Protesting page a symptom, not a saviour
stuff we already know...
...DePape's motivations notwithstanding, however, it seems there has been a profound dearth in discussion about why the protest was necessary in the first place.
The former page said that three quarters of Canadians didn't vote for Harper. That's true. But then,
almost 40 per cent of Canadians — more than half of the 75 per cent of voters DePape speaks about — didn't bother to vote at all. Among Canadians who marked a ballot,
39.6 per cent voted in favour of the Conservative candidate. Under Canada's first past the post (FPP) electoral system, that constitutes a win by popular support.
DePape's argument must be with the electoral system, which has placed a party in a majority government without true majority support. If this is the case, the former page is barking up the wrong tree: referendums on electoral reform at the provincial level were
rejected twice in British Columbia in 2005 and 2009, and Ontario voters
rejected reform in 2007. It would appear by the numbers that voters are decisively opposed to electoral reform, and the majority of decided voters — by nine per cent — support Stephen Harper.
So why, then, was DePape's protest so captivating to journalists and politicians, and why is she so concerned about the direction Canadian politics has taken?
DePape said in her
press release that "Harper's agenda is disastrous for this country and my generation." She argued that Harper's military spending and corporate tax cuts need to be curtailed, and that, "Most people in this country know what we need are green jobs, better medicare... and a healthy environment."
But, by the numbers, most people clearly don't. The majority of Canada's decided voters went Conservative. But a large portion of Canadians didn't even bother to vote.
DePape is not a saviour, and she's not a figure to rally around. She's a symptom of an ailing system of government in a country whose citizens have become far too complacent about political matters. And until Canada finds the means to energize the electorate, Canadians will continue to deal with the same issues that drove DePape to walk to the middle of the Senate chamber and hold up her little paper sign.
Op-Ed: Canada ? Protesting page a symptom, not a saviour