All Political Parties are in Decline:
It seems to have been an interesting time as the Alberta Liberals and New Democratic political parties are all trying to find their way forward as viable political options. This is not that different from the Progressive Conservative party who is heading into drift and despondency - but with cash to burn. It also seems to me that all conventional political parties are fading from relevance as they become trite, tribal and tedious to most Albertans. Even the recent “phenominal growth” of Wildrose Alliance is proving to be just so much media manufactured manipulation rather than a broad-based and authentic citizen re-engagement in Alberta politics. Recent polls show that without constant media coverage providing the “oxygen” to draw attention to the WAP, they are just another listless and languishing non-viable alternative to real change from the governing PCs. The progressives remain disengaged and disillusioned about being listened to by "their" government.
The Need for Democratic Renewal
I have a great deal of respect for the leaders of the Democratic Renewal Project but have to say the model they propose for strategic voting is an erosion of choice and a dilution of democracy not a salvation for democracy. The DRP idea is essentially for Liberals and New Democrats to be “strategic” in certain constituencies where PCs have had small margins of victory. By not having Liberals and New Democrats run against each other and spit the vote the theory is more opposition members will be elected. The math the DRP has done shows that we get a bigger – but not necessarily a better – opposition. That is not good enough. We need viable alternative to the current political culture of feigned consensus if we are going to renew democracy and restore the public’s confidence in the political culture of the province.
Trying to manipulate the size of the conventional political party’s pieces of a dangerously declining rates of political participation pie is no way to strengthen democracy. We need real choices and effective viable alternatives for us to elect to form government. We need to enhance our democracy by having viable alternatives to assume office not just a bigger but not necessarily better opposition. We need to keep government honest, accountable and transparent by having alternatives not just oppositions.
Time to Design Some New Viable Governing Alternatives
The first step to this end is to stop the one-party-rule-by- default paradigm that is Alberta for so many years. In the one-party state citizens get taken for granted, or worse. The groups who do much of the work of government in the volunteer and not-for-profit sectors get intimidated, abused and bullied by the political powers. The behind the scenes casual corruption of business and the state colluding to create wealth for a few from the resources of the many is also the natural consequences of centralized single party rule. And even worse yet, too many citizens see that their only practical option is to withdraw from participating in their democracy rather than stand up for their rights – especially free speech and their ownership of the natural resource rights.
Have You Had Enough Yet?
We are in a political culture crisis in Alberta. Trust in our political and governance institutions is very low and legitimately so. The focus on short term political expediency over long term good governance is adding to the vicious cycle of citizen disengagement from their democracy. I am not into blaming the status-quo conservatives from the PC or the WAP that would exchange one set of ideologues with a worse set of ideologues. I am not into settling for a bigger but not better opposition as the only alternative to governing Alberta that the DRP alliance being pushed by some Liberals and New Democrats.
I don't disagree with anything that you have said on this subject, but are we not taking the risk of turning voters "off" by articulating a better system, that has yet, and maybe never will come? I guess what I am trying to say is if an election was to occur today who should I be voting for?
ReplyDeleteHow about this viable option to govern? The ALP passed a landmark motion at their policy convention this past weekend that, for the first time in the history of Alberta politics, made mental illness a policy priority. This is a groundbreaking initiative, especially since Senator Michael Kirby notes that “Canada is the only OECD country without a national mental health strategy.” It’s little wonder that Alberta lacks the same, but under the leadership of David Swann, the Liberal party fully intends to address that deficit.
ReplyDeleteIf we consider that approximately 20% of Albertans will suffer from some form of mental illness in their lives, and if we factor in family members and friends who care for them, a cautious estimate is that 50% of Albertans deal with the suffering of mental illness, directly and indirectly, on a daily basis. Because the cost of mental health problems in Alberta is incalculable human suffering and lost productivity, and because families are unduly burdened and under qualified to provide the necessary assistance to their mentally ill relatives, readers will be pleased to know that a political party fully recognizes the urgent need to improve access to professionals and treatment centers that address mental health issues.
I drafted the motion, spoke to the background information that supported it, and was delighted with its unanimous passage.
Judy J. Johnson
Calgary, AB
After reading your blog, I have just donated $100 to the WAP.
ReplyDeleteThe quality of candidates and the way they represent their constituents is more important than the quantity. The better the quality the more people will be inclined to vote, because there will be something to actually vote for.
ReplyDeleteWhen the best possible candidates are elected we would have better government all around, not just more opposition
Ken, While I entirely agree with your desire to see a great change (which you call "revolution:") based on the current dismal situation, and by which I assume you mean all moderates/progressives should throw our support behind an entirely new party, I don't believe Alberta will be ready for that until our resources (water in particular) look to be severely diminished. That could take years, if not decades. Alas.
