Entries from May 2007 ↓

There are, I am told, more train derailments in Canada today than ever. We don’t notice much when it happens in a lonely mountain pass in the Rockies, except when crap runs down the slope into a crystal stream. But how about a chemical spill in a populated major urban area?

Are the railroads running with too few employees? Too few safety standards? Too little concern? MPs have worried about that, and forced the government to act. Now a new $10 million is being allocated to rail safety – which sounds like a good thing.

Until you hear, as I did from my colleague Joe Volpe, where it’s going.

To view the video, click here.

Elgin-Middlesex-London MP Joe Preston.

The Town Hall meeting in St. Thomas, a town of thirty thousand people lying in the flat fields south of London, was supposed to be about income trusts on Wednesday night. Instead, it ended up being far more significant, as we talked about why it was these people felt abandoned.

Michael said it best. Three times he spoke for more than an hour with his MP, asking why the Harper Administration has stolen his savings by imposing the trust tax. “Joe told me he didn’t know, and didn’t have time to do the research,” he said. “But he said he had to trust the minister of finance on this, and that’s what he was going to do.”

Of course. How could Joe Preston, Conservative MP, do otherwise? He may be a nice guy (and he is), but he has no choice. No free will. Like all his colleagues, he need not research the income trust issue, or most any other legislation, because it’s been pre-determined how he will vote when decision time comes.

For Mr. Harper’s MPs, every vote, with rare exception, is a whipped vote. Any member who defies the prime minister will cease to be a caucus member. No nomination papers. Sure electoral death.

So what reason would there possibly be to spend hours getting up to speed on income trusts? Or mandatory sentencing? Or anti-terrorism legislation? Or declaring the Quebec people a nation? Or the budget? When an MP’s ability to vote freely has been removed, I mean, what’s the point? Why not just take those ready-made materials from the minister’s office – talking points for Rotary speeches, a form letter for testy constituents, ten percenter to mail out – and use them? Why even pretend, when talking to the voters who sent you down to Ottawa, that you have a choice? It’s not like anyone’s going to change your mind. After all, you never used it.

If that sounds harsh, well, tough. Mr. Preston and his seatmates gave up the battle to represent constituents months ago. They now represent the Conservative Party.

In contrast, as a Liberal, I have never been told how to vote. On a few occasions I have been asked to vote as the leader does. In most cases, I have received no instruction. And for allowing his MPs free will and the chance to vote largely as they see fit, based on their own research and mostly on their constituents’ wishes, Stephane Dion is labeled by Stephen Harper as “not a leader.”

For the people in St. Thomas tonight, this block voting was taken as the undemocratic travesty that it is. I think people began to understand how party politics is great for leaders and bad for citizens. So long as the erosion of an MP’s influence continues – the House as theatre, committees as busy work, speeches to an empty Commons, policy and tactics determined by unelected staff, meaningless votes – constituents will continue to be abandoned.

Clearly, this must change. And that was the point I tried to make as a speaker at the Internet conference I attended in Toronto earlier on Wednesday. Maybe through the influence of the digital channels, through things like this blog, which parties cannot control and which place an MP in direct and intimate contact with voters, we can effect change.

Imagine, if you will, electing a person who goes to Ottawa as a broker for the people back home. A member of a political team, of course, but also a free agent able to reflect public sentiment as well as his or her own values, beliefs and research. Imagine leaders who gain followers and win votes, not because of intimidation, bullying and threat, but rather because they inspire others to follow. And imagine if your MP was there, always, on your screen.

In the high-tech auditorium in the city, filled with tech-savvy industry leaders and web innovators, that was a no brainer. The web will save politics. Just wait.

