Roundup: Dealing with disappointment

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As the tears and recriminations continue over Justin Trudeau’s decision to scrap his electoral reform pledge, we’re seeing a number of pretty dubious messages emerging from those doing the wailing and gnashing of teeth. For as much as Elizabeth May shed tears about how this was a betrayal of youth voters, Justin Trudeau went before a crowd of university students yesterday and nary a word was spoken from those “betrayed” youths about electoral reform. Oops. I’m also a little disturbed by the point that has been made repeatedly by the likes of May, and Ed Broadbent on national television, that somehow the feminist Trudeau was shoving young women ministers “under the bus” over his broken pledge. One has to point out, however, that there is a bit of a sexist undertone to that bit of concern trolling, implying that neither minister was capable of handling themselves on this file, and it ignores that Maryam Monsef was effectively promoted for her performance, going from a make-work office out of PCO to a line department with a big agenda along with added responsibilities for assisting the minister of heritage, while Karina Gould was handed a pretty big new file to tackle in the democratic institutions portfolio, being the very real concerns about cyber-security in our electoral system. And if you don’t think that’s a problem, look at the fact that the BC Liberals suffered a major data breach over the weekend that compromised the files of countless voters.

And then there’s the cynicism argument. Not only have the youth been betrayed by this move, but this breeds cynicism because the rug has been pulled out from those who were engaged in the process, and we have studies that show that people get disengaged when they have bad experiences. But I’m going to challenge that a bit, because as much as you had a group of people that were engaged by the process, the vast majority who have been vocal about it have been selective in their reading about what went on. People insist there was consensus in the report, but the fact that every party walked back on what it said shows that it was not actually consensus. PR advocates not only stacked the witness lists, but most over-read the mandate of the committee and gave some particularly creative interpretations of just what Trudeau’s electoral promise was, deciding that it meant that their preferred system was the only acceptable outcome – in other words, they have only been hearing what they want to hear. When they don’t get it, they blame others for breeding cynicism. As for the disengagement brought on by disappointment, I’ve read those studies too and the common denominator that I found was that much of that disappointment is brought on by the fact that people don’t know how the system works. They get discouraged because they approach the wrong level of government to deal with a particular problem, or that they are simply impatient to deal with the waiting lists caused by limited resources. I get that unrealistic promises might be disappointing when they don’t happen, but people need to be better educated to know when promises are disappointed so that their expectations can be tempered (though politicians should know better than to make stupid promises in the first place).

Meanwhile, I will point you to a must-read, which is a post by UBC political scientist Christopher Kam, who writes a spectacular takedown of an NDP ten-percenter extolling the virtues of proportional representation. It not only takes it apart piece by piece, but provides a good fact-check on some of the PR talking points that were circulating during the electoral reform committee hearings, including debunking some of the studies that were cited continuously to “prove” the points about how great PR governments are.

Good reads:

  • Bill Morneau’s economic advisory team released their latest set of reports, looking at trade, skills, and returning OAS to 67 (which this government won’t do).
  • Harjit Sajjan met his US counterpart, and apparently, things went well. So far.
  • Ruh-roh! It turns out that Rona Ambrose was already on that billionaire’s yacht when she cleared it with the Ethics Commissioner.
  • Incidentally, since said yacht holiday was revealed, the attacks on Trudeau’s holiday with the Aga Khan suddenly ceased. How curious.
  • Here’s a look inside the PMO’s new “war room” to deal with the Trumpocalypse.
  • The recently shuffled cabinet configuration is allegedly supposed to last until the next election. We’ll see if events intervene.
  • The former head of CSIS says it’s nearly impossible to trace National Defence leaks.
  • The government won’t release its carbon tax calculations, even via Order Paper question.
  • Ralph Goodale says that 200 people were affected by the Nexus card revocations, none of them Canadians, but that figure is being challenged.
  • Elections Canada is looking at printable absentee ballots.
  • The government has approved three supervised injection sites for Montreal.
  • RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson is concerned that the caustic tone of some political debate is helping to radicalize Canadians.
  • Chantal Hébert tracks the Conservative leadership fundraising dollars.
  • Andrew Potter sees the re-professionalization of journalism as the cure for the fake-news phenomenon.
  • Kady O’Malley offers suggested questions for Karina Gould’s committee appearance later today.
  • Stephen Gordon makes the economic case for keeping our heads down and not rocking the Trumpocalypse boat.

Odds and ends:

Tristin Hopper explores the powers that a Prime Minister Trump would enjoy were he Canadian, and how our system deals with insane heads of governments.

Hopper also takes us through what it takes to be a Canadian astronaut.

One thought on “Roundup: Dealing with disappointment”

  1. It is fine to say that people need to be more educated about our Political system but that is wishful thinking because it will not happen. The PM lied that is a fact and what matters are perceptions the public has of him. Facts don’t matter here one bit. If students don’t think of asking about Electoral reform this goes hand in hand with Civic illiteracy and the Star effect of having met the PM, they are kids after all. Meanwhile in PEI a new poll released today says that 50% of Islanders want our voting system to change. The message is clear politicians who renege on promises will pay the price. People are not disengaging, they want revenge at the ballot box.

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