Who's what?

A fellow from Ontario wrote the other day. He was commenting on the comparative credibility of Mr. Ignatieff and Mr. Harper. He supports Mr. Ignatieff but was concerned that he didn't seem to have the credibility he felt Mr. Igantieff deserved. He was wondering what Mr. Ignatieff could do about it.

Interesting thought.

As I thought about it, I wondered if he should not have included Mr. Layton as well. I'm guessing that because Mr. Layton's party holds few seats in parliament and is a leader of a party given little change of gaining government, his credibility, along with Ms. May's, is taken to be sort of irrelevant.

Interestingly, as I see it, Mr. Duceppe's credibility is not premised on his ability to form government, but his ability to lead a separatist party into the Commons. He is credible among voters. He is immediately identifiable among political leaders.

There is a real problem here. I wonder if it is not related to the strident apathy gaining ground among electors.

I think we focus too much on the so-called right-left split. I think a much more telling measure is relevance.

It occurred to me that most of us Canadians, Albertans, perhaps most residents of every province, possibly except for Quebec, would have a difficult time coming up with a single sentence or phrase that defined each party or each leader for us individually.

Try it. Imagine some media personality, Rick Mercer perhaps, coming to your door with a camera crew in tow and asking you to define each party and each leader in turn with a single sentence or phrase. That's who each party and leader are for you.

I think it's more difficult than we think it might be.

I think that is partly a result of political "machines" being too careful to avoid alienating any voter, or heaven help us!, group of voters. So they present bland personalities with no personality. When someone has no personality, how far can that person be from having no character, not a bad character, just no character.

Now imagine these non-personalities asking us to have them act as the trustees of our political power. It's hard to trust someone we don't know. When we don't know them, why are they asking for something from us? Am I going to pick a trustee from a group of total strangers with no knowable personality?

Perhaps I'll stay home and watch the Riders. I may be frustrated from time to time, but I trust I will be engaged and entertained.

So, prior to an election, we have people telling us only part of their story. We have to wait until after the election to learn what the winners' personalities and characters are like by watching their actions.

That's too late!

The way I see it, a democratically elected government is there to advocate the interests and aspirations of each person in that society. The idea is to protect that which is going well and to change that which is not going well. How do elected officials know what's going well?

They ask the people.

The people are the same no matter who has been elected. Their interests and aspirations are the same. The difference in the candidates and parties should be our expectation of how each candidate will respond to protect what's good and improve what's not. What strategies will they employ to exercise our political power on our behalf?

What vision will they try to move us to? Will that vision complement and support ours? Do they understand that in human affairs, the process of achievement is far more important than the achievement itself? In fact, since living is a process, do they realize that the process of governing is the only important thing government can do?

Ask people what should be improved and protected. Pay attention to the process of governing and the engagement of the people in governing. Make sure people know who the candidates and elected officials are and how they think and how they see the world.

When these are being done, we can expect the disaffected to become engaged in the electoral and other participatory processes. We can expect people to make real choices because real choices are possible.

We might yet evolve into the democratic society we can all live every day!

Mike