Electoral Politics: Going Places

Citizen Engagement: Going Up (say this in an elevator voice)

Thanks to social media campaigns and the uprisings in the Middle East, Canadian voters are super engaged this election. But we already knew that, didn’t we?

Everyone is particularly impressed that young people seem to be so engaged.

Montreal-based Apathy Is Boring, one of several non-partisan organizations that have sprung up to promote increased voting in this federal election, hailed the busy advance polls as a harbinger of hope for Canadians’ interest in the political process.

“WE. ARE. DOING IT,” the group boasted after the Easter weekend numbers came in.
“Let’s keep turning up in record numbers to prove that young Canadians care about democracy, and that apathy is boring.”

Coalitions: Going Down

While Stephen Harper is ratcheting up his coalitions-are-scary-things rhetoric, and more and more Canadians seem to believe him, coalitions are both normal and stable in other parts of the world.

“We’ve have been forming coalition governments at the national and state level for a long time,” says Norman Abjorensen, a leading political commentator and professor at the Australia National University in Canberra. “And the sun has always risen the following day.”

The typical pattern in Australian federal politics, says Abjorensen, is either a leftish Labour government or a coalition of right-of-centre Liberals and rural Nationals.

“We change governments rarely here,” he says. “Only six changes in more than 60 years. No coalition has fallen except at the ballot box or on the floor of the house when in a minority in 1941.”

Western democracies such as Canada and the United Kingdom are behind the times, argues London School of Economics political scientist Jonathan Hopkin.

Not that Canadians haven’t thought about it:

A few days after Trudeau’s comeback victory in the 1980 federal election, he invited NDP leader Ed Broadbent to his office.

“I had a surprise for him,” Trudeau, who had just led his Liberals to a majority government, recalled in his 1993 book Memoirs.

“In an attempt to negotiate some sort of alliance with his party, I offered him and his colleagues some senior positions in our cabinet,” wrote Trudeau, explaining that his scanty take in Western Canada — just two seats, both in Manitoba, out of 143 Liberal MPs — had left him craving some of the widespread western representation of the NDP.

National unity, Trudeau believed, “would be strengthened if we could consolidate our forces.” He noted that there had been similar Liberal-NDP collaboration talks “on and off since (Lester B.) Pearson’s day,” but that Broadbent, who feared that his party would lose its power and credibility, quickly declined the offer.

Women in Politics: Going Nowhere

I mean that two ways: women who are in politics aren’t leaving anytime soon, but women are making very few gains in politics right now.

Anita Neville, a Liberal Member of Parliament and former minister for the status of women, agrees that more needs to be done to recruit women, and that the tone of Canadian politics is a barrier to that goal.

“I don’t think any of the parties have done a great job recruiting candidates,” she said at a campaign rally in Winnipeg, Manitoba last week.

“The rancor and nastiness of the political discourse turns off” many women, Neville said, adding that the atmosphere before the last election was “a really ugly Parliament.”

The New Democratic Party said April 11 it had set an “historic first” by having women as 40 percent of its nominated candidates. Still, Equal Voice said on its website that only 31 percent of NDP candidates in what it gauges are winnable ridings are women. That figure compares with 27 percent for the Liberals and 22 percent for the Conservatives. The Conservative Party did not respond to requests for comment yesterday about this issue.

Who said this election wasn't going to change anything?

Things are shaping up for this to be a historic election. First of all, voting at the advance polls jumped 35% from last election. This is part of a general trend seeing more people vote at advance polls, accompanied by the fact that they fell on a long weekend and also, I think, greater awareness of the advance polls. So it doesn't necessarily mean that there will be a big jump in overall voter turnout. The advance polls in the riding where my school is ran through 60% more voters than last election. In this student-heavy riding, this might be due to vote mobs, the fact that there are no exams on Good Friday, or the fact that most students are going to be out of the city and off to summer jobs before May 2nd.

