Reflections on Activism

People keep saying that 2012 will be the year of protest in North America - the year when ordinary people rise up and demand better treatment from government elites. For example, the Occupy movement is organizing a general strike for May 1. I'm all for that. I think it's crazy that Canada doesn't have stronger employment laws to protect employees, that we don't provide a way for the majority without pensions to save for our retirement, that we don't have lobbyists to fight for ordinary non-unionized working people, that our top tax bracket is so low that we are killing the principle of progressive taxation, that we're in a state of perpetual war. I have written about these issues many times.

But protesting effectively isn't easy. It's a well-known strategy of the far right to encourage division in order to energize their base: Mike Harris as premier of Ontario was a master of this. Thus well-intentioned activists can end up achieving the opposite of their intention.

Most public protest is organized by unions, but unions don't represent the majority of people: like corporations, they exist to fatten one particular group and the rest of the population can go hang. I can't support a movement that claims that Ontario's high school teachers are victimized by not having infinite pay raises, even more time off, and even better pension deals.

Then there are groups with hidden political agendas: when I was a student activist in the 70s, the "Trots" and anarchists showed up at every protest, trying to infiltrate and trick us into promoting their goal of violent revolution. And there are the plain old nutters, insisting on unfeasible and undesirable change: the libertarians, the anti-tax crowd, the obsessed anti-car crowd.

Another problem with trying to be an activist is that it's really difficult to trust people who organize activists. They have their own personal agendas, whether it's springboarding a political career or just getting their photo in the paper.

I recently ran into a problem with a pro-democracy movement. A couple of years ago I happened to be around during the formation of a local chapter of Canadians Advocating Political Participation (CAPP). I was never very active (the rest of the local group supports proportional representation and I don't), but I was impressed by the organizational abilities of our two Facebook admins, who set up tons of non-partisan events and got good turnouts.

Our mistake was in trusting the bosses of CAPP. Out of the blue a few months ago, one of them called Shilo Davis unilaterally shut down our group. She made it impossible for us to write on the wall of our Facebook page, stripped our two admins of their admin privileges, and parachuted in her sister Amanda Davis as the only person with any control over our Facebook site. Amanda Davis, who doesn't even live in our region, has done nothing whatsoever: not contacted anyone or updated the site. Many CAPP Waterloo members, myself included, have tried over and over to reach these people, but they ignore us.

If we can't trust national organizers and have to always operate in local, unorganized ways, it's not at all clear that we can have enough impact to effect any change. Whenever we link up into national groups, we have the problem of power-mad idjits like the crew running CAPP, who seemingly have no interest in democractic practices like accountability and transparency.

For a general strike to work for everyone, it would have to be diffuse: those participating in it would not all have one voice. That would probably be impossible. Even if we tried it, the unions or the CAPP soundrels would try to hijack the day. Even if we had a single message that everyone agreed on, the Shilo Davises would get their snouts in front of a microphone and make it all about them.

It's an age old problem, I know, but I just happen to have hit a wall with it this week: it's not easy as an individual to have a voice, because the world is full of opportunists who are always on the lookout for ways to coopt the voices of others. I'm starting to understand why many people don't speak up and don't vote.

But please, if you have any ideas for how to organize a movement, speak up here or elsewhere.

My only plea is that I not get bombarded with comments by those in favor of proportional representation, telling me that I'm ignorant and need to educate myself...

Update: It seems that Amanda Davis is not the sister of Shilo Davis, but an alias used by Shilo Davis.

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Strategic Voting

I was reading an article on Proportional Representation that a commenter on an earlier post suggested I should read, and was taken aback by the author's main argument for abandoning our current system, which is that it leads to strategic voting - which the author describes as "anathema to democracy."

Anathema to democracy. Hunh.

I was an NDPer for my whole life until I switched to the Liberals. I made the complete move over to the Liberals just this year, but the transition was many years in the making (and I was active in the last provincial Liberal campaign). During my transition period, and even before, I was a strategic voter.

What did this mean? In my case, it meant I supported a party I didn't particularly want to get into power. I supported the NDP because of the alternative voice the NDP brings to debates. (For details, see Why I Left the NDP.) I still support the NDP in that regard, even though I am currently a committed Liberal member. The NDP has a lot to offer the country and we would be greatly diminished without its presence in parliament. In particular, the NDP has had a positive influence on the Liberal government and has pushed them to places they might not have gone otherwise - does anyone remember Jack Layton's deal with Paul Martin's minority government in 2005? I'm going on about this because the Liberals and NDP are natural allies, and there is always going to be a large, responsible area of cross-over among supporters of each.

