Tepid Lucidity

As much as I enjoy providing friendly, unsolicited advice to politicians every so often, I am a great believer in the democratic system. More to the point, I can't stand hearing people gripe about the corruption of politicians and the divide between government policy and local issues as excuses to give up on the democratic system entirely.

Yes, the system has faults, but how on earth can a country's leadership be determined other than through the election of representatives by their peers?

Yes, I'm one of those people who believes voting is not just a right, but civic responsibility. Yes, I'm one of those people who at least understands the "if you didn't vote, sit down and shut up" philosophy.

And yet, I'm afraid I must join the ranks of the gripers in expressing my disappointment with my first experience in riding-level politics in years.

I recently attended an all-candidates meeting in a GTA riding - I won't tell you which one, except to say that it wasn't my own. I can best sum up my experience as...underwhelming.

Why? Because I was expecting to hear how the candidates would truly address local issues, how they would translate national party platforms into local actions that (if I were to live in the riding) I could see when I walked out of my door every morning. Having seen and read more than enough debate at the federal level, I was looking for something refreshingly local.

Instead, what I saw was an off-off-Broadway version of the leadership debates I already spent too much time watching on TV. Almost without exception, every question of local relevance - gun crime, traffic congestion, green spaces - was met with an answer taken straight out of the party platform. One candidate answered a question about a local park with his party's stance on the Kyoto Protocol!

One of the setbacks I admit exists in our Parliamentary system of government is that voters must cast a single ballot to express their preference for both local representatives and the Prime Minister.

It has been said that local issues at best constitute 20% of a given voter's decision at the ballot box. If all all-candidates meetings were like this one, I'd say that figure should be closer to 0.

Those of you out there going to all-candidates meetings, I hope you're in for a more compelling evening than I had. Those of you who put on the debate, if I wanted to hear the party line, I would have turned on the TV. And those of you who got the Queensrÿche reference...YOU ROCK!