Besides a potential voter turnout revolution, things are looking good for a potential Green victory in Elizabeth May's riding of Saanich-Gulf Islands, BC. (Saanich-Gulf Islands, was, by the way, a trending topic in the Twittersphere today.) Both the Liberal and NDP candidates have environmental activist cred, so it seems the riding is environmentally friendly in general.

And, one of the biggest upsets--polls show the NDP leading the Liberals in support. They're predicting a Conservative minority of around 130 seats with an NDP official op with about 100. People in Ontario are freaking out remembering Bob Rae's disastrous NDP provincial government, but I had dinner tonight with someone from Nova Scotia and someone from Manitoba. Both of these provinces are currently under NDP government, and both are getting along just fine. "The Liberals are just falling away," one suggested. "There's just less interest in a centrist party. My problem on a federal level is that I'm fiscally conservative, but left socially, and there's no party for that." Too true.

Anyway, they're calling it the Orange Crush:

And, even more orange crush-ing, here are the results when people were asked to name both their first and second choices:

That's the majority of people polled putting the NDP in their top two, yo! Totally throwing that in the face of everyone who says this election isn't going to change anything. Now there are definite problems with polling data, so let's not count our MPs before they hatch. But anyway, orange crush. I am drinking some right now (for non-NDP-related reasons). Also:



UPDATE: I picked that song because it has orange crush in the lyrics, but I forgot how depressing it was. Pro the NDP's promise to get troops home from Afghanistan? Anyway...

Peter Mansbridge's voice is so much nicer than anyone else's, but then, we already knew that

Peter Mansbridge has been interviewing all the leaders. And since Peter Mansbridge should totally be our king, you should go watch!

Elizabeth May

Jack Layton

Michael Ignatieff

Stephen Harper

You might remember that Ignatieff's interview set off some firecrackers with his talk of forming a government if the Conservatives fail to gain the confidence of the House. And the Galloping Beaver has an analysis of Harper's interview that is pretty interesting.

Food for Thought

We're now in the second, post-leaders' debates, phase of this election campaign, and that's when things start getting nasty. Before they get do, some thoughts on the campaign so far.

Decision Canada compiled these Campaign Coles Notes, which are worth a read. I found them a bit too summary-ish and lacking in analysis, but that's what you get from Coles Notes. Which is why you should always read the actual book. Anyway. It mentions us (youth voters)!!!!!!!!!

There were a couple things I disagreed with. This one, for example, I found a bit fearmongery:

3. A Conservative minority might open other doors.

If Harper is held to a third minority, he will return to the nation's capital as prime minister. But for how long?

He has warned of a Liberal-NDP-Bloc Quebecois "coalition" government. A formal coalition, with New Democrats holding spots in a cabinet led by a Liberal prime minister Michael Ignatieff, will not happen. But Ignatieff does say Harper would need to "try" to gain the confidence of the Commons. Moreover, he says he is willing to "work" with other parties.

Translation?

A re-elected Tory government could be quickly defeated in the Commons. If Ignatieff receives a commitment from the NDP and Bloc to support a Liberal minority government, he could approach Gov. Gen David Johnston and ask to become prime minister without another election.

Constitutional experts say Johnston would be hard-pressed to say no.

I just want to put it out there that a coalition government isn't as evil as everyone seems to think it is. A lot of countries that have proportional representation, for example, are constantly ruled by coalition governments. A majority coalition is about as stable as a one-party minority, although a minority coalition government can be on shaky ground.

Everyone's acting like this is some crazy unprecedented thing, the idea that Ignatieff might ask the governor general to try to form the government. Um, no, it isn't. You know what was some crazy unprecedented thing? Harper going to ask the governor general to prorogue parliament in order to avoid potentially losing power.

As for Governor General David Johnston, he's a constitutional expert in his own right. I'm sure that if any constitutional matter comes up, he will deal with it admirably.

