Just Your Everyday Bullying

It was enough to make a body ashamed of the human race.
  - Mark Twain

Recent stories of teen suicide caused by being bullied have brought a spotlight to the issue of bullying.  There has been talk of special committees to study the issue.  There has been talk of expecting schools of doing more to prevent student bullying.  There has been a lot of talk.  The talk, however, has concentrated almost exclusively on the problem with teenagers.  This is a pity because it does not address the entire problem and what may be the actual cause of teen bullying.

Bullies have always been with us. When I was in middle school many years ago, there was a group of three boys who tried to get me into a fight almost every day on my way to school.  Not knowing what else to do, I ignored them.  I just kept walking to school.  After many months (maybe it was only a few days, but it felt like many months), they finally gave up.  Some years later, when I was working over the summer as a playground supervisor, there was one boy who thought I should fight him.  I couldn’t because to do so would have lost me my job.  But slowly, I co-opted him until he used to come around and help at the playground.  It turned out he was just bored and needed something to do, or someone to recognize him. And he did it in the only way he knew how.

In later life, in my first civilian job, my boss kept telling me that if I personally did not bring in new business, I would lose my job.  The fact that I was an engineer, not a marketing type, made no difference.  I and I alone, was responsible for bringing in new business.  This too was bullying, a fact exacerbated by the fact that I was suffering through clinical depression at the time . . .  and he knew it. 

The fact is that bullying is all around us every day in overt and subtle ways.  The only question is whether, in any given situation, you are the bully or the bullied.  Are you the boss who berates a subordinate in front of others? Or are you the boss who gives in to a loud, insistent employee?  Are you the driver who insists on cutting in on another driver who has the right of way?  Are you the shopper who takes your frustration out on a store clerk who has absolutely nothing to do with your problem? Or are you the store clerk who uses your passive-aggressive capability to deny that same shopper, or the next one, proper service? Or are you the homeowner who lets in a pushy salesperson who insists that your house has a problem?  Or are you the pushy salesperson?  See if you can recognize yourself in any of these scenarios.

These are all examples of the bullying that we see every day.  And in most cases we feel helpless to do anything about it.  But if we do, the results can be tragic.  The two teenagers who carried out the shootings at Columbine High School were not ideological terrorists.  They had been bullied in that same high school and were now taking their revenge.  But that does not mean that, as a society, we cannot take action to curb the all too familiar bullying theme. 

Going back to teen bullying, let’s start at home.  As a parent, do you advise your child to take what’s his, regardless of the consequences?  Do you tell your child to stand up for himself and show him how to fight?  Better still, do you come home from one of the encounters I described above, and tell your children how you “told somebody off”, “got in their face”, or “got my way” and showed them how proud you were of it?  Did you ever show off to your child how you are “the man” by being aggressive toward someone else?  You tell your child that they shouldn’t bully the little kid down the street and you think that is all that’s needed.  Teenagers don’t pay much attention to what you tell them.  But they do take in how you act.  They are far more swayed by example that by words.  They want to see and emulate what you do, particularly those things that seem to enhance you.  Did you ever have a kid ask why you were mean to a store clerk, and your answer was because they deserved it?  Can you start to see now the reason for teen bullying?  Can you now start to see why some people go on to be bullies all their lives?  Like bigotry, bullying is an acquired habit, learned through example from those a child grows up looking up to. Are you the cause of bullying?  Think about it.

Holidays

The word holiday derives from the words holy day, and several of our annual holidays are based on Christian holy days. With the recent celebration of Easter, it got me thinking about these holidays.

Our principal Christian holidays are Christmas, Easter, St. Valentine’s Day and All Hallows Eve (Halloween).  The celebration of these days goes back to the early days of Christianity and the religious traditions for them are well established in our traditions. 

Islam and Judaism take the celebration of their holy days very seriously and their traditions too run deep. 

Our Christian holy days, on the other hand, are celebrated as a mixture of religious and pagan tradition.  Want a good example?  There were no such things as fir trees in Israel 2000 years ago. Unfortunately, for the religious among us, the pagan part of the tradition has become the more powerful and alluring.  Christmas is considered a success by the amount shoppers spend on gifts rather than how many people celebrate the birth of Jesus. One of my tree ornaments shows a harried woman lugging several shopping bags under the title, “Spirit of Christmas Stressed”.  Easter is celebrated with big family meals and by the state of the spring weather, rather than the remembrance of the crucifixion and resurrection.  St. Valentine’s Day and Halloween are about parties and candy.  And they are all dependent on the purchase and sending of cards. 