ReplyDeleteThus, in the meantime, the united cooperation movement in Alberta seems the most rational step as the best of all possible worlds, as Voltaire would have said. Also, we have a very short time line between now and the 2012 election, and the traditional party machines are already in place. Getting a new party such as the Alberta Party up and running takes millions (ie. 3 million donated by the oil boys to the Wildrose) and LOTS of volunteers who don't merely sit around and pontificate but actually get out there and bring in new members and money. One fly in the ointment I see with the ALberta party, also, is that I don't know what the party stands for yet, although I'm sure that will come. In any case, initiating a party is an immensely difficult undertaking and I haven't seen nearly enough of opportunities for public engagement by the Alberta Party as of yet on that front (it takes volunteers and funds to set up meetings, arrange publicity, etc. etc.). I will look for it, however, and certainly will not close off that option in my own voting.
Having said that, the members of the Liberal, NDP, and Green parties have not yet, in great enough numbers, become disgusted enough with the lack of success of their parties to quit, so then we have the problem of the MAJORITY of moderate or progressive voters in the province still hanging onto the "my party is the ONLY party" mentality. So what to do?
I see cooperation as the more (disappointing, perhaps) but realistic current solution... AT THIS TIME. The idea of coalitions are more and more appealing to Canadians as they educate themselves about what they actually signify, as it should be. Multi-party agreements are a time-honored strategy for translating fractured but similar votes into a unified force in the majority of the world's democracies. Europe has employed them for generations, and many of those countries have better government, translated into better standard of living than we do, although most Canadians probably don't know that. It's time we look at all reasonable, rational alternatives, including the formation of new parties, but also collaboration. I highly encourage the Alberta Party to be part of that mix, and not take the traditional failed high road that "our party is special, we are the best, and our principles preclude us from working with others."
With all the expected howls of protest, the Liberal move to cooperate can actually be seen as a brave historic move IF the other parties play ball. As a person committed to dialogue and open government and collaboration, for all of our sakes, I hope they succeed in helping to pull together some kind of true alliance and elect a better multi-party government in Alberta.
After reading this post I'm donating $100 to the PC's and rejoining the party. Things are great here and we don't need change.
ReplyDeleteI don't agree with Marshall Boyd's accusation that the DRP advocates an "erosion of choice" akin to the American two-party system.
ReplyDelete1. We advocate electoral reform. Our preference is for one or the other systems of PR but we'd settle as a first instalment for the Alternative Vote to make voting less of a lottery and insure that constituency candidates have the support of 50 percent plus one of voters. Under both PR and AV, there is greater incentive for a multitude of parties (and under AV, for independents) than under FPTP. There is no possibility of getting a new electoral system from the Tories. They've been the big beneficiaries of FPTP and they'd have to be insane or very democratic to agree to requests from Fair Vote Canada and others to change the system. They are neither.
2. Why is FPTP a lottery rather than a system that offers choice? Because it distorts the results both in constituencies and across them. In Edmonton-Glenora in 2008, according to Bruce Miller, he and his NDP opponent disagreed about almost nothing while both disagreed immensely with their Tory opponent, Heather Klimchuk. Bruce lost by 134 votes but it is doubtful that a majority of Glenora voters preferred her to Bruce. No one will ever know because the 1600 people who voted for Arlene Chapman did not get to indicate second preferences as they would under AV. Meanwhile across the province the Tories took 87 percent of the seats with 53 percent of the vote.
3.For those of us who are happy with the policies of more than one party, having to choose among them in a single seat is less of a choice than an effort to figure out who has the best chance of defeating the parties that we don't want to win. While "strategic voting" does represent a choice of sorts, it is not an especially democratic choice. It becomes a luxury to simply vote for your favourite candidate or party since the voting system does indeed waste votes that are not for one of the top 2 candidates.
4.Election research demonstrates that you don't get bigger turn-outs just because you have more candidates per riding. We've had more candidates in Alberta ridings in recent years than many other provinces do, but we have the lowest turnouts. What brings out voters is the sense of a province-wide contest and issues that matter, and ironically the proliferation of parties with similar platforms each running in every seat enhances the view that the governing party cannot be unseated, especially by progressive parties.
Some of the biggest turnouts in Canadian provincial elections have indeed featured knockdown battles between two parties--one separatist, the other federalist in Quebec, one socialist, the other free enterprise in Saskatchewan.
