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Steve Speaks with David Marley about Politics., Part 2

Part 2

Steve: Okay, so now if we're talking about the ritualistic nature of our democracy. In other words, it's not real democracy, it's kind of a game or a struggle of a different nature. One of the things that I've also heard you say is that the greatest, sort of most vulnerable point in our whole democratic process, is the selection of the candidate. And if I take what you're saying now, the fact is that so few people are members of political parties; therefore, so few people make the decision as to who is going to be the candidate, that it sort of opens the door for people like the ones you mentioned here, who can swing, because of their ethnic affiliation, a great group of people to all of a sudden come and sort of swamp a riding association and select the candidate. Is that the point, and how big a part is that of your whole concern about the ritualistic nature of our democracy?

David: Well, that is the point, and it's not just ethnic affiliation. It depends on what constituency you're in. If you're in certain major urban constituencies in places like Vancouver and Toronto, we've seen a fair bit of that sort of thing. But if you're in rural constituencies in different parts of the country, it could be religious affiliation. I once ran a nominating meeting for the Conservative Party in the early-mid-1980s, rather, in the constituency of East Fraser Valley, centered on the Chilliwack. There were seven candidates. Over twenty-eight hundred people came out to vote, and we had a very, very interesting contest, but the major candidates were backed by various, different fundamentalist churches. So, you know, even your bowling team-it depends on the riding. Right now, we're in the-I like to refer to the "political oestrus cycle." Politicians go into heat every four years, and we're in that situation now. We know, because B.C. now has a fixed election date, being May 17 coming up, and so people are getting nominated, and you're seeing nominations turning on as few as ten or twenty votes. Less than two hundred people are coming out to these meetings, and this is in a typical provincial constituency of thirty-five thousand people, which would mean probably twenty thousand or so electors. But less than two hundred people are making a decision as to who will be one of the candidates, and in many cases, it's a foregone conclusion that a certain party will win. For instance, here in West Vancouver, the riding that we're talking about-talking in, rather-there's no doubt that the person that has the liberal nomination will be elected to the legislature, so someone has to simply win the nomination. That could be getting out fifty people, and you've got a ticket to the legislature. Now, that's only one of the pathologies. There are actually, I seem to think-I mentioned three pathologies, but there's also three pathologies to the component of ritualistic democracy. There's the parliamentary aspect, and unlike the Westminster Parliament, we have basically allowed a situation to grow whereby we democratically elect a dictator every so many years. In Westminster, even the "Iron Lady," Mrs. Thatcher, one of the most dominant politicians of the twentieth century, was defeated on at least twenty-two major government bills during the eleven years that she was Prime Minister, and ultimately she was thrown out of office by her own caucus, because the individual MPs, under that system, have a lot more clout. The second component is the electoral system itself. We're one of only three countries-the other two being Great Britain and the United States-that still use the "first past the post" electoral system. What that system means is that you only have to get one vote more than the next candidate to be elected. So, in our country where we almost always have at least three or more candidates in a campaign, you get situations where candidates are elected with less than forty percent, sometimes close to only thirty percent of the vote, so many people feel that their vote has essentially been wasted. Right now in this province, there is going to be a referendum on that. The government, to its credit, appointed a citizens' assembly, which decided to recommend something called the "single transferable vote," a derivative of proportional representation, to go to referendum at the time of the next provincial election. It may well be that the people will choose to try a new system. We had a different system in this province for a few years in the late forties and early fifties, and then a party came to power, and for its own perceived partisan advantage, threw out the system and went back to "first past the post." The third aspect is what we've been talking about before, in terms of the-what I call the "inter-party function," and that's maybe the weakest link in our democracy, where really very, very few participate. They're determining the outcome of the elections before the citizens themselves really get a chance to participate. Steve: You say they determine the outcome of elections before the citizens participate? How do you mean?

David: Well, as I said earlier, depending on the constituency. In British Columbia, where we're very partisan and very polarized, many constituencies-the last election was an aberration where one party took all but two seats. Typically, there are many seats in British Columbia where it's pretty well a foregone conclusion that a liberal candidate-formally a Social Credit candidate-or, on the other hand, any Democratic candidate will be elected. The key simply is to get the nomination of that party, and as I said earlier, you can do that by bringing in relatively few people. Now, because the people have seen this, and because seats in the legislation are desirable-not so much for your pay and perks and pension, but for what you can do for your buddies and therefore turn into your advantage later-we have many people seeking these seats. In the case of ethnic groups, many of whom-take the Indo-Canadians, for instance, they've come from a country which has British parliamentary democracy, that has over a billion, you have to fight and be a smart and tough guy to survive in a country with that many people. I give them full credit. They come here, and they say, "Well, we should participate in politics," and that's what they're doing, so the rest of us better smarten up as well.

