LACK OF FAITH IN POLITICS AND POLITICIANS

Good for the Woolwich Observer. To be specific good for Steve Kannon in his Editor's Notes column yesterday. The title of his article is "Will changing our voting system be enough to restore faith in politics?". I have long been a big fan of Steve's opinions and writing. He starts by advising that Canadians generalize two kinds of politicians: "those on the take, and those who haven't yet been caught.". Wow! He also states that citizens are neither getting full value from our governments much less true representation from them. He specifically indicates that this is at all levels of government including regional and local governments.

Steve also refers to "...blatantly crooked election financing methods...". I suspect he is referring more to provincial or federal elections than to municipal ones although it is unclear to me. Steve suggests that direct democracy could work at the local level and even compares Athens 60,000 eligible participants to the much smaller Townships as evidence that it could work here. Steve also believes that selection of leaders by lottery as was done in Greece, removes money, class and popularity when picking leaders. He does mention the possible downside of not getting the best and the brightest by this method but then counters that with "Who, however, would argue that's currently the case?" Good point.

"A loss of faith in politics and politicians can be tied to the way business is done in Ottawa, in the provincial legislatures and, to a lesser extent, in municipal governments, where power and decisions are typically ceded to unaccountable bureaucrats, developers and union lobbyists...".

Steve makes an excellent point about politicians exempting themselves from rules that apply to others. He's referring to laws that demand truthful representations from taxpayers, welfare applicants, immigrants and most professionals when they fill out government forms. There are no such laws demanding politicians be truthful in their public statements. There is one law that demands truthfulness from our local politicians and that is the Municipal Elections Act (MEA). Despite that I would suggest that there is a ton of room for artful stickhandling as has been practiced by some of our Woolwich politicians.

I agree with everything Steve is saying about the moral fibre or lack thereof in Canadian politics. Citizens are disengaged from politics because of the behaviour and conduct we see from our politicians.

Is there a small disconnect between this harsh, yet in my opinion, accurate outlook on our politicians from Steve Kannon versus the Observer's recent support for a Councillor who a) couldn't be bothered to even learn that ALL election expenses means ALL expenses or b) was assured that nobody was watching and he could literally spend five minutes and fudge the forms all he wanted ?