All of our holidays, both religious and otherwise, have now become associated with sporting events.  After all, you can’t have a perfectly good audience going off to thinking about their religious traditions when they can be distracted by a good basketball or football game.  And so at Christmas, it is National Basketball Association games.  At Thanksgiving, it is football, both Canadian and American.  New Year’s Day and many days before and after, it is US college football.  And at Easter it is often US college basketball (“March Madness”) and sometimes a golf tournament called the Masters where Amen consists of the 11^th, 12^th and 13^th holes at Augusta National Golf Course.

The trend, or should I say headlong rush, toward secularizing holy days is a shame because it masks the beauty and tranquility of the religious observance.  A midnight church service at Christmas with its solemn formality and the beautiful Christmas music can be a wonderful way of releasing the tension that the other aspects of Christmas inevitably cause.  A sunrise service on Easter Sunday can evoke the glory of the resurrection and spring like nothing else.  The secular side of the holiday traditions seem to be designed to cause stress and confusion.  The religious traditions of holy days usually result in tranquility of the soul and body.

So let’s try and bring more of the religious tradition back to our holidays/holy days and reignite the beauty and peace that these traditions can evoke.  Non-believers are advised not to celebrate any of these holy days in order to preserve their ideals.

The Cult of History

History is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind.   - Edward Gibbon

I love history.  I have seriously read about it since I was in college, even although I studied engineering.  Having a military background, I read a lot of military history, but I try and balance that with reading about the peaceful times and what life was like for ordinary people.  It is all pretty fascinating stuff.  And of course, I have added my own little bit of history having written the book “We Are as One” (http://www.weareasone.ca), the story of the worst peacetime disaster in the history of the Royal Canadian Navy (sorry for the self-promotion). 

Along the way, I have come to some truths about the uses and abuses of history, and about what history has shown us. 

Truth #1 – history is made by ordinary people and their society, and can only progress as fast as these people can be moved.  Kings, Presidents and Emperors may try and influence the advancement of society but it will only move at the pace set by the ordinary man.

Truth #2 – history does not necessarily repeat itself, as some people expect, but it does show us what can happen in similar circumstances.

Truth #3 - You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake. Jeannette Rankin.      This obviously depends on what you consider by “winning” a war.  In general, both sides lose something during a war, whether it is wealth, resources, territory or, most tragically, the lives of its young adults.  The old men who make the decision for war hardly ever lose their lives, they send their young for that.

Truth #4 – In every war, one side fights to save the status quo.  They never succeed.  War inevitably changes society on both sides, whether it is changes in government, scientific discovery or the way we view ourselves and the rest of the world. See also idea #2 above.

Truth #5 – you cannot judge the past with the rules of the present.  There are great movements in revisionist history going on these days, whether it is the resurrection of figures like Louis Riel, apologies to nations for past wrongs, or condemning our ancestors for the way they lived their lives.  This is a travesty to the memory of those who made our world through the ages.  The men who found Louis Riel guilty of treason truly believed, given their education, fears, prejudices and life experience, that he was just that. And we can never understand them because we do not live in the same era, have the same education or life experiences.  This applies to those who made war with other nations and took whatever steps they thought they were necessary to protect their own citizens and win the war.  Someone who has not lived in a country in the middle of a war can understand this.  Our ancestors lived the way they did because that was all they knew.  They did not have access to our knowledge of medicine, the environment, philosophy, critical thought or any of the other ideas that we now use to condemn them.  Nor could the people of the past have foreseen the consequences of their decisions any more than we can today.

