I have a few thoughts on it, and yes, it's late, but whatever.
There's one theme that really struck me during the campaign (and within politics in general): people with good intentions who don't realize that they're patronizing minorities.
John Tory (apparently) assumed that his school proposal would get him more votes from minorities. Here's how I think about it: We leave other countries and come here for many reasons, one of the main ones being the education system (which has its flaws but is still great, especially compared to what we've left behind). A lot of recent immigrants (and/or minorities) are secular. Like myself, they don't want (more) public funding for religious schooling. You can't assume that a lot of us want this just because a vocal minority (within the minority) is demanding it. When I read about the proposal, I did a double take, but I was even more surprised after learning that Tory somehow thought it would get him votes from people like me.
Note to politicians: Minorities will vote for you if you have good policies. You don't need to target them specifically. It makes some feel special, but most of us feel like we're being singled out and separated from other voters (and thus other Canadians).
MMP was overwhelmingly defeated, as it should have been. One point its proponents constantly made is that we could use it to put more women and minorities in the legislature. I don't know how most women feel about this, but as a brown guy, I was quite offended. I don't care how well intentioned you are, but you're patronizing and insulting me if you're telling me that people who look like me are not capable of being elected under the current system. Apparently a back-door (like MMP) is necessary to get more of us into the legislature. Thanks, but no thanks. If I want to be an elected politician, I'll go about it the normal way. I don't need special policies enacted to make it easier for me; all I need is equal opportunity.
I'm really curious as to what would've happened if Tory had proposed making all of Ontario's schools secular. Just as the Liberals abolished religious arbitration in the legal system, they should abolish funding for Catholic education. Note to D-Mac: If you try and use your new majority to do this, you'll win over a whole lot of minorities like me.
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Women and minorities do not want any favours--they just want a level playing field. The present system depresses the numbers of women and minorities--80% of the time our system chooses men, mostly white--not because they are necessarily better qualified than women and minorities but because each riding association makes their decisions on who to nominate in isolation and they assume that the most attractive candidate is a white male, lawyer or businessman.
ReplyDeleteProportional systems open up this closed shop and provide "opportunity structures"--which enable the election of women and minorities in a natural way.
Party lists, just make the process visual and transparent --it becomes patently obvious that women and minorities are missing. No party would be foolish enough to nominate so visually 80% males they would lose votes.
As Hugh Segal said--parties not nominating a diverse slate both demographically and geographically would lose votes and be "crushed like a bug".
We lost a major chance to open up our democracy and put us in line with most countries in the world that use a form of PR.
If one looked at the evidence, the case in favour of MMP was strong and hard to counter.
ReplyDeleteSo the opponents of MMP ignored the evidence.
For example, no place that uses MMP sees party bosses appointing party hacks. It doesn't happen.
Nowhere that uses MMP are extremist parties elected.
Nowhere that uses MMP do we see unstable government.
That so many people were happy to ignore the evidence bodes ill for Ontario (and Canada's) future.
The York Region Catholic Board had the highest EQAO scores in Ontario. You want to defund the most successful board of education for reasons outside of education. Tell us, are you a Catholic hating Bigot?
ReplyDelete"Tell us, are you a Catholic hating Bigot?"
ReplyDeleteWow, lovely.