Why politics infuriate me

I grew up in a family that would debate about politics whenever we’d get together. I had no interest in it and all their arguing and complaining about the government probably lent to an indifferent attitude towards the whole thing.

But now I happen to be married to someone who loves politics, takes an active interest in it, and has actually volunteered for political parties in the past (ugh! I cannot get away from it). With this kind of influence, I actually found myself becoming slightly interested in politics. I even watched a significant part of the federal leadership convention for the Liberal party two years ago.

But for the last couple of weeks I find myself becoming more and more infuriated with our political system in Canada and cynical about democracy in general. Take for instance the legislation passed by the Conservatives setting pre-determined election dates. Harper said at the time that “Fixed election dates prevent governments from calling snap elections for short-term political advantage”. Nice, Stephen…nice. So go ahead and break your “high-minded noble promise” and call an election a year before the election date YOU set!!

Then there’s the Elizabeth May controversy today where the Conservatives & NDP threatened to boycott the televised political debates if May were to participate, and the media networks caved and agreed to ban the Green party leader from the debates on October 1 & 2. According to our ‘democratic'(??) system, every political party who holds at least one seat in Parliment when it is dissolved for an election is permitted to have their political leader represented in the debates. What the ?!#@* is this then?!?! Even Preston Manning ran in the debates when his political party had just one seat, and the Green Party is going into this election with the same.

I am SOOOO frustrated with our political system! What is the point of having a democracy when the leaders of our country decide to change/break the rules whenever they please??? I’m sure there are other citizens of this country who believe this to be undemocratic and that it should stop. But what can we do? Some people would say that we can vote and thus send a message to the governing party that their practices are not acceptable to this nation. Apparently that’s what Canada did in the last election when they ousted the Liberal party from political power and set the Conservatives in their place. And all through the 2006 election campaign, the Conservatives championed ‘accountability’ and held that their platform was based on “Canada’s core values of freedom, democracy, the rule of law…”. How ironic!

So it doesn’t seem to matter WHO we vote for. They are all going to lie and break their promises and we will continue to accept this deplorable behavior. Here’s an idea: how about whenever a political leader breaks the promises they have made they go to jail! That might curb some of this ridiculous behavior. The leaders might have to actually think and plan and make sure they could actually follow through on their promise before throwing it out to the public like a carrot on a stick! Oh, but wait, it would be the governing political party that would have to pass such legislation and who on earth would do that?! Because there are no honest people in politics and “the ends justify the means” is the reigning philosophy. Do whatever it takes to get the vote.

The only political leader who seems to have a significant degree of integrity is Elizabeth May of the Green Party. But in our wonderful ‘democratic’ system she is being shut out by the bullies on the block. No wonder I’m infuriated by our political system.