So then why, as an active NDPer, did I consider voting Liberal in many elections? Of course the main reason was that I weighed my support for the NDP against my dislike of whoever was currently the Tory leadership. But strategic voted started for me with the 1979 election, when I voted for my preference (NDP) and then was not happy when Trudeau was defeated. So in the 1980 election, despite preferring the NDP leadership and my local NDP candidate, I voted Liberal. I have never regretted it.

But in some elections I was genuinely torn. Frequently the NDP candidate in my riding (and I have lived all over Ontario) was not of the highest calibre. In that case I generally voted NDP to help the party attract better candidates in future. But if I liked the Liberal candidate and it was a close race between the Liberal and Conservative, it could be difficult to support an NDP candidate I didn't respect, even though I wanted the NDP to do well nationally.

During my transition to a Liberal I also practised strategic voting. If my Liberal candidate looked dead-set to win, I'd consider voting for an NDP candidate, even if I wasn't thrilled with the person, just to make it possible for the NDP to attract better candidates in future.

I know that strategic voting is controversial because my friends in the NDP used to rail at me about it. But it seems perfectly democratic to me. No matter what system of voting we use, in the upcoming federal election I would find a way to vote that was most harmful to the chances of the Harper government. If the Tories move back to their (pre-hostile takeover) roots and elect a leader (and MPs) who are less stridently right-wing, then Canadians might not feel the need to be so strategic.

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Why Are We Even Considering Proportional Representation?

Some time ago I wrote a post listing why I think we should not go to a Proportional Representation voting system. The six issues I raise still seem to me to be show-stoppers.

The biggest motivation I can see for moving to PR is to help out the smaller parties. The NDP regularly gets much more of the popular vote than its perecentage of MPs indicates. Little parties like the Green party get a certain amount of votes, but spread too thin to elect anyone. It's a no-brainer that those little parties would be pushing for a system that benefits them.

But we have to realize that it would not only be the NDP and Green party that would benefit. All sorts of extremist and weirdo organizations would start to elect MPs. Think back to the 1993 election. The Natural Law party fielded 231 candidates, spent millions on advertising, and garnered 84,743 votes. Under PR, they might have elected an MP. Their platform? Kinda hard to say. Their main schtick was "yogick flying" - essentially, Doug Henning sat in the lotus position and hopped, with photographs taken as his bum was a couple of inches off the floor, and they claimed he could fly.

PR does not help Liberals, and it does not help the country.

Here's a recap of the six things I could think of that are wrong with PR:

1. More elections. Lots more elections. This will be very expensive, and it can lead to voter apathy.

2. Strange coalitions. At the federal level, we could very well be governed by a coalition including a Quebec separatist party. In other countries, it's not uncommon for extremes of the left and right to join up against the centrist party.

3. The election of fringe party MPs.

4. Loss of local focus. Instead of our current small ridings where we know the issues and can meet the candidates, we will be voting in much larger ridings and have much less understanding of the candidates or the issues. Depending on what form of PR is in place, there may not even be the concept of a local representative.

5. More instability in governance. With the creation of temporary alliances to form coalition governments, there will be greater swings in policy approach. It will be more difficult for the government to have a strong vision.

6. Undemocratic. Coalitions are created between members of the political elite, without any input from voters. Nobody voted for the coalition. A party that got few votes can wield a disproportionate amount of power.

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What's Wrong with Proportional Representation

1. More elections. Lots more elections. It will be very expensive. It can lead to voter apathy.

2. Strange coalitions. At the federal level, we could very well be governed by a coalition including a Quebec separatist party. In other countries, it's not uncommon for extremes of the left and right to join up against the centrist party. (For example, in Ireland.)

3. The election of fringe party MPs. I'm not talking about more NDP and a few Greens, but single-interest and extremist candidates.

4. Loss of local focus. Instead of our current small ridings where we know the issues and can meet the candidates, we will be voting in much larger ridings and have much less understanding of the candidates or the issues. Depending on what form of PR is in place, there may not even be the concept of a local representative.

5. More instability in governance. With the creation of temporary alliances to form coalition governments, there will be greater swings in policy approach. It will be more difficult for the government to have a strong vision.

6. Undemocratic. Coalitions are created between members of the political elite, without any input from voters. Nobody voted for the coalition. A party that got few votes can wield a disproportionate amount of power.

I decided that proportional representation wasn't a great idea back in the late 1970s when I wrote an undergraduate PoliSci paper about it. I was motivated to jot down this list because lately in Canada all you hear is the advantages of PR over our current first-past-the-post electoral system. I agree that in the current system it's not fair that the NDP gets a way higher percentage of the popular vote than is reflected in the number of MPs they get elected. But we need to think through the downsides of changing our electoral system. As some famous guy said, Canada's political system works, except in theory.

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