Original Kitchener, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
We have less than a week left to decide who to vote for in the municipal election. My last post included an appreciative note about the efforts of the CivicTechWR group to gather a comprehensive set of links relevant to the decision-making process, with some reservations: The waterlooregionvotes.org website has more content than most of us can digest; not all of it is helpful, and I found some of the material to be borderline toxic.
Since then, Waterloo Region Record columnists Susan Koswan and Luisa d’Amato have both written opinion pieces about how important it is to do your homework before going into the voting booth, particularly in relation to the need for climate action.
Are you voting for climate action in the municipal election?
Susan Koswan, Wed., Oct. 12, 2022
How to choose your election candidates
Luisa D’Amato, Fri., Oct. 14, 2022
Koswan looks forward to the day when surveying candidates to determine where they stand on environmental matters will no longer be needed “because putting these issues first is just what we do.” Until then, we still need to pore over that “long list of names for regional chair, regional councillors, mayor, ward councillors and school trustees” to find out where each of them stands. “That’s what it takes — research,” d’Amato adds. “No one can do it for you. The time and energy we spend is the price we pay for living in a democracy.”
For the larger, and therefore more distant dimensions of our democracy -- i.e. Ontario and Canada -- political parties make the work easier by providing neatly packaged platforms, complemented by badges, banners and slogans. There is ample media coverage, complemented by vast quantities of paid messaging. When “having your say” is as simple as choosing among three or four professionally produced promotional campaigns, it certainly saves you a lot of time and energy.
If Kitchener, Waterloo, Ontario and Canada were each just a democracy I happen to be living in, and if making them function were simply a matter of indicating my personal preference on a ballot every once in a while, shuffling between the standard range of blue, red, orange or green franchise operations might be an acceptable way to get things done. But democracy is not a place you live in; it is something we do. It needs to be lived, practiced, exercised, especially if you believe, as I do, that in essence, democracy is a collective deliberation process. If the ultimate goal is achieving consensus, and failing that, finding ways to work together, regardless of difference, towards the general good, political parties in their current form are a hindrance.
The party system, by definition, is one that leaves a body politic permanently partitioned, especially if we think of elections as contests between competing interests in which there must be a clear winner. It would be a shame and a pity if those lines of division became part of the political culture of the towns and cities we live in as they are in the broader jurisdictions. There is, however, ample room for improvement in our near democracies just as there is among the more remote forms of representation and governance.
Concerns related to the environment -- i.e. the relationship between the human race, the planet we live on, and the other life forms we share it with -- reveal the limitations of party systems as we have come to know them. Susan Koswan anticipates a day when putting environmental issues first “is just what we do” -- beyond controversy, universally understood and accepted. And she’s on the right track here: The need for climate action is not an either/or, left versus right, progressive versus retrograde, freedom versus tyranny kind of issue. It transcends, and therefore dissolves partisanship. It doesn’t eclipse other issues and concerns, but gives them all fresh relevance, and in so doing, aligns them in service of a common cause
The closest equivalent is when a nation is at war. The difference is that there is general agreement on what is required to defeat an enemy militarily, whereas in the climate crisis no one really knows what path will lead to victory. And the enemy is us: We need to change the way we live, which will require a different conception of what genuine prosperity means. These are not the kind of measures that can be implemented by laws enforced through armed police, courts, fines and prisons. Changing ourselves, starting with re-imagining what constitutes a good life, is infinitely more difficult than developing and implementing strategies for winning an old-fashioned war.
While at war, democratic divisions are usually suspended, and the executive branches are temporarily given extraordinary powers. The same kind of unity, decisiveness and resolve are required to save the planet, but involvement in this defense effort has to be even more universal. Climate action -- the equivalent of battle in warfare -- will require ready and willing engagement from the entire body politic, not just the equivalent of an army, navy and air force . So instead of suspending democratic practices, this kind of conflict calls for deepening and amplifying how we perform our duties and exercise our rights as citizens.
But that’s the beauty of it. Once we get going, we’re going to love being part of this struggle. We will gain far more than we’ll be called on to sacrifice or restrict. We’ll be richer, more free, happier, and more truly alive than we can even imagine in these dark, disjointed times.
Meanwhile, on the ground, here and now, there’s work to do. Let’s just do the best we can with our ballots this time around, and after that, do what we can to support the good work of whoever happens to get elected to represent us. On Tuesday, October 25, let’s begin serious deliberation on what we can do better next time. What I long for is that extra step that would allow us to at least try to face the truth, reconcile differences, and reach agreement. Let’s look for a way to vote together, not just simultaneously, alone in the voting booth.