Anyway. The Coles Notes piece also mentions that "Harper is actually pleading for a majority to provide 'stability'" and that

This election is happening because the government was found by a majority of MPs to be in contempt of Parliament.

The Liberals hoped to make this a core election issue, blasting away at Harper for his obsession with control and disrespect for democracy.

There's no evidence the issue has caught fire yet — either because Canadians don't care, don't know enough, or are content with Harper.

This brings me to the next piece. Here's the core of it:

Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff displayed verve, agility and intelligence in both leaders' debates this week, but he won't win this election unless he undermines Stephen Harper's compelling, repeated promises to provide economic "stability."

It is a weak claim that should be easy to counter without overstating the case. Harper is no more solely to blame for the recession than he is primarily responsible for the recovery. But so far no one has laid a glove on the eerily imperturbable Conservative leader, with his hypnotist voice and bland expression.

Instead, Ignatieff has missed opportunities to challenge Harper's claims to economic invincibility by focusing obsessively on the prime minister's anti-democratic instincts and behaviour. We get that. It's scandalous and unacceptable -but a lot of voters care more about jobs, the cost of gasoline and taxes than what they see, wrongly or not, as petty infighting.

Those are the voters Ignatieff has to reach. He could begin by reminding them it was Liberal governments that created the wellregulated banking system Harper likes to boast about internationally -often in the face of criticism from anti-regulation zealots like the old Harper.

Then it basically tears apart the Conservatives' economic performance over the last few years. Which is what Ignatieff should probably be doing if he wants to win. It seems that by focusing on Harper's undemocratic actions--which I obviously think are very important--he's trying to win over right-leaning voters who don't particularly approve of Harper. But I think a better way to get hold of those voters would be to push the centrist thing--that the Liberal platform, if you look at it from an economic perspective, isn't too different from the Conservative platform. And also Stephen Harper and Jim Flaherty fail at the economy and Paul Martin wins at it.

Speaking of campaign promises, here are two handy resources from Decisions Canada: the interactive campaign-promise tracker, and the campaign promise reality check. Here's what all the parties have to say on education:

Conservative Party of Canada

• Promise interest free student loans for part-time workers.

Liberal Party of Canada

• Pledge $1 billion annually for high school students to attend university or trade school.
• Pledges a Veterans learning benefit.
• Pledges an Aboriginal learning benefit.
• Wants language training for new Canadians.

New Democratic Party

• Would create integrated, community based child-centred early learning and education centres.
• Pledge more money to the provinces to lower tuition fees.
• Would increase the education tax credit amount.
• Plege increased funding to Canada Student Grants for marginalized groups.
• Would invest $1 billion in Aboriginal education.

I was going to include the promises on employment issues, too, but they were really long and the Liberals and Greens were the only ones who have promised youth employment initiatives. But definitely go check it out! It's a great tool for comparing what the parties have to say on different issues.

As for the Reality Check, here's an excerpt from the one on the Liberal Passport to Education ("If you get the grades, you get to go!"):

Will the plan increase demand for post-secondary education?

It might, but there's no guarantee Canada's institutions can handle that. Universities are already turning away applicants, as they operate above capacity, and many university graduates have had trouble finding skilled work.

When government starts providing something that increases the demand, without increasing the number of seats, there are two main options, Milligan said: redistribute who gets the seats, or increase tuition fees.

"With the capacity constraint, quantity isn't going to budge. What will budge is the price," he said. "There will be more room for tuition fees to go up, since everybody has an extra $1,000 in their pocket."

Recently, for instance, some provinces increased their fees when the federal government introduced the Millennium Scholarship Fund.

All very good points, as those of us who are graduating and are now saddled with student debt know.

One last tidbit (I know, I know, this is already super-long!). Stéphane Dion is afraid that Conservative attack ads will do the same thing to Ignatieff they did to him. I don't have much to say about this, except that attack ads, honestly, turn me off. I've said before that we can, and should, hold our politicians to a higher standard of political discourse, and that starts with not voting for people who attack other people! But I agree that attack ads do seem to be strangely effective.