Truth #6 – in every war, look for the economic reason.  Whatever rationale is espoused for a war, there will be an underlying economic reason.  No warlord, country or group is going to undertake a war unless they think they see a profit in it.  The opposition may have to fight to save its existence, but one side at least is after the spoils.  Although the Crusaders went off to save the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, they also had in mind new lands and riches.  Many of the early Crusader knights were second and third sons who needed to find their own estates in order to prosper.  Hitler, for all his rhetoric about master races, really wanted to expand the size of Germany in order to enlarge the population, and increase the raw materials available to Germany.  By winning hegemony of Europe, he also gained economic hegemony.  Iraq was all about saving oil resources.  The various rationales that are spouted to justify war whether it be religion, “honour”, patriotism or power, are primarily used to rally the foot soldiers that will not necessarily benefit from the economic advantage gained.  The economic advantages will mainly accrue to the old men who send the foot soldiers off to war.  I sound cynical, don’t I?  Well, I am when it comes to war.

But I am also optimistic, because my study of history has shown me how much progress we have made over the centuries.  How men, and now women, have overcome their prejudices and limitations, and have really improved our lot.  And I don’t think so much of the material progress; the machines we have invented, the medicines and cures we have discovered, the wired (and wireless) world we have made.  I think of the advances in the human condition; of the intellect, of overcoming prejudices, of allowing us to express ourselves more fully.  Not just a small intellectual elite, but practically every member of society can now benefit from this type of advancement.  As long as we can balance human progress with material progress, and I admit that may be more difficult the faster material progress develops, we should be optimistic about the future which will soon enough become history.

Retirement Age

A work of Fiction . . . for now.

I’m an old man now, something that is becoming rarer and rarer in this country.  I am what is called a “baby boomer”, one of the most despised generations in recent history.  It wasn’t always so.  When I was born in the 1950s, I was part of what was seen as a wonderful and hopeful phenomenon known as the baby boom.  We were part of a world of hope and affluence after the poverty of the 1930s and the ravages of World War II.  But that’s not true anymore.  We are now the blight; the generation everyone wants to see die, including some of us.  As for me, I’m glad and lucky to be alive.  Glad because it is interesting to watch this process and to be able to record it.  Lucky because I have had no significant illnesses that have required me to try and get medical help.  My wife, Anne, wasn’t so lucky.  I lost her to what was normally described as a routine illness about eight years ago.  Anne was only 60, but by that time, nobody paid much attention to a sick 60 year old.

 
            It all started about ten years ago, I guess, about the time I turned 60.  Studies were produced that showed that we were going to bankrupt the social security system and the health care system.  At the same time, younger folk realised that this large bubble of humanity ahead of them was slowing down their chances for quick advancement in business and industry.  They had been brought up to expect instant gratification, and they had no patience of anyone that stood in the way of that. 

            It might not have gone further except for the condition of politics.  One party in the US and one in Canada had been out of power for too long in their estimation and to rectify that, they discovered the constituency of the young. Interestingly enough, it was the more liberal party in one country and the more conservative in another.  But they both had the same idea that if they could grab the imagination of the younger generation, the Gen X’ers and the Gen Y’ers, and give them what they wanted, the young would come to roost in their party and hopefully stay for a good long time.  It worked too.

            The first to succumb was Canada.  The opposition party had tried everything to get in power, and finally succeeded in that year’s federal election thanks to their seduction of the younger voters.  But, once in power, they discovered that their constituency wanted their due, and they wanted action now.  Instant gratification again.  These younger folk could read the various reports and studies, and had a bunch of other gripes against their elders to go along with them.

            Among their other complaints were that we had destroyed the environment (probably to build things that they wanted); screwed up the world, particularly the Middle East;  made “their” cities ugly;  practiced discrimination against just about everyone (a touch of irony here considering future events); caused terrorism and wars  (forgetting that wars had been here long before me and my generation ever got here); and just about messing up everything we had ever done (although they did seem to enjoy the computers and internet which my generation invented).

            When the election was over, my friend George asked what it meant.  I said, “George, don’t you worry.  This election isn’t going to make any more difference that any of the others.  The young ones will get a couple of environmental laws to keep them happy, and our life will go on pretty much the same.”  Not one of my more brilliant predictions.  Old George was one of the early victims of the new politics when they cut out the old age “security” and reduced government pensions.  George had worked most of his life for the government without getting much above the mediocre level so his pensions were about all he had.

