There are lots of issues on the agenda this time around. But, Bob Hepburn writes, there's one issue none of the leaders will touch:
Missing will be plans on how to address what is arguably the most critical issue of all — our increasingly fractured nation.
It’s the big election issue that no one is talking about.
Indeed, this election is actually about fractures between urban and rural, highly educated and moderately educated, elites and ordinary folks. It’s an election about solitudes — West versus East, the rich versus the middle class versus the poor.
While the leaders may talk a little about these divides, none will likely say anything truly unique. Instead, they will simplistically say “vote for me and I will resolve these issues.”
True, we've always been a divided nation. But some divisions can cause irreparable harm. As a kid, I grew up in the middle of Quebec -- and Canada's -- Two Solitudes. The end result was The October Crisis. We survived that and developed the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. But this time around, we are faced with multiple simmering divisions:
Today, 62 per cent of us believe the country is divided and 51 per cent feel it has worsened over the past 10 years, according to a recent Ipsos poll.
On the urban-rural divide, the split is huge and growing, especially on issues such as the carbon tax and gun controls. In Tuesday’s election in Manitoba, for example, outside of Greater Winnipeg the NDP won only two ridings and the Liberals none.
Many politicians, notably Ontario Premier Doug Ford, have made careers of pitting suburban and rural voters against those living in cities. In trying to appeal to non-urban voters, Ford last year branded downtown voters as “people who look down on the common folk, the people who think they are smarter than other people.”
At the same time, the rich-poor gap has grown so wide that the poor have given up on most politicians working to achieve income equality. In fact, they believe — rightly in many cases — that no politician will save them soon and that few will even try.
What the poor do see too often are politicians bowing to the rich and ultra-rich, that 1-per-cent crowd that fights against their taxes going up, money that could be spent to repair decaying schools or fixing playgrounds in poverty-ridden areas.
If we ignore those divisions, there will be an explosion. They must be addressed.
Image: HuffPost Canada
12 comments:
I think the divide is between those who deliberately choose to remain ignorant and think there is something admirable about this and those who choose to be curious and want to learn about the world that lies beyond their own narrow lives. There have never before been so many opportunities to learn about almost anything. People used to be ignorant because they were at work by the time they were ten years old and were lucky to get a year or two of formal education and public libraries were rare. In fact this was the way it was for most of recorded history. It is hardly like this today.
I find the stupidity snobs are getting more and more aggressive. Last year at the local university book sales there was a man in the foyer loudly accusing a volunteer of having a "book addiction". The security should have escorted him off the premises and made sure he never came back.
I think the country-city divide used to exist but since the 1950s not nearly so much. People often live in the country and work in the city or live in the city for most of their lives and retire to the country. They certainly socialize in the city, and are notorious for obnoxious behaviour. They certainly run to big city hospitals fast enough, all the while bitching about the many faults of city dwellers.
This is not a complete answer but it would go a long way to restoring social cohesion - electoral reform. When less than two out of five voters are enough to assure the Conservatives or the Liberals a majority government that alienates the three of five majority who are denied a voice in their government.
There is no shortage of governments in which a minority group holds sway over the majority of citizens - Syria and Iraq come to mind - or where a majority renders significant minority voices mute.
Liberal democracy is based on the rights of the minority to be protected from an oppressive majority. That is also the essence of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Yet here we cling to an electoral system from an era of a two-party state that has obviously lost its legitimacy in a multi-party reality. The marginalized majority is only heard when the dominant party receives a minority. These false majorities, Conservative or Liberal, consistently fail the majority of the voting public.
This predicament can also play into the hands of the two dominant parties by letting them know that a divided society can work to their advantage. That invites the very worst of politics in which the parties manipulate the electorate with fear mongering and appeals to their basest instincts. Lord of the Flies. Inculcate fear, paranoia and distrust and you can create two camps, a reality that can compel those who want neither dominant party to vote strategically, the ultimate form of negative voting. You reluctantly support B to block A and leave the polls knowing your voice will not be heard this time around nor, perhaps, the next time either.
How many Canadians have given up on politics entirely because of this? How many feel alienated from a government that doesn't respond to their views and concerns? I suspect there are more than we might imagine.
We've seen in the States that what begins as a breakdown of social cohesion can worsen dramatically to the point where one side sees the other as the 'enemy.' Are we next?
As you point out, ffd, there are plenty of opportunities to cross over the divides. But choosing not to do so leaves us ignorant of the people on the other side.
I worry, indeed, that we are next, Mound. It's easy to slide into a Lord of the Flies scenario.
I meet people from the other side of the so called divide all the time, in fact, a lot more than I meet my own kind of people.
Would you walk into someone's apt and tell them they have too many books? This has happened to me several times and I politely point out I have too few bookcases. But honestly, do I go to people's apts and tell them they have too many pets or too many plants or too many computers? I wouldn't dream of it. But maybe this sort of thing doesn't happen to you. Somehow it seems to be attack season on books.
I don't expect people to change. But maybe society should make ignorance less rewarding and enjoyable, stop passing out high school diplomas to people who can barely read, for instance. Then they think the students who did some work are suckers. Then maybe we would have some voters with a little intelligence.
