launch an investigation.I have been left in no doubt that something untoward occurred because even my own riding was blitzed with calls providing false information about my own parliamentary record. I posted a blog on this the day after the election, which you can read here. Let me state for the record that I doubt local Conservative candidates even understood what was transpiring; political machinations emanating from call centres rarely keep the candidate uppermost in their minds.Let’s be clear. True or false political advertising has been with us for centuries, even during the time of American colonialism.  In fact, government advertising during that era was perhaps the worst in history - at least up until these last two decades. In an effort to populate the colonies, the government in England produced ludicrous pamphlets, full of half-truths and downright lies. According to American historian William Prescott, there were untold promises of gold and silver, fountains of youth, venison and lands without limit. It was all a grand design to get people to the farther regions of the Empire to defend British interests. Naturally, it worked, but the disappointment and feelings of betrayal such false promises produced in the settlers was palpable, and they eventually remembered the falsehoods when the time came to consider a different future.All of this is just to say that political meddling in local communities has been with us since before Confederation. At its best it garnered for us hospital wings, train stations, research funds, and all manner of amenities in hopes we would remember the government on Election Day. Far more sinister has been the manipulation of various interest groups against one another by parties to secure support. But nothing quite compares to a full-blown campaign of robo-calling to disseminate misleading information in order to discourage voters from visiting the ballot box. It has been somewhat of a reality south of the border for years, but its introduction to Canada has been recent and sinister.What is saddest about this development is how communities themselves are targeted for manipulation in far more sophisticated, and often untraceable, levels. While our local communities struggle under increased loads of income disparity, often exacerbated by downloading from senior levels of government, we are at the same time being “played” through a lens that only sees us for our votes and not our capacity to be equal players in an equitable formula of governance. The practice of suppressing the vote intentionally has the effect of negating a local community’s ability to replace that government should it fail to live up to its responsibility. The entire scenario is designed to engineer our cities and communities for political gain through unconventional methods. That kind of agenda foisted on a capable people can only end badly, even in revolution.Canada’s communities are growing increasingly restless with Machiavellian political designs practiced over the years that result in the diminishing of the places where we live while we watch the expansion of the powers of governments such as in Ottawa or provincial capitals. Whether or not the charges of using robo-calls to suppress the vote bear out, we now know that it is possible in our world and that fact alone should cause communities to fight back against the manipulation and demand that their streets not be used as the breeding ground for subtle anarchy. It’s as Richard Armour affirmed: “Politics, it seem to me, for years, or all too long, has been concerned with right or left instead of right or wrong.”Designs to suppress community votes might be passable in some political circles, but in most of our minds it's just plain wrong. It can only be defeated by communities themselves fighting for better than they’re getting. We've been played for years, especially now, and it's time push back.