            In fact, the old age pension was about the first to go.  It was reasoned that we all should have worked hard all of our life and saved enough for our “golden” years through retirement savings plans and 401Ks and the like.  So the small amount that folks got from their pensions wouldn’t be missed, and besides, it would save the government all kinds of money that could better be used for the new agenda.  The pension went in the first budget that the new government brought down.  Cutbacks in other government pensions came later when this new agenda needed even more money than anyone thought. 

            It wasn’t all about money, however.  As the younger folks got into the swing of things, it was noticed that more and more companies were “retiring” workers at younger and younger ages.  “Not able to cope with new technology” became the standard phrase to describe and justify this.  Sixty became the norm, and then fifty five.  Some companies then started to think that even fifty was too much.  Then came health care.  Oh, they didn’t take that away.  They just started implementing a policy that made treatment priority in order of age, youngest first.  The reasoning was that children deserved good health care so they would grow up and be healthy and productive.  Then working age people had to be looked after so that they could remain working and productive.  Since everyone knew that old people were not productive (particularly since most of them had been forcibly retired), why did they need any priority in health care.  Also, everyone knew that they would bankrupt the system.

            Then came the great constitutional debate.  After all, age discrimination was supposed to be against the law.  So a debate raged with the “young” party pointing out that none of the new measures said anything about age or prevented service to older people.  The health care system was only setting priorities to husband scarce resources, and what private industry did with its people was their own business. So the courts upheld the new agenda.  But just to make sure, an amendment was pushed through on the constitution that removed age as a discrimination factor.  Got pretty quick approval, too.  This, of course, threw open the doors for all kinds of new measures and practices. 

            So where were our sons and daughters to look after their parents’ interests?  Well, they were the ones behind most of what happened.  They justified this by pleading that, as parents and grandparents, we must understand that their welfare and the welfare of our grandkids must come first.  And of course, what parent could argue that.  If you asked the kids what they were going to do when they got older, most of them hummed and hawed. But a few would come right out and tell you that when it was their turn, they would reverse everything they had done, because by that time they would have saved the country and could afford to be looked after properly.  I found this pretty brazen, but I guess I couldn’t blame them.  I guess even the most committed of them probably recognized that there was something not quite right and fair about what was going on.  Anyway, said some of our kids, we’ll look after you in your old age.  But that became more and more of a burden.  My two kids tried to help when Anne was alive, but after she passed, I’ve been pretty much left on my own.  Differences in our outlook on modern politics keeps us apart physically and emotionally.  I haven’t seen any of my grandkids for over five years.

            So what happened to us old folks?  Well some of them died prematurely like my Anne from “deferred” health care.  Others got stuck in poverty they never planned for and couldn’t cope with.  Either disease or despair caught up with them.  The result was about the same in either case – premature death.  From that point of view, the new policies have worked.  There sure are a lot less baby boomers than there used to be.  I’ve even heard a few - a very few - people express some sympathy for those of us that remain.  Not that they advocate any changes, mind you; they just say something sympathetic.

            In most ways, the hardest hit were older women.  Once women got beyond child-bearing age, they were considered totally non-productive and a drain.  Women going through menopause found it almost impossible to see a gynaecologist or get any relief from their discomfort.  I knew at least two women, one widowed and one divorced, who could get no assistance whatsoever either for health or monetary problems.  They both eventually took their own lives.  They were not unique.

            Some people tried to hitch their fortunes on younger people.  Some celebrities tried to make themselves “icons” to the young.  One older actress stretched out her career by making pornographic movies with young actors, but that didn’t work for long.  The rich were pretty immune from the economic and even public health impacts, but they still started to keep pretty low profiles.  Face lifts and plastic surgery didn’t change what was on your birth certificate.

            Attempts at May-December and December-May romances were popular for a while.  Older men had always had an attraction for some younger women, but the phenomenon of older women courting younger men became much more popular.  The ideal, of course was to find someone who was both young enough to “mask” your age and rich enough to get you the medical and other care you may need.  Not too many of these romances lasted.  They were too transparent.