Looking Deeper

One of my favourite things about being a student is having all of these people, in a very small geographic area, learning about and becoming specialists in all sorts of different things. And then whenever you talk to people, they're all coming at the issue from very different perspectives and backgrounds.

"I'm actually not a fan of the Liberal platform," a friend of mine, majoring in Global Development Studies, mentioned recently. "It's so focused on numbers and money. A lot of social problems just can't be reduced to the economics of it."

I pointed out that the government's job is basically to allocate resources, so the money side of things is really all they can look at, beside making or changing laws. She shrugged.

"I just don't like this focus on the deficit. I feel like they're going to end up cutting programs that provide a lot of good services to communities. You know who's platform is really well thought out? The Green Party."

Fair enough.

Another friend, a business student, told me, "I was reading the Liberal platform, and I wasn't very impressed. They're so focused on getting rid of this deficit, they want to get rid of it too soon. Carrying a deficit isn't necessarily a bad thing. We're so used to hearing about the deficit in the 90's, which shouldn't have happened because our economy was in a good place. But when the economy is doing badly, being leveraged gives you a lot more flexibility."

She explained that worrying about keeping a balanced budget in tough economic times makes you afraid to spend, and the government should spend because it's easier for it to take a hit and go into deficit than it is for individuals to go into debt due to losing their jobs or not having the same social programs.

"The Conservatives are promising to get rid of it sooner," I said.

She rolled her eyes. "Their economic policy has always been for less tax, less spending, and whatever sounds good to the average person, who is not a trained economist. They're pandering to get the votes."

This post isn't intended to be for or against any particular party. I just want to encourage you to approach the party platforms critically, and talk about them with people who are coming from a completely different perspective. Discussion is healthy!

Campaign Song Time!

New, better way to relate to political parties: which one shares your taste in music?

We all know by now that Stephen Harper is a John Lennon fan, and not too freaked out by Lady Gaga. However, his campaign song takes a bit of a different tone. (Better Now by Collective Soul--lyrics) Curiously, none of these artists is Canadian.



The Liberals cheat by having two different theme songs, which is actually very characteristic. Both from Canadian artists.

(Wingstock by Ashley MacIsaac)



(Jumpstart by These Kids Wear Crowns--lyrics)



The NDP don't have an official campaign song, but this has been played a lot at their rallies (by a Canadian alt-rock band). (Believe in Me by Sloan--lyrics)



Meanwhile, the Bloc have written their own song, "Parlons Qc". It has a bluesy/swingy feel, maybe a bit Neo-Trad, and was composed by the guitarist from Les Colocs.



Finally, the Green Party doesn't have an actual campaign song, but spoken word artist Winona Linn is awesome.



So, there you have it. Which party's song choice do you prefer?

On another note, I've always been partial to TROOPER's "Raise a Little Hell" for mobilizing voters, but since the theme of this election seems to be surprising everyone with a massive youth voter turnout, perhaps BTO's "You ain't Seen Nothing Yet" is more appropriate. (Lyrics.)

Youth vs. Senior

Check out this graphic from Creekside:

According to one poll, 46.2% of seniors intend to vote for the Conservatives, compared to 20.0% of youth.  Meanwhile, 20.6% of youth intend to vote for the Green Party, compared to 7.4% of seniors.  

If you're wondering whether your vote could make a difference?  It can.  So few youth turn out to vote, no wonder our Parliament looks more like the preferences of seniors.  There are something like three million voters under the age of 25, and 20.6% of three million is a BIG DEAL.  

Mobilizing Youth Voters: just fracking give us something to vote about!

Another good piece, this time at the Ottawa Citizen, although it's much more skeptical about youth actually coming out and voting, which I hate.  I wouldn't call youth "elusive."