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Part 2

Steve: Okay, so now if we're talking about the ritualistic nature of our democracy. In other words, it's not real democracy, it's kind of a game or a struggle of a different nature. One of the things that I've also heard you say is that the greatest, sort of most vulnerable point in our whole democratic process, is the selection of the candidate. And if I take what you're saying now, the fact is that so few people are members of political parties; therefore, so few people make the decision as to who is going to be the candidate, that it sort of opens the door for people like the ones you mentioned here, who can swing, because of their ethnic affiliation, a great group of people to all of a sudden come and sort of swamp a riding association and select the candidate. Is that the point, and how big a part is that of your whole concern about the ritualistic nature of our democracy?

David: Well, that is the point, and it's not just ethnic affiliation. It depends on what constituency you're in. If you're in certain major urban constituencies in places like Vancouver and Toronto, we've seen a fair bit of that sort of thing. But if you're in rural constituencies in different parts of the country, it could be religious affiliation. I once ran a nominating meeting for the Conservative Party in the early-mid-1980s, rather, in the constituency of East Fraser Valley, centered on the Chilliwack. There were seven candidates. Over twenty-eight hundred people came out to vote, and we had a very, very interesting contest, but the major candidates were backed by various, different fundamentalist churches. So, you know, even your bowling team-it depends on the riding. Right now, we're in the-I like to refer to the "political oestrus cycle." Politicians go into heat every four years, and we're in that situation now. We know, because B.C. now has a fixed election date, being May 17 coming up, and so people are getting nominated, and you're seeing nominations turning on as few as ten or twenty votes. Less than two hundred people are coming out to these meetings, and this is in a typical provincial constituency of thirty-five thousand people, which would mean probably twenty thousand or so electors. But less than two hundred people are making a decision as to who will be one of the candidates, and in many cases, it's a foregone conclusion that a certain party will win. For instance, here in West Vancouver, the riding that we're talking about-talking in, rather-there's no doubt that the person that has the liberal nomination will be elected to the legislature, so someone has to simply win the nomination. That could be getting out fifty people, and you've got a ticket to the legislature. Now, that's only one of the pathologies. There are actually, I seem to think-I mentioned three pathologies, but there's also three pathologies to the component of ritualistic democracy. There's the parliamentary aspect, and unlike the Westminster Parliament, we have basically allowed a situation to grow whereby we democratically elect a dictator every so many years. In Westminster, even the "Iron Lady," Mrs. Thatcher, one of the most dominant politicians of the twentieth century, was defeated on at least twenty-two major government bills during the eleven years that she was Prime Minister, and ultimately she was thrown out of office by her own caucus, because the individual MPs, under that system, have a lot more clout. The second component is the electoral system itself. We're one of only three countries-the other two being Great Britain and the United States-that still use the "first past the post" electoral system. What that system means is that you only have to get one vote more than the next candidate to be elected. So, in our country where we almost always have at least three or more candidates in a campaign, you get situations where candidates are elected with less than forty percent, sometimes close to only thirty percent of the vote, so many people feel that their vote has essentially been wasted. Right now in this province, there is going to be a referendum on that. The government, to its credit, appointed a citizens' assembly, which decided to recommend something called the "single transferable vote," a derivative of proportional representation, to go to referendum at the time of the next provincial election. It may well be that the people will choose to try a new system. We had a different system in this province for a few years in the late forties and early fifties, and then a party came to power, and for its own perceived partisan advantage, threw out the system and went back to "first past the post." The third aspect is what we've been talking about before, in terms of the-what I call the "inter-party function," and that's maybe the weakest link in our democracy, where really very, very few participate. They're determining the outcome of the elections before the citizens themselves really get a chance to participate. Steve: You say they determine the outcome of elections before the citizens participate? How do you mean?

David: Well, as I said earlier, depending on the constituency. In British Columbia, where we're very partisan and very polarized, many constituencies-the last election was an aberration where one party took all but two seats. Typically, there are many seats in British Columbia where it's pretty well a foregone conclusion that a liberal candidate-formally a Social Credit candidate-or, on the other hand, any Democratic candidate will be elected. The key simply is to get the nomination of that party, and as I said earlier, you can do that by bringing in relatively few people. Now, because the people have seen this, and because seats in the legislation are desirable-not so much for your pay and perks and pension, but for what you can do for your buddies and therefore turn into your advantage later-we have many people seeking these seats. In the case of ethnic groups, many of whom-take the Indo-Canadians, for instance, they've come from a country which has British parliamentary democracy, that has over a billion, you have to fight and be a smart and tough guy to survive in a country with that many people. I give them full credit. They come here, and they say, "Well, we should participate in politics," and that's what they're doing, so the rest of us better smarten up as well.