            So how have I survived?  Well financially, I was one who didn’t put much stock in pensions and the like.  I worked hard to build a nest egg of my own that governments couldn’t touch.  So I never had any worries that way. And like I said earlier, I’ve been lucky on the health front.  No sicknesses that have killed me yet.  Oh, I’ve got some arthritis that bothers me, and I sure could use a good foot doctor for my fallen arches.  But I can live with them with some good strong aspirin and they aren’t going to kill me.  I’ve still got this small apartment that I’ve had since Anne died and I sold the house.  Fortunately, it hasn’t been designated as “Families Only” yet, so there are some other old folks in the building who keep me company, including old George.  Somehow, he hangs in and manages to keep his apartment and a bit of food on the table.  I help him out now and then, but I suspect that he also gets help from some of his kids.  He has five of them, and a couple are apparently fairly well off.  Still, he doesn’t get to see them very often either.

            George and I were talking a while back about the government budget that was recently announced.  He said, “Did you see that new thing in the budget?”  I asked him what thing he was thinking about.  There were quite a few new wrinkles in this one, just as there has been in most budgets in the past few years.  I used to remember when government budgets were dull.  Not anymore.  So I asked what thing he was talking about.

“The one where they’re going to provide free termination treatment for older folks.”

            Termination treatment is the new euphemism for euthanasia.  Up till now, it was one of the few treatments that older patients could get priority on, but you had to pay for it since it was considered to be “elective” treatment.

“Now that you mention it, I did see that, but I think it applies only to those people who are badly sick.” I said.

“No” replied George, “I see’d it in the paper this mornin’ that they’re going to offer it to anyone who applies.”

“Are you interested?” I asked.

“I might be. I’ll be seventy five on my next birthday and nowhere much to go.  What little money I got is running out, and I’m scared I’ll catch some really lingerin’ sickness.”

“Will you tell anyone like your kids before you do it?”

“Don’t know.  They’ll probably make some half-hearted effort to talk me out of it, but they were pretty strong on the new laws when they were passed.  So I don’t think their hearts will really be in tryin’ to stop me.  Fine state of affairs we’ve got ourselves into, ain’t it?”

“Won’t you even tell me, George?  Maybe I could go with you, or something.  Provide a bit of support.  I’ve still got a car so you wouldn’t have to take the subway or anything.”

“No.  I appreciate it, but I would probably just want it to be me and my thoughts.  You’ve been a good friend, Ray, but I think it would be pretty hard on you.  You’re not getting’ any younger, you know.”  He chuckled.

I sighed a sigh of relief, but went on, “Well, don’t worry about me.  If you change your mind, you just let me know, okay?”

            Last night I heard from a neighbour that George had gone and had the “treatment”.  No goodbye.  No fanfare.  No regrets, apparently.  Just a notice that George’s apartment was available to rent.  I miss him.

            Now George has got me thinking about the treatment.  I don’t know how much longer I can go on putting on a brave front.  I’m lonely and scared about what they will do next.  I don’t want to get sick and I don’t want to die alone.  Maybe I’ll try and get hold of my children before I do it.  If I go soon, at least I can tell them there will be some money left over for them and their families.  I know how to get hold of one of them – my daughter Judy.  Maybe she can tell me where I can reach Ian.  Yeah.  Maybe I’ll do that.  I hope I can do it soon.  I don’t want to think about this for long.  Something might happen.  Where did I put Judy’s number?

[Six months after Raymond Johnson partook of termination treatment at his local general hospital, surrounded only by the hospital staff, a new government was elected.  They were elected on a platform or “reviewing” many of the measures that had been passed in the past few years that affected the elderly.  It seems that the party that had been in opposition for many years had discovered that many of the “younger” members of society were now getting older.]

© James Gordon Forbes, 2013

And the Winner is . . .

We’re having a leadership contest for the Liberal Party of Canada.  Well, some of us think it is a contest, but many think it is no contest at all and that the party should just go ahead and anoint Justin Trudeau as the new party leader.  How can you deny this post to the son of the great Pierre Trudeau?  Surely dynasties should prevail.  After all, the Americans have done it with the Bushes, father and son, and look how that turned out.  By the same logic, the next Conservative leader should be Ben Mulroney, son of the great Brian.