Alvin Finkel,
Co-Chair,
Democratic Renewal Project
Cooperation and pre-electoral coalitions are seen as positive by voters in many countries rather than a denial of "choice." In recent regional elections in France, first-round-of-voting common lists of progressive candidates that stretched from liberal to Communist with Socialists and Greens in between were embraced by majorities in 18 of 19 regions. The parties agreed on a common program for the election. This in a country where the centre-left has been in retreat for years and where first-round common lists seem unnecessary because there are run-off elections that follow the first round. But in practice, though the centre-left generally unites for the second round, the insults that the parties inflict on each other in the first round as they go after the same vote has caused many voters to stay home on the second round if their party didn't take the most votes of the progressive parties on the first round.
ReplyDeleteIn the last 2 elections in Norway,a country with PR and where one would presume that parties would wait until AFTER the election to figure out a coalition, the centre-left parties announced a pre-election coalition on an agreed-upon program. As in France, the result was about a 15-20 percent gain in support for the centre-left parties. It would seem that many people like a cooperative spirit and like to know what parties that clearly have no ability to govern alone intend to do once the election is over.
In Alberta, and Canada more generally,we have a far less democratic system than France and most democratic countries. We have neither run-offs, alternative votes, or PR. Voters don't have the choice of casting a ballot for their favourite candidate/party in the knowledge that they will have another choice in a run-off as they do in France or in countries like Australia with an Alternative Vote system.
Strategic voting ends up making sense in a first past the post system because your vote is wasted if you don't choose one of the top 2 candidates. In 2008, in Glenora, the Liberal and NDP candidates were two peas in a pod in terms of their positions on all issues. The Tory candidate disagreed with them so much that she might have been from another planet. Yet she beat Liberal Bruce Miller by 134 votes. What likelihood, one might ask, is there that any large section of NDPer Arlene Chapman's 1600 votes would have marked second preferences for Heather Klimchuk rather than Bruce Miller? We won't ever know because Social Credit got rid of the Alternative Vote system (implemented in 1921) before the 1959 election.
Research shows that having many names on the ballot neither attracts nor repels voters. What makes voters feel they have a choice is that there is a clear contest between significantly different alternatives--whether presented by single parties or by coalitions--and that both sides of the contest have a chance to win. In Alberta in 2008, there was an abundance of parties on the ballot. But the certainty of the outcome meant that the choices were largely illusory. As my son put it to me, quoting someone from work, "when they call an election in Alberta, you already know the result. So change the channel."
We can tsk tsk about the majority who do not feel that they have much to vote for in elections in an historically one-party system. Or we can celebrate the fact that we have a variety of progressive parties with good and rather similar platforms and implore these parties to work together for the good of Albertans rather than engage in posturing and fratricide for the benefit of the right wing.
The passage of the DRP motion at the ALP policy convention that asks progressive parties to collaborate in the next election, was a progressive step towards strengthening democracy in the Alberta legislature. While I recognize that many members of the NDP and ALP are strongly opposed to this initiative, I hope the DRP can persuade reasonable (but undecided) center and center-left leaning Albertans that the only way we can bring about political change is by suspending our own entrenched loyalties to party ideology. The larger ideology at stake here is the preservation and reinforcement of democracy.
ReplyDeleteGiven that political analysts have compared the Liberal and NDP policy platforms and found about a 95% overlap, surely we can provisionally put the 5% differences aside so that both parties can form a viable opposition in 2012 and put an end to the Conservative juggernaut. After that success, we can all return to our parties of choice. This is a temporary solution, without which Albertans will have an ongoing, long-term problem–one that might well move this province even further to the right.
A common argument against the DRP initiative is that it’s undemocratic. That is not how I understand the DRP initiative. The project intends to have level-headed, moderate members of the NDP and ALP democratically decide the form and process of cooperation. What unites NDs and Liberals in the DRP is their belief that by dogmatically adhering to the same strategy we ensure that the governance of this province remains undemocratic. To prevent that, the DRP is committed to building a path to proportionate representation, which can only come about through a strong, viable opposition or a new, centrist government.
Toward that end, the DRP has some suggestions that can jump-start discussions on the process of cooperation and democratic renewal–a win-win process for each party, for the people, and for the province.
I wish the DRP much success; spread your message far and wide. Hopefully Albertans will visit the DRP website to learn more about this progressive initiative.
Judy J. Johnson
Associate Professor, Psychology
Mount Royal University
Calgary, AB
www.dogmatism.ca
Johnson obviously has no place in any university if she believes the DRP is in any way democratic. That's like saying the proposed coalition government federally was democratic - what a farse - no one ever voted for a coalition. Go back to first year political science.
ReplyDeleteHello everyone: the following piece captures quite nicely what the DRP in Alberta has been saying all along. The article speaks to federal politics, but, is not that difficult to find a common thread with our own political realities in this province – very topical.
ReplyDeleteIt’s also written by a labour lawyer and well know member of the Liberal Party of Canada: http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/813023--liberal-and-ndp-rank-and-file-can-prepare-ground-for-coalition :) LCA