"The jury is out to a certain extent on what ultimately are the causes of youth-declining voter turnout," says Keith Archer, a political science professor at the University of Calgary.
"The parties have been slow in reaching out to young voters where they may pay attention to politics."

I would say that that's it exactly.  There are campaign signs all over the city but none on my university campus.  And young people who go and actually look at the party platforms come away without any burning desire to elect anyone, because most of the issues just don't apply.  It's not that youth don't care about who's running our country, it's that we don't care about most of the issues on the party platforms.  The fact that promises directed towards young people are almost entirely absent erases us from public discourse on electoral politics and alienates us from electoral politics.  

So, how will parties get young adults to care, and in turn, get them to the ballot box?
The Conservative party hopes to engage younger adults by treating them like any other voter, rather than pander to specific demographics.
The party no longer has a youth wing, and a spokesman says it's up to individual campaigns to reach out to younger voters in their ridings.

This is exactly NOT what to do if you want to gain support among young people.  The Conservatives have a stable amount of support from the kind of young people who always vote no matter what, it's true.  But that kind of tactic isn't going to win them many more new voters.  For all of their desire not to "pander to specific demographics," most of their platform seems to be aimed at young families, and the number of voters under 25 who have young children is not that big.  They also target seniors--I think young families and seniors already form the core demographics behind their support, so this makes sense.  But you can't get youth voters by "treating us like any other voter," you have to reach out, because literally no plank of the Tory platform would make any difference in my life.  

Green party leader Elizabeth May says the commonly held belief that "young people don't vote" has become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Her party is spending time on campuses with its youth wing, as well as using social media to communicate with tech-savvy youngsters.

See, THIS is what you need to do in order to attract new youth voters.  I've already mentioned that the Green Party have by far done the best job at reaching out to young people.  In order to get young people to vote for you, you have to (1) campaign directly to them, and (2) make sure you campaign on issues that they care about.  Elizabeth May is winning at this.  

I don't know.  This reminds me more and more of the movie The Trotsky, where all the adults believe the students are apathetic, but in the end it turns out they were just bored and with enough of a push they were mobilized into activism.  Actually, I think maybe they should have a screening of that movie in each party HQ.  

Thank you, Ms. Harrison!

Read Rebecca Harrison's piece in today's Toronto Star about youth apathy.  Finally the point that I and others have been trying to make gets into a mainstream news source!  This is the key part here:

After much deliberation, I would have to say the biggest issue facing young people in this election is the fact that youth themselves are not being engaged. This has created a vicious cycle; youth don’t feel like they are part of the process, so they don’t vote. Since the data shows that they don’t vote, the politicians don’t attempt to engage them.

SImple and eloquent.  Ms. Harrison is the Green candidate for Whitby-Oshawa, and I have to say that so far the Greens have made by far the most effort to engage youth voters.  Hopefully this forces the other parties to take notice.  

Greens Advocate Youth Employment Initiatives / Les Verts ont une stratégie d'emploi pour la jeunesse

Transcripts / transcriptions:

Good Morning.  Well, here we go.  For the fourth time in seven years, Canadians are going to the polls again.  And every time we go into an election campaign, it seems like it's more negative and nastier than the one before.  Sadly, this one looks like the nastiest campaign in Canadian history and we're only on day one.  Canadians know we can do better, and I know that my colleagues who lead the other federal political parties can do much better.  You've shown Canadians for the last few years how you can disagree on things.  Let's do something different for a change.  Let's start this federal election campaign showing Canadians that it's possible to agree.  Greens want to create this place where we can agree and we're launching it today.  Here's our first important policy proposal to all the other federal political parties, for something where we can show Canadians we can work together for everyone's benefit.  Here we go. We've seen persistent unemployment, even as we are coming out of a recession, among our youth.  Youth unemployment is a significant problem, and it's not getting better.  We need a new program, something that gets job training to Canadian youth, something that gets them the jobs they want, something that helps them get through university without emerging with an horrific student debt.  A program for our youth, job training, jobs for the future, and helping them get through school, is something on which we can all agree. The details are on our website, but come on guys, let's agree on something.  Let's start this election campaign by giving Canadians something positive they can believe in.

Bonjour.  Pour la quatrième fois en sept ans, le Canada déclenche des élections fédéral.  Malheureusement, ces élections seront sans doute les plus négatifs de toute l'histoire du Canada.  Les canadiennes et les canadiens devront enfronter??? 36 jours de politiques où tous les coups sont permis, des plus basses injures aux coups de pieds dans les genoux.  On en est au premier jour, et déjà, les canadiennes et les canadiens en ont assez.  Alors voilà six ans que nous avons un gouvernement minoritaire, sept ans quand on pense à les Libéraux.  Et enterrit???, cela signifie que tous les partis devraient se consulter, coordonner leur interversion??? et coopérer, parce que les électeurs n'ont donné pas un mandat clair à aucun d'entre eux pour gouvernement seul.  Je croix que la majorité des électeurs seraient d'accord pour dire qu'ils ont lamentablement échoué au test de la collaboration.  Alors, voici le défit que je lance à tous les autres partis et tous leurs chefs.  Vous avez prouvé que vous étiez particulièrement doués pour la chicane.  Pourquoi ne pas prouver aux électeurs que de temps en temps, vous pouvez vous entendre, montrez aux canadiens et canadiennes que leurs chefs sont capables d'êtres positifs, et pas seulement négatifs.  Pour le reste de la première semaine, le parti Vert vous proposa chaque jour une question ou une idée sur laquelle nous croyons que tous les partis peuvent s'entendre.  Voici donc notre premier proposition pour une question sur laquelle tous les partis devraient pouvoir s'entendre.  Il nous faut une stratégie d'emploi et de l'éducation pancanadienne pour les jeunes.  Le récession a frappé les jeunes de plan floué???, avec le ??? crise économique que tout le monde connaisse, ce sont les jeunes qui seront oubliés.  Certains commencent à peine leurs, alors que d'autres terminent leurs études post-secondaires.  Ils n'ont pas encore les compétences pour être compétitifs sur un marché de l'emplois saturé, mais il ne pourront pas acquérir ces compétences sans emploi. Sans emploi, ils ne pourront pas continuer à financier leurs études, et en payer pour des droits de scolarité qui grimpent en flèche.  Nous devons faire quelque chose différent.  Maintenant je veux proposer à tous les autres partis en politique, aux canadiens, à les autres chefs, à M. Layton, M. Harper, M. Duceppe, M. Ignatieff, un nouveau idée.  Pourquoi pas mettre sur pied un nouveau programme pour les jeunes?  Un programme pour l'emploi, un programme pour les études.  C'est très important que notre jeune connaisser bien que tous les partis et tout la société n'oublie pas leurs problèmes et leurs défis.  Alors, maintenant nous pouvons commencer des matinées??? en inviter pour éviter que les jeunes canadiennes et les jeunes canadiens ne tombent au travers les mailles de filet, et ratent ainsi l'occasion de parfaire leur éducation, et d'obtenir les compétences requises a l'étape la plus important de leurs vies.  Nous pouvons créer une génération qui participe pleinement à la vie socio-économique.  On ne pouvons ignorer la question pendant encore quatre ou cinq ans, le temps que la reprise économique fasse son chemin.  Nous découvrions alors que nous avons une génération entier de jeunes canadiennes et jeunes canadiens sous-qualité, qui sont perdus dans notre société.  Au parti Vert, nous préférons de loin la première solution, et nous croyons que tous les autres partis le préfère aussi.  C'est pourquoi je demande aux autres chefs de parti de se lever aujourd'hui et de dire Oui, nous pouvons nous entendre pour cette question.  Aujourd'hui, nous pouvons tous admettre que le Canada doit invister??? aux les jeunes importants immédiatement.  Merci et bonjour.