The media is all excited about the prospect of Justin being the next leader.  Look how young and charismatic he is.  Surely he will lead the Liberal Party to greatness, and what great press he will make.  Of course the press that seems to be the most excited tends to be the more conservative pundits.  They see the poor Justin as the perfect target for denigration and attacks.  I’m sure the Conservative (Oh excuse me, the Harper) government are just as anxious for Justin to be selected.  They also see a prefect bull’s-eye for their attack ads and debates. 

You can imagine the subjects now,

“Poor little rich boy”

“Too little experience”

“Can fight in the ring but not on the floor (of the House of Commons)”

“Only there because of his father’s name”.  This will be followed by attacks on his father.

Yes, there they are just licking their lips in anticipation.  Let the anointing happen and then let the bloodletting begin.

Or we could select someone who has more experience, is not afraid to air his ideas and who would be hard to target for attacks.  That and the fact that I know the man personally is the reason why I would pick Marc Garneau for the leadership.

Toward Efficiency – Democratic Reform

We talk much these days about Senate Reform and Electoral Reform, but what we really need is democratic reform that will make our government more efficient.  Why does it take the government so long to make decisions?  Why do we have to have so many public consultations for just about everything?  Why can’t we get laws passed faster, when they are really needed, not months or years down the way when the need has receded? Why do we even need a Senate to hold up so many bills?  We need more efficiency in our government!

We need to be able to get our government to move quicker on these things.  We need them to be more efficient.  We need to get rid of anything that gets in the way of efficiency. 

Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship.
  - Harry S Truman

Well there you go.  Harry Truman had the answer.  But let’s not call it a dictatorship.  That word has too many negative connotations.  Let’s call it a Focused Democracy, the focus being on the leader.  We can call him the President, or Prime Minister, or anything else we want.  After all, isn’t that the way that government is becoming now?  All decisions have to be made or approved by our Prime Minister.  The rest of the cabinet members and MPs are there only to endorse those decisions, right? 

In our Focused Democracy, we can get rid of all of these legislators, both in the House and the Senate and just let the leader lead.  He can quickly proclaim new laws and make decisions without the bother of committees and hearings.  Oh, it could still be called a democracy.  We could have an election every four or five years, or whenever the leader decides.  But we would only have to elect one person.  The illusion of democracy would be upheld.

Of course the President or Leader would need advisors.  He would need a cabinet to run the government departments.  But rather that having to choose from political hacks and rivals, he could pick from the best and the brightest.  He could take his pick of business leaders and military leaders; men and women who had proven themselves as executives.  They would have tenure.  There would be no calls for their resignation every time they made a mistake.

Think of the money we would save in election costs alone.  Not to mention the money we would save in members’ salaries and benefits, plus all their staffers and office expenses.  Of course we could get rid of all those old Parliamentary buildings that house the chambers and the offices of all those members which will no longer be used.  They all need so much work to refurbish them and maintain them; we could save a few billion dollars right there.

Perhaps we could talk some eminent Canadians to run for the office, military leaders like Lewis McKenzie or Rick Hillier.  Or business leaders like Conrad Black.  Oh wait.  He’s not a Canadian any more.  Well, he can fix that when he’s President.

Of course, the chaos and arguments that now go on in the House of Commons would come to an end.  There would be no Opposition to argue with.  The government could save millions more by not having to run constant attack ads.  The leader could just get on with his job of running the country.  It would be a very business-like approach to government, something businessmen have been asking for for years.

So why don’t we get on with this reform of our government.  A lot of people would be happy to save money, streamline government, get rid of the pesky Senate and ensure that political wrangling would be absent until the next election.  Come on folks; let’s get on with this.  Let’s really get behind this efficient government idea . . .

 . . . NOT!

Winston Churchill said something about democracy being the worst form of government except for all the rest that have been tried.

Electoral Reform's Third Alternative

At least two-thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity: idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religious or political ideas. 

Aldous Huxley

In democracy it's your vote that counts; in feudalism it's your Count that votes.
    Mogens Jallberg

There’s a lot of talk these days about electoral reform in Canada.  All kinds of reasons are given for the apparent malaise in voter involvement and turn-out in elections.  The most oft cited statistic to support this is that the current and many earlier majority governments were elected with significantly less than 50% of the popular vote.  Some have even taken this one step farther and said that, because of voter turn-out of only about 60%, the government was elected with less than 25% of voters’ approval.  This, of course, is a ridiculous conclusion since it assumes that all of those that did not vote would have voted for opposition parties. 

