A curious feature

Dear Editor,

A curious feature in being human is that more often than not one is not aware of their own flaws and weakness until they are pointed out or taken advantage of by someone else in order to gain dominance over them. Such can also be true in the affairs regarding the state of nations.

Such a situation in recent weeks has been extraordinarily evident in our own country whereby our electoral system has been corrupted by foreign powers to manipulate long existing flaws and weaknesses of how we elect governments in Canada. By now all Canadians are aware of the CSIS leaks to the press regarding the Communist Party of China’s efforts to influence the last two federal elections in this country and in how, astonishingly, the Federal Liberal government did nothing to address this established threat. On this we should be thankful that within CSIS there are gatekeepers with more fortitude than the existing government to bring this serious matter to the attention to the Canadian public. But, arguably, the current existence of foreign interference in the Canadian electoral process is not the only established threat to democracy in this land. While there are external bad actors working hard against the democratic will of Canadians in being exercised it can also be said that as Canadian’s we fail ourselves by utilizing an outdated, out of touch and out of control election process.

The riding system whereby our government is elected by way of the seat count that a political party attains has its roots in the 19th century. Be it of the view of either a political moderate, or a progressive, the riding system is outdated as it has not moved forward with the times. Further, the current riding system is out of touch as it relies on the allocation of seats to specific parties thereby being out of touch with the popular will of the people as to the total votes counted. Sadly, it then becomes less important as to how one voted for but rather who they voted for in what riding. As a result of this the riding system is out of control as it has produced four arguably ineffective federal minority governments in the last 20 years, almost as many as we had in the preceding 137 years of our Confederation. It would seem then that our selection process is breaking down in historical terms quite rapidly. The chaos and uncertainty that this fragility produces leaves us open to an array of manipulations, the most dramatic of which can be witnessed in the efforts of the Chinese Government to target and influence specific ridings.

In 2001 the Federal Law Commission identifying the flaws and weaknesses in our electoral system strongly advocated for reform by way of a process known as proportional representation where every vote had a real impact to add more legitimacy in how we chose our governments. Since the Law Commission released its recommendations in 2001 both the Conservatives and the Liberals while in opposition promised that if elected, they would implement a process of proportional representation. How quickly did each of their tunes change once elected to power that they both discarded this promise to hold onto power by keeping the old antiquated, not fully democratic system of seat count rather than having a popular vote to determine outcomes.

Also worth nothing is how our riding boundaries change every ten years to reflect shifts and growth in the population. While these riding boundary changes are open to public hearings for review, we as Canadian’s are quite ambivalent about the matter, which is sad since the last hearing regarding the shift in our Pontiac Riding in Gatineau last September witnessed an array of existing and former Liberal MP’s voicing opinions on the matter. This raises the question, were these Liberal MPs really concerned about constituent communities and how the boundary changes might impact the identity of individual municipalities, or was it just all an exercise in partisan gerrymandering? Much like everything else this government does we shall never really know.

Here is a Canadian springtime analogy that I think explains the state that we are all in. The riding system is an old and rusty car with poor shocks. A vehicle to get us from one point to another, not the most reliable, but if nothing goes wrong it will get you there. The driver of that car is the government in power that chooses when to start the car and how the car is steered. And the road, well that road is Communist China full of potholes and hazards. Unfortunately for Canadians, who are passengers in that car, we are being chauffeured in inadequate transportation by a self-interested, selfish driver, oblivious to the holes being hit. On such a journey something is bound to go wrong. Surely it is time that we as Canadians get a new driver and repair our car before the wheels fall off of it. Only then will we be able to fill the potholes which appear to be deep and go all the way down to China.

Todd Hoffman, Campbell’s Bay, Que.

Who knows where the time goes?

Dear Editor,

We lost an hour this past weekend. Does anyone know where it went? Has anyone seen an extra hour lying around, waiting to be spent on idle leisure? Did someone else gain an hour? One of the advantages of being a retiree is that I usually don’t have anyplace I need to be, at any given time and yet, I’m obsessed with the passage of time and have clocks in every room (which I had to change, one-by-one, over the past days). As a retiree, the pay isn’t great, but the hours are flexible, with oodles of overtime, at that same low rate of pay.

Everybody’s clock has the same number of hours and if you choose to do activity A, then activities B through Z go undone, at least by you. If someone makes plans to meet you at a certain time and you don’t arrive or inform them, then you are stealing precious time from them. If they really like you, they’ll forgive, but it’s a test of your social leverage, how many times they’ll put up with that before deciding that you’re too expensive.

I feel that rhythm and pace is the most important aspect of music. It’s that same old deal, I’ll meet you at the chord change, and if you’re late, I’ll have to go on without you. 1-2-3-4, here we go. Looking high and low for that lost time.

Robert Wills, Shawville and Thorne, Que.