My local high school gives a reading test to students in the final year of high school. I always thought they should give a reading test to students before they got into high school. All this is sending a loud and clear message that reading is a joke.
Those who know how to read -- really read -- know how to really think, ffd.
ffd is right, Owen. One of the biggest elements of the LSATs, the Law School Aptitude Tests, is reading comprehension combined with logic. Comprehension is not recitation. You have to understand what you've read and must demonstrate that you can discern what's there and what's not there. That's all part and parcel of critical thinking which, today, seems to be on the wane. I am amazed at how many people can extrapolate D from A when neither B nor C exist. Maybe that's what we call 'magical thinking.' Belief substituting for knowledge. Belief shaped by preconceptions, biases, desires, fears.
.. this, to no surprise is a compelling post.. and comments.. for serious reread & reflection. But the question remains doctor.. what to do ? What is the treatment protocol. Or what is the differential diagnosis.. haha.. the 'optimum' differential diagnosis ?
I once struggled across Canadia in my 70 Chevy 1/2 ton.. its normally powerful engine off tune. Many a place I stopped seeking a cure. Was it electrical, was it carburation, a piston ring ? Computers were connected in Wawa, Winnipeg, Saskatoon.. and so on.. but how could it be 'fixed' if we could not identify the problem. Keep in mind I had my life possesions aboard.. for my latest migration west.. thus the truck could not just be left parked outside a gas station for a week, with hope as the only 'strategy'
Well we rolled into Banff, rhe engine obviously colicky.. and a week later, eureka ! Driving back through Calgary to visit a cousin, I saw a sign near the A & W that made my pulse race. 'Race Engines' outside a tidy looking shop. I drifted in.. and soon was adressing an elderly man of twinkley eyes with a rag in his hands.. He looked out the window, nodded approvingly.. and said
'Fine engine, the 283 small block.. I'll give er a listen'
I was struck by his minimal need for words.. even moreso as he grabbed a wooden dowel and strode out.. he nodded at the hood, which I lifted, he told me to fire it up.. He put the dowel to the cyinder head, under the quadrajet carb. Bing bing bing.. all 8 cylinders got the dowel and his ear on the other end.
'Cylinder five, broken intake valve spring. One hundred cash. Have you rolling in 30 minutes'
Well.. I was thunderstruck.. He needed 30 seconds under the hood to accomplish what auto clinics, Canadian Tire, Auto specialists, service centers across the country had failed to accomplish or identify. I had the cash in my wallet. and my thunderbeast was sweet in 30 minutes. Obviously he had the knowhow and the tools .. he 'fixed the problem' & realistically as a race engine builder.. he was the sharpest knife in any drawer.. hell, I knew that.. I raced cars back then. The dude 'blueprinted' engines, tuned them with an inch of their lives and connected them to race transmissions.. then he stripped em down, machined em.. rebuilt em and put em back together
Canada needs common sense 'race docs' - folks in the know.. to identify & define where the engine called Canada has gone sour.. then we can fix it. That person is not a Jason Kenney, a Gerald Butts whispering in Justin Trudeau's ear, a thug named Ford from Etobicoke, and its certainly not a Lisa Raitt or a Hamish Marshall or a career creep parasite like Andrew Scheer
Mound gets into it via his comment, David Climenhaga's guest post this AM gets into it. Dr Weaver of the BC Green's gets into it recently. So does Norm Farrell and nice to see Ms Laila Yuille back posting again.
I keep chanting the same mantra.. we need exemplars, not the grifters that populate Public Service. Like it or not, we need the Ms Jane Philpotts.. or Michael Chong's .. and in my view, I would like to see exemplars like her or him.. or a Nathaniel Erskine-Smith freed of political party encumbrance and dogma.. and simply doing what we elect (hire) them to do.. represent our ridings.. the dreams, needs & wishes of the electorate. Sure they may have some warts, flaws, .. but then who doesn't ? The last thing we need is shrill partisan sellouts like Pierre Poilievre.. or similar partisan mainstream media screetchers like Calgary Sun's Licia Corbella poisoning the waters.. We don't need 'left right or center' - we need 'real' to look and listen under the hood.. and grab the right tools, get it done
Exactly, Mound. Everytime I hear Donald Trump read from a prepared text, he reminds me of a kid in Grade Two reading orally. He can't read and he can't think.
Besdies his knowledge and tools, what your mechanic had was a "feel" for that engine, sal. We have plenty of folks who know this country academically. What they lack is a feel for the country. By the way, those 283 V8's went for miles and miles -- and miles.
.. Hendrix did it in 3 words
'Are you experienced?'
Scenario..
"How many economies have you rebuilt ?
How many cultures do you understand ?
What do you understand re Environment, Habitat, Species ?
Do you even care ?
The end of the reject line is over there ..
go find it.. if you can..
Hmm .. you seem kinda clueless..stumbling
do you require a service dog ?"
That seems the state of partisan ''Public Service' these dayz
plus pronouncements of funding cutbacks & deletions
Seems the state or age of rational policy and legislation destruction..
Rational policy requires careful, critical thought, sal. As the Mound says, there's not much of that these days.
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