We are certainly not the first or only country to have problems, imagined or otherwise, with our electoral system.  The USA has had questions in recent presidential elections about the Electoral College system and whether it is really necessary in the present age.  If the president had been elected by popular support in 2000, we would have had President Al Gore instead of President George W. Bush.  It is fair to say that most democratic countries have had some sort of crisis that forced it to look at its electoral system.

The talk in Canada today seems to give us only two choices: the status quo, or proportional representation.  Of course, there was Ontario’s ill-fated attempt during a recent election to impose a proportional plus appointment system that proposed that a significant number of seats in the legislature would be appointed by each party based on their popular vote.  This would have ensured that you would never get to vote for any of the party leaders or proposed cabinet members.  They would all have been on the appointed list.

So if we want to change things, our leaders and pundits tell us it has to proportional representation.  So let’s look at how this would look.  It would pretty well guarantee that we would have nothing but coalition governments.  As more parties entered federal politics, which they would, the complexity of coalitions would only increase.  How many cabinet posts would the Natural Law or Rhinoceros Party want to help stabilize a government?  Remember, the government consist of the Prime Minister and his cabinet members.  The rest are only there to support or oppose that government.

To see how such a system would succeed, one only has to look at some of the countries that have used this system.  Perhaps the best, or worst, example is France during the Third Republic.  That is the government system that France endured from 1875 to 1940 until France collapsed under the pressure of the invasion by Nazi Germany (France is now in what is called the Fifth Republic).  In its 65 year history, the Third Republic had well over 100 governments – over 100.  And more than half of them happened during the 22 years from 1918 until 1940.  The longest to survive lasted three years.  One government lasted two days.  This is despite the fact that the people only got to vote every four years.  Governments would be formed and be dissolved within months and then another round of coalition building would begin.  It was often the same men in each government with only the Premier or a few cabinet ministers changing position.  Men would be brought into the government to face a short term crisis and then be discarded when the next crisis arose.  Of course there was no long term view by any of these governments.  It was crisis management from one election to the next.  And of course it was only men – women were not given the vote in France until 1946, largely because there was not time or inclination to take such action when there were other crises to face.

But of course, Canadians would never condone such chaos and fragmentation, would we?  Or would we have a choice?  I don’t have such confidence.  Look at the power of fringe parties in Israel today, many of the religious parties.  From the five recognized parties In Canada today (Conservative, Liberal, NDP, Green and Bloc Quebecoise), I can foresee at least eight parties emerging: centre and right leaning Conservatives; left and right leaning Liberals; centre and socialist leaning NDP; and the existing Bloc and Green).  But I can also see the emergence of a Christian party, and maybe even a Muslim party, as well as parties representing different regions.  Everyone will want their point of view represented.  So let’s imagine a Canadian election where the centre leaning Conservatives win the largest number of seats at 20%.    Where do they go for the remaining 30% of support they will need to have majority control in the House?  They will need the support of more than one other party, and probably more than three. And if one of their coalition partners doesn’t support them on a key vote, we go through the struggle to put together another coalition, or call a vote.  It doesn’t seem very appetizing, does it? With the current system of trying to limit federal voting to every four years, the prospect of emulating the Third Republic becomes all too real.

So what other alternatives are available?  Well, one alternative which could promise a better representation of the people’s will, but not be fraught with the challenges of proportional representation, would be to institute a requirement for run-off elections in ridings where one candidate does not get fifty percent of the vote.  This would limit the damage of vote splitting between two parties of the same inclination without having to go through the negotiations needed to decide on a compromise candidate in each riding.  If for example, the Conservative candidate got about 40% and the Liberal about 30%, they would run off to see who could capture enough voters from the other parties.  The party that won the majority of seats in the House under this system could feel more confident that they had at least the tacit support of the majority of the people, or at least a larger number of voters than the 35% now common.  It may also have the advantage of toning down the attacks between parties during elections because you never know when you might want the support of the voters of that candidate that you are now denigrating. 

At this time when election reform is on many people’s lips, it is best not to limit our choices to only two alternatives, both of which are prone to problems.  So let’s at least consider a third option of run-off elections.