Election Misconceptions

In the course of my obsessively-talking-politics-with-everyone-I-meet day, I've realized a couple things about people who don't talk obsessively about politics with everyone they meet (aka normal people). One of those things is that a lot of people are just so jaded that no amount of lying, cheating, stealing, manipulation or downright dishonesty on the part of politicians even fazes them anymore. "Well, they're politicians," people will say to me. "What do you expect?" And that's sad, because the last few election campaigns have been getting progressively dirtier until I, personally, find the current level of discourse completely unacceptable, and I think we can and should expect better from our politicians.

I mean, let's look for a second at Stephen Harper's campaign. A good number of his ads are based on the strategy of taking old footage of Michael Ignatieff from 2008 or 2009, finding little soundbites and clipping them out of their context, and then just inserting them willy-nilly to make him sound really bad.

Take this ad, for example, which is all over tv right now:



Here are the three pieces of evidence cited against Ignatieff:
"We'll have to raise taxes" Kitchener-Waterloo Record, April 14, 2009
"I'm not going to take a GST hike off the table" CITY News, December 18, 2008
Supported up to $75 tax on iPods, Vote on Dévision No. 22 April 14, 2010

I mean, look at those. Really look at them for a minute. The newest one was from almost a year ago. One of them is from December 2008, and he's just being noncommittal and refusing to make promises. As for the first one? Who thought to dig through the archives of the Kitchener-Waterloo Record? Seriously. And by the way, I got curious, so I went to check out the Kitchener-Waterloo Record's online archives, and according to the search only one article on April 14, 2009 included the words "Ignatieff" or "Liberal," and that is an opinion piece by Eldon Yundt called "We deserve honesty." Unfortunately you have to pay to see the actual article, and I didn't feel like doing that. But the summary is:

The gist of his advice to Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff: promise nothing, have no policies, simply gripe and criticize the Conservatives.
Canadians have been inveigled into negative voting, and the percentage of those voting continues to decline as more Canadians refuse to support politicians with no vision, no platform, no courage of their conviction.
Along with many other Canadians, I am weary of the games politicians play. We expect a better, more honest standard and that is what [Geoffrey Stevens] should be advising -- not just to Ignatieff, but to all the leaders.

(Geoffrey Stevens had written an opinion piece for The Record the day before, predicting that the Conservatives were losing power and the Liberals would determine the next election.)

I don't think an op-ed piece about how politicians should be more trustworthy, published in a local paper, is necessarily going to be the most reliable source for Ignatieff's words. In fact I think Eldon Yundt would disapprove.

But don't just roll your eyes and say, "What do you expect? Harper's a politician." Because this isn't just regular everyday spin. This is downright manipulation of the facts. And I expect better, because no one else is stooping to that level of dishonesty.

The other thing that I've noticed, is that a lot of people don't seem to have quite a grasp on why an election was called in the first place. Stephen Harper isn't helping, because he's going around acting like his government was taken down over the budget, which it wasn't.

Stephen Harper and the Conservative government were found in contempt of Parliament for refusing to divulge information to the House of Commons (i.e. the cost estimates of the F-35 fighter jets and proposed crime prevention measures). Because of this contempt finding by the standing committee on procedures and house affairs, there was a non-confidence motion, and a majority of MPs voted that they had lost confidence in the government. This caused the government to fall.

It's important to note that the actual motion was a non-confidence motion, rather than a contempt motion. The Harper government was found in contempt of parliament by the committee, not by the House. If they had been found in contempt by the House, it would have been more like an impeachment.

So. Contempt of parliament. What does it mean? Basically, a disrespect for democracy. From the Wikipedia page:

In many jurisdictions governed by a parliament, Contempt of Parliament is the offence of obstructing the parliament in the carrying out of its functions, or of hindering any Member of Parliament in the performance of his or her duties.
Actions which can constitute a contempt of Parliament vary, but typically include such things as:
• deliberately misleading a House of Parliament or a parliamentary committee;
• refusing to testify before, or to produce documents to, a House or committee; and
• attempting to influence a Member of Parliament, for example, by bribery or threats.

So in this case, the government was hindering MPs in the performance of their duties and obstructing the functioning of parliament by refusing to give out details of proposed bills. This is a big deal. The Harper government is the first government in the history of Canada--in the history of the Commonwealth--to be found in contempt of parliament.

As the CBC points out:

A Canadian government has never before been found in contempt but Harper doesn't give much weight to a finding that might go down in the history books.
He tends to shrug it off, as he did during the debate: "First of all, everybody should realize the so-called contempt motion Mr. Ignatieff speaks of is not a ruling of a court or a ruling of the Speaker, it was simply a case of the other three parties outvoting us. We don't agree with that."

So that's where things stand now, and to a certain extent, that's what this election is about--for me, anyway. Stephen Harper has shown a disrespect for our democracy and contempt for our parliament by not only withholding this information, but also by proroguing parliament in order to avoid losing power and by blatantly lying during the election campaign. Is this just what politicians do, power-hungry amoral beasts that they are? Or is this something you find unacceptable in the leader of a democracy?