First, let me say something about some biases I have going into this post.
I do not trust politicians.
I do not like the state of "Democracy" in North America.
I do not trust the system.
The spirit of what Democracy should be is that the people elect representatives because it is the best possible way to ensure that concerns of the people are addressed by the government; we need elected representatives because governing people is a full time job and a democracy cannot function without structure (in a practical sense, millions of people cannot each weigh-in on every issue and total consensus is not always possible). In theory, the people of any given community select a representative to participate in government who they feel best represents their interests and will do the best job of governing. A representative must have ideals, integrity, and interest to be a good candidate for this sort of thing as not everyone is capable of governing. The representative must always work in the best interest of the people that put them there, regardless of personal beliefs, opinions, or external influences.
That is a little about what we should have.
We don't.
Modern "democracy" has become a farce of banality and frustrating public relations spin where the people who are afforded the opportunity to participate come from the highest of privileges and who carry said privileges into office with them. The privileged few who have the opportunity to engage in politics have made democracy into a game about winning elections and not about how to best govern the people. Yes, a candidate who receives the most number of votes (or in our case has the most votes of anyone one party) technically "wins" the election; however, framing it in Win/Lose binary has more in common with games than it does with government.
I said earlier that I believe representatives in a democracy must posses ideals, integrity, and interest to be effective in governing people. Those ideals, I feel, must always be concerned with what is best for the people, above all else. Those ideals, I feel, should not be about towing the party line or keeping their privileged friends happy with subtle politicking behind closed doors. Having party platforms is one of the reasons democracy has been reduced to the mess it is today as it is the party ideals that have taken over as the primary influencing factor for how a representative governs the people. It is this notion that a Progressive Conservative (which is a contradiction of terms by the way) must always act as a Progressive Conservative in all things, the up shot being that the Progressive Conservative puts their party's ideals before the desires people that they are supposed to be governing; the same goes for Liberals, NDPs, and the Wildrose. Party representation means that the elected party governs the people who's party affiliation matches their own and, from what I've seen done in practice, elected parties tend to ignore the people who's affiliation differs.
Like I said at the outset, I have no faith in politicians nor the system in which they participate and I will hold this position until I see reason to believe otherwise.
The other source of my pessimism/realism (however you want to label it) comes from the realities of how the Obama Administration has played out in the United States, while we do have completely different political structures one of the major problems manifested in a very large and obvious way. Republican concerns about Obama were very clear before anyone was elected and this is fine, they are fully entitled to have an opinion as to whether or not they like the other side. However, what this manifested as was practically childlike obstinate behavior. To show their dislike the Republican side made sure that the Obama Administration was one of the least effective governments in recent history by refusing to participate, at all, in any decisions that the Administration was trying to make; they would even refuse to participate in concessions that the Obama Administration was willing to make to help them stop pouting for a minute and govern the country.
If a party is truly interested in governing the people in the best way possible then they must respect the will of the people even if that means respecting who they have chosen to represent them in government. When the Republicans of the United States made it their mission to refuse to participate in governing, they directly insulted the people who cast their vote. They demonstrated that they're only interested in respecting the democratic process if they are the beneficiaries.
Again, our governments are very different in a structural context, but, make no mistake, they are almost identical in terms of how the parties are behaving with each other. It is a game of winners and losers, a game where the privileged few fight over who has the power, and all the while the people, who selected these representatives, suffer and are ignored. The state of modern day "democracy" is dismal.
With that said, I saw a glimmer of hope with the public debate that was held recently.
NDP Party Leader Rachel Notley demonstrated, with a very simple phrase, what I feel to be a sign that there is reason to believe she and her party are interested in focusing on the concerns of the people over and above their own party ideals. The question posed to each candidate was around forming a coalition government in the event that a minority government is selected, however, it was how each party responded to the idea that prompted Notley to make the statement that I'm interested in.
Each of the other candidates remained rigid in their party ideals and plainly stated that they are not interested in working with anyone else, under any circumstances. This means we can infer that should they lose the election, they would follow in the footsteps of the Republicans under the Obama Administration and refuse to participate; doing everything in their power to make sure the elected government, whomever that ends up being, couldn't do their job and govern properly.
Notley was the only candidate who stated that they would respect the will of the people and ensure that they would work with the elected government, if it wasn't themselves, to be best of their ability with the hopes of making sure that Albertans have the best possible government.
It wasn't much and my lack of faith in the system and the politicians prevents me from getting overly optimistic, after all it could simply have been good politicking on her part. But, having said that, it's a subtle yet intriguing statement to make when every other candidate was rolling with the status quo in terms of party politics. When I consider her move, the underwhelming performances of the Liberal and Wildrose candidates, and the totally disrespectful behavior of Prentice over the past few months I can't help but be drawn to throwing some support behind one of the lesser evils.
Notley and the NDP could still turn out to validate my pessimism, but for the longest time I've been looking for one of the parties in our government to display single factor, aspect, or ideal that would separate them from the others. This small act, which just shows you how dismal things really at the moment, is enough...for now...
Video of the debate is here.
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