It's About Our Democracy, Stupid

Canadians are waking up to the country's democratic shortcomings. The next election could be a turning point for our politics.

As we debate the value of holding an election, there is one thing in particular that we should keep in mind: the collective opinion of Canadian citizens, rather than their leaders, forms the bedrock of this country.

That’s why the loss of a seat on the Security Council is such a tragedy; that’s why people reacted so negatively to the suggestion that we abandon the Long Form Census; and that’s why we were so angry about the prorogation of Parliament. We felt that we were being short-changed. We felt that we were being left out of the discussion about what matters to us, and that all of our hard work building this country was being dismissed as irrelevant to the future of our nation.

As Canadians, we have a lot to offer. We are proud of this land and we are angry that our politicians don’t seem to understand that we need to be better included in the decision-making processes, and in dialogue about the future.

It seems that Canadians are increasingly angry about what we might call “Power Over” in our politics, a term that Patricia Evans explains in her ground-breaking book The Verbally Abusive Relationship: How to recognize it and how to respond:

We have looked at the Power Over model and at the fact that individuals as well as nations are motivated to control and dominate others. We may note that their illusion of power is maintained only as long as they have an ‘other’ to have power over. Tragically, many are desperate to maintain this stance, because it is the only power they know. If there is no ‘other,’ one is created.

Personal Power is another way of experiencing power, one which doesn’t need winners and losers, dominant people and subordinates, and which doesn’t require Power Over an ‘other.’ Personal Power works by mutuality and co-creation and may be considered a new way of being in and perceiving the world.

The message of this book is indicative of what is going on in the Middle East and North Africa, where groups of people have rejected repression to adopt a new model of Personal Power. They are literally losing their lives for democracy – for the right to be included, and the right to be respected. And they are looking to us for help.

In a recent edition of the National Post, Conrad Black outlined how Canada Can Make a Difference in Libya:

A gangster and terrorist regime is slaughtering its own population, which is fighting back gallantly. We owe them our support, and every day’s delay is shameful and could make a benign outcome more doubtful.

For once, Canada could make a difference and be seen by the world to do so. There is no excuse for waiting.

In a recent Maclean’s article, Paul Wells addressed this same issue, lamenting, “Sorry, boss. Waiting is all Canada does any more.”

And I agree. Without a seat on the Security Council, Canadians’ voices are largely lost to the international community. And perhaps of even greater concern is the fact that our voices seem to be increasingly lost in our own country as well; Canada claims to value democracy, yet the ordinary citizens that make up this country seem to have very little say in the decisions that are being made on their behalf.

It’s time for a change in our thinking. We need Personal Power. We need to be engaged with the world and with each other. For months now, Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff has been telling us the same thing, and has been trying to show us how to be engaged. His leadership in this area has been evident through his creation of the Canada 150 Conference in Montreal, where Canadians participated not only within the country, but from offshore; the summer bus tours he has ventured on to meet and talk to people across the country; the “Open mike” sessions that he has led to encourage conversation; and various other actions he has taken to establish an unscripted, open, two-way dialogue.

Two young Canadians are trying to accomplish the same thing. They have undertaken an initiative called Leadnow.ca, and are calling for meetings across the country to develop a consensus on what it is that Canadians want. The plan is to gather the ideas of all Canadians and take them to Parliament, saying to our politicians: “Here’s what we are looking for. Figure it out and get back to us.”

In an article last year, I quoted my late husband, Dalton Camp, who once wrote that in the wasteland of traditional party politics, politicians seem to lose track of where they are, who they are, and what their purpose is. Perhaps this is the dilemma that Ottawa is currently facing.

In an amazing plea for our democratic institutions, the late Jim Travers offered a warning to all of us, advising us of what we are becoming. As a nation, we are becoming less democratic as we pursue the Power Over model in politics. This needs to change.

As Ignatieff said months ago, politics is not a spectator sport. It is essential that Canadian citizens get involved and speak out against the politics of fear and division and attack ads. We need a bigger vision for Canada, and it looks like we’re getting there.

Canadians will get out of politics what we put into politics. This means we must participate. It means we must have the courage to stand up for our convictions and the will to take our ideas and messages forward no matter the obstacles that we might face. We must use our collective voice to speak on behalf of our country and show that we can, and will, make a difference.

That’s democracy. That’s Personal Power expressed through politics. It matters.