Vote for Change could spare a little ink to correct that false impression. Jeffrey Simpson, in the Globe and Mail, who has consistently opposed basic reform, says “the electoral system, like the constitution . . . belongs to the people, not the political parties.” I think he means there must be a referendum. But we’ve already been handed two constitutions: one in 1867, which Sir John A. Macdonald decreed people be given no chance to vote on, and a similar procedure in 1982. Our electoral system isn’t even in either constitution – it’s a hand-me-down from Britain. Instead of getting mired in a referendum process (what alternatives are on it? What percentage is required to win?), how about leap-frogging to a place where minority governments can never again pretend to be majorities? What’s behind these sour responses to a sunnier democratic future? Have journalists learned to cover elections as they now are and don’t want to retool? That’d be mean-spirited to suggest though if the shoe fits, etc.
Or, perhaps, they see themselves as surrogates for the benighted, politically deprived masses who they stand in for, holding the elites to account since ordinary people can’t, due to the current political math? That’s convoluted, but sounds more like it. Or are journalists embarrassed at having ignored this rotting system for so long? We all should be but they’re the watchdogs who’ve blithely treated a democratic atrocity as if it’s a virtue or at least something normal, like the weather. Anyone would rather not have such dereliction pointed out. So they opt to continue covering peccadilloes and light abrasions rather than the limb that got lopped off and was never replaced or even sutured. It’s as if some huge story – say, an airliner going down once a week on the same day for years – never got reported, while all the energy went into the occasional fender bender. CT
Instead of getting mired in a referendum process, how about leap-frogging to a place where minority governments can never again pretend to be majorities?
Rick Salutin is an author and activist based in Toronto. This article was originally published in the Toronto Star
By The Numbers www.inequality.org
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