I figured since I’m a guestblogger, and a guestblogger at Jen’s blog, and Jen being someone who happens to like to post about politics and things of a political nature, I’d venture into a political post. However, I’ll warn you, I’m not very political. I was wondering if it’s maybe because I’m Canadian, or maybe because I’m of a younger generation (I’m 26). I don’t know if Canadians in general are less political or less caring about politics, but I do know that Canadians of the ages 18-29 demographic are less politically informed (from CBC News television).
Canada is electing a new national government June 28th. We just found this out for sure yesterday. I’ve only voted once before in a federal election. I think I’ve been of age for two, but the first one I had just moved and therefore was not able to vote.
My understanding of Canadian politics is somewhat elementary, but I will venture forth into explaining it to you because I think the majority of Jen’s readers are probably American or from elsewhere. In Canada, we vote for Members of Parliament in local ridings. A riding contains X number of people… I’m not exactly sure what number “X” is, but ridings vary greatly in size geographically but not population-wise.
In each riding, people run to be the MP. Usually each national party has a candidate that runs. Our major political parties are currently the Liberals, the Conservatives, the NDP, and the Bloc Quebecois. The BQ only run in Quebec, but because of population, Quebec has a lot of ridings.
The party that has the most number of candidates who win in their ridings becomes the majority… and their leader becomes our Prime Minister. The last several elections have seen a Liberal majority, with Paul Martin as the current leader and Prime Minister, and Jean Chretien before him.
I was watching a news report on CBC news this evening on the “apathy” of younger voters. Only 33% of Canadians ages 18-29 knew who the leader of the opposition (the party with the second most number of candidates in parliament) when asked. I admit, I did not know who it was (it’s Steven Harper, the leader of the Conservatives). I fully admit I’m not very informed about Canadian politics.
CBC news interviewed the student union president of a maritime university about why this is… why younger voters are less informed. Do we care less?
Yes and no, I think. Political parties don’t go out and target us. They don’t inform us who they are. The Alliance Party (formerly the Reform Party) was a big player in the last several elections. Now, they’ve joined the Progressive Conservative Party and together they are called the Conservatives. I think. I’m not 100% certain on this. See what I mean? I have to actively seek out that information in order to know it. I think many are still wondering what happened to the Alliance Party.
Political parties just assume we know who they are. They flash their leaders out front and want us to vote for them.
But we don’t vote for leaders, we vote for the local candidates. Ideally, we vote for the local candidate who will represent our riding’s interests most well.
I’ll let you in on a secret… if we were just voting on a leader, this is who I’d vote for.
I wouldn’t vote for Paul Martin, the leader of the Liberals, the ones who’ve been in power the last while. I wouldn’t vote for him because I think he started a wishy-washy word-throwing campaign. He doesn’t talk about what he thinks is important to Canada or Canadians, instead he talks about what another leader said and how he thinks that is bad. (and after you’ve checked out that website, check out this one, because I think it’s hilarious… http://www.stevenharpersaid.ca).
I also wouldn’t vote for Steven Harper, the leader of the Conservatives. I wouldn’t vote for him because he’s throwing it right back at Paul Martin.
I’d probably vote for whoever the leader of the NDP party is, because he’s not throwing names around or saying Paul and Steven said this and this is bad, and because he looks like a nice guy. I don’t know his name though.
Canadians are uninformed and don’t trust politicians.
I’m just another uninformed voter. This election could really go any way, because there are an awful lot of us out there who don’t really know what the issues are or what the parties stand for. If any of the parties figure this out, they could sway us all their way just by telling us what they stand for and why really we should vote for them.
(I am, by the way, not making excuses for uninformed voters. I think voters should inform themselves and make an informed vote… But I also do think that the parties could do a lot more to inform people of what they are about).
– Michelle
Thought you’d like to know that the leader of the NDP is Jack Layton who, interestingly enough, currently doesn’t even have a seat in Parliament, but I’m sure that will change in the next election. I agree with you about the finger-pointing I-won’t-tell-you-about-me-but-look-how-bad-the-other-guy-is campaign style. It drives me nuts how they will pass the buck. It’s like undercutting their own platform by basically saying “look, I’m the lesser of evils. Vote for me.” You mentioned that we don’t vote for leaders, but sometimes, we do vote in a way that we are voting for leaders, by selecting that party’s candidate for the riding. Ideally it’d be great if we all had MP’s who we felt could represent us, but if you have an MP in an opposition party, sometimes you wonder if they will have any power at all as a backbencher and maybe it’s better to go with the mainstream so your riding gets that new highway, or whatever, it needs. This is when voting gets complicated. Great post though. I need to start getting informed and it’s good to have a little reminder!
We were talking a little politics with some friends while we were sipping iced tea on the Monday of the Victoria Day Longweekend and as most Canadian 30somethings we were very apathetic. We came to the conclusion that unlike our American neighbours, who believe and have hope in their political system (if not their leaders), we Canadians don’t. We think that all our Political Leaders are corrupt and out for their own good vs the good of the country. We have no belief or hope in the process. Maybe because we didn’t have to fight for our ‘rights’ we were all nicely set up by the British – not that that is a bad thing.
There is no one to vote for in this up coming election and living in Western Canada my vote doesn’t even seem to count.
Oh thanks for letting me rant!