This is what democracy looks like

Aside from mustache-grooming, the NDP are leading the parties in the application of good, old-fashioned irony.

As someone who's usually of the table-thumping, rhetoric-crushing, solid mockery form of argumentation, I've been conspicuously silent on this whole election thing. 

Part of this is practicality - I tend not to listen to any news during an election campaign simply because most party lines offered at this time are reactionary and ill-conceived, constructed to capitalize on this or that potential backbencher's gaffe or this or that leader's off-the-cuff remark.    Canadian media outlets, having been stir-crazy with the banality of this country's Parliament for years (even Gomery was a bare blip on the radar, of less import than the still talked-about exposure of Janet Jackson's right nipple), celebrate by shedding the pretense of critical analysis, coating themselves in plastic to slip amidst the mud-slinging, recording every incidence of political maneuvering with a breathlessness normally reserved for Angelina Jolie's pregnancy or Ashlee Simpson's acid-reflux. Headlines scream that while the Conservatives are doing one thing, the Liberals have this to say about it, or that someone made a slur about Jack Layton's wife and he's being too self-righteous in her defense, conspicuously ignoring tracking the party that in the last election got 5% of the popular vote or the one that puts out most of their policy documents in French.

The other part of my election apathy is sheer laziness - laziness here meaning a refusal to be up-to-date on the nuances of the shifting strands of Canada's potential futures while I could be working busily (not to mention directly) to construct my own.  This isn't to say that I don't take Canada's elections seriously - only that I take them just seriously enough to acknowledge that I engage with the elections process in the same way that I vote: in determined self-interest.

And it is in a determined self-interest spawned by my teen aged obsession with Ayn Rand that I'll vote on January 23 in the Fredericton riding, weighing Stephen Harper's eyeliner megalomania against the sinister intentions hiding behind Jack Layton's mustache platform and the cardboard policy of our incompetent incumbent Prime Minister.

I'll be voting steadfastly ignoring the Liberal party's scare-mongering techniques designed, as Ed Broadbent aptly pointed out, to insult the intelligence of women, workers, members of the armed forces, or anyone who is capable of anything beyond knee-jerk reactionary thinking. 

I'll be voting recognizing that my Canada includes not only Quebec, but also Alberta, BC, and the Prairies, which are distinct regions with identities beyond that granted by the Ontario-oriented phrase "the West".

I'll be voting recognizing that my Canada includes the Maritimes and Newfoundland, who are experiencing a drain of their young people Westward, where there are jobs and money that have been denied to the Eastern provinces.

I'll be voting as as an inhabitant of an Atlantic province, as the roommate of an Albertan, as at least a 4th-generation Ontarian whose grandparents' first language was French.

I'll be voting as a university student with $20K of debt, as a woman of child-bearing age, as a granddaughter of seniors on tiny pensions, as a witness of the inept horrors of our health care system, as a survivor of our mediocre public schools, as an agent who will likely contribute to the 'Brain Drain' by eventually fleeing to the United States in search of a job, as a feminist, as a city-dweller in the largest of Canada's urban centres, as a member of the intellectual elite, as the descendant of farmers, as a fiscal conservative, as a left-wing social radical, as a critic, as a reader, as a supporter of amateur sport, as a person who believes in asymmetrical federalism, as a teacher, as a person who watches, reads and listens to the CBC, as the daughter of an artist, as someone who's worried about climate change, as a person who knows the difference between 'equity' and 'equality', as a white person who has been allowed think that the plight of Natives in the country is not my problem, as a media critic, as a bewildered observer of US social policy, as a witness of the unfair tax burden on the middle class, as a former high-school student who used to share her lunch with others who couldn't afford food, as a believer in human dignity, decency and mutual respect, as an advocate for free speech, as a former government employee at both the federal and provincial levels, as an animal-lover, as someone who believes that a government should not legislate morality, as an anti-lobbyist, as a person who believes in government reform.

Tomorrow, I will be voting as a Canadian that believes that all Canadians are as equally nuanced in their systems of values and beliefs, and I will not allow my vote to be sidetracked by one party's dedication to endorsing fear or another's blatant disregard for issues that concern me.  I will not become distracted by the parties' attempts to play the needs of one group off against another for cheap votes.  I will not allow my complex needs to be simplified and reduced to merely my gender or political affiliation.

Tomorrow, I will vote not only with my conscience, but also with my intelligence, my research, and my long-term best interests.  I will vote recognizing that other people will vote with the same conscience, intelligence, research and self-interest at work, and I will respect the end result of the democratic process without denigrating the diversity of interests that make this country the best in the world to live and work.

My Canada includes other Canadians. ALL OF THEM. When I vote, I keep this simple fact most firmly in mind. 

 

Comments

[Steph]

So does that mean you're spoiling your ballot?

Sorry that's way too cynical, but your post did make me google Angelina Jolie.