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COMMENTARY
March 26, 2011
Contempt election
An election is no time to discuss serious issues." This famous observation, a quotation out of context that was then maliciously condensed, was attributed to Kim Campbell during the 1993 general election campaign. It did reveal the key problem of mass democracy.What the lady actually said was, that a few weeks would not be enough to discuss the comprehensive overhaul of social policy needed over the much longer term. Even with those qualifications, it wasn't a very astute remark. True, perhaps, but truth is at a premium in an election campaign, as the damaging misquotation showed. Yet there was some use in it. The line described, in caricature, a quality in Campbell -- that she was a flake. It helped clarify that thought in the public mind. This, on top of nine years of Mulroney's decaying smarm, was too much for the Canadian electorate. There was little enthusiasm for Jean Chrétien, but people decided he wasn't a flake; that he had experience and could govern. They also discovered that they were angry. Elections are hardly ever decided on policy issues. And even when they are, the issues are reduced to "public perceptions." The great mass of people are not much animated by policy questions; they look for someone they can trust to deal with them. This does not mean they vote frivolously. But they vote in almost every case for a person, not a policy; and in the age since television, from personal impressions that are often wrong. The small screen rewards smooth, over every other personal quality. It conceals more than it reveals of character. And yet, people are using it to make what is mostly a judgement about character. In a real democracy -- and democracy really is only possible on the small scale -- the electors know the candidates personally. That makes wiser judgements possible. They aren't voting for "icons" which the marketing pros have tweaked to appeal to a certain demographic. They are voting for a man or woman, to do a job they can understand. The democratic notion behind the British North American constitution (and other fairly sound ones), was that the people elect a local member of Parliament, and the MPs in turn elect their leaders. It was a bottom-up process. Similarly in USA: the people voted to send a trustworthy fellow citizen to the electoral college. This in turn chose a president, among candidates they could see up close. In both cases, the middleman has been eliminated, and the result is now a top-down process that feeds on general ignorance. The vanity of the masses must be assuaged, which is why all candidates in all our elections flatter a public they know perfectly well to be poorly informed, or misinformed, on the myriad serious, chequebook issues. Each politician pretends to be "a man of the people," when he is really a man of the governing class, whose routine interests are those of his class. It is an unedifying spectacle, in which candour is seldom on display. And when it is displayed, it is gravely punished. From false vanity to true cynicism is an easy step, and I've written elsewhere how the Nanny State thrives, regardless of the results of elections, both on the vanity and on the cynicism. The Harper government fell on a charge of "contempt of Parliament" that is quite ridiculous. Opposition parties that have been in a position to bring it down for years -- but didn't from the fear of annihilation at the polls -- have instead used their aggregate majority in committees to demand the sort of internal documents majority governments never part with. They went fishing for serviceable scandals, in the easily requited hope that the media would give them play. As polls seem to show, the public, for its part, could care less. The "issues" that were raised by these manoeuvres never touched us where we live. But the joke is that "contempt of Parliament" is hurled against a government that was forced by circumstances to be more transparent than any in Canadian history. And the charge is made by politicians who were themselves showing contempt for Parliament through these committee games. My guess is that, at the end of the day, the public will decide Harper is the party leader least unfit to govern. I wouldn't be surprised if he returns with a majority; and I'm reasonably convinced that would be a good thing. For it would change the focus of the next Parliament from childish games in committee, to the discussion of consequential legislation in the main chamber. Which is what Parliament is for. But that is to presume on grace. For as Kim Campbell didn't say, "an election is no time to discuss serious issues." It will be silly season right through April, with red herrings squiggling all about, and who knows who will slip on which. David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
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