DEMOCRACY IS MESSY

Democracy is filled with contradictions and disincentives to honesty and integrity. Individual citizens have the numbers and hence the votes. The money and power however are held by the few. Personal benefits and considerations are also part of the equation. How many politicians after losing an election receive a golden parachute from the monied few? How many get appointed by the government of the day to a well paid commission, board or other perk? The Senate comes to mind.

Local/Municipal politicians are especially vulnerable to manipulation by higher tiers of government. Imagine that you are a local, activist Mayor, elected by the citizens as a protest against the old way of doing business. You want to put people first, not money and corporations. You begin reforms locally by fighting never ending expansion of gravel pits. You attempt not to block but to relocate a proposed bio-fuel plant that would generate increased truck traffic in your small town as well as most probably generate odours. Your small town already has a huge history of pollution from local industry and neglect and incompetence from the provincial Ministry of the Environment.

You enter office with hope and optimism. Then reality sets in. You as Mayor are automatically sitting on the next higher tier, namely Regional Council. Both the carrot and the stick are evident. Regional roads need upgrades in your community. The local Sewage Treatment Plant needs expansion if you want to have capacity for new developments and subdivisions. These are Regional decisions. Do you want the support of your colleagues for your local projects? If so then there is some give and take. Your current Regional Chair was voted in by his colleagues on Regional Council decades ago precisely because he did not represent one of the major urban centres in your Region. If you play your cards right you could replace him down the road as retirement can't be too far off. If you play your cards right.

Then there is the province to deal with. You are generally on good terms with them. They however have an election upcoming. They absolutely don't need you raising a ruckus about their long comprimised, underfunded and generally hopeless Ministry of the Environment. You are asked to make concessions in regards to your vigour in pushing them, especially publicly. You are asked for the sake of harmony and future benefits to your community, in other areas, to soften and to quiet any criticism coming from, for example, citizen committees of Council. You are advised that it is always in the best long term interests of a Municipality to listen carefully to the very few strong "requests" from the province.

Perhaps during all this pressure, local industry also comes knocking on your door. Lobbying let's call it. They too are displeased with your apparent grassroots bias. They feel that rather than you trying to please those who elected you in the recent past, perhaps you should be looking to the future. For example donations to Mayoral campaigns are always a good thing aren't they? Perhaps if a large employer feels too pressured locally to conform to provincial environmental laws that the M.O.E. are willing to let slide, then this large employer might move up his plans to retreat to a more business friendly environment. How would that look on a new Council and its' Mayor?

The pressures are enormous and the reality is that you can not please everyone. This is where a politician learns to stickhandle. No one is asking you to publicly deny your past supporters or your beliefs. Just modify them a touch. Comprimise and delay are always a smart move when you are doing something controversial. Things aren't really black and white. So learn how to take baby steps without offending others. Life will be so much easier if you adjust your direction according to the pressure upon you. Congratulations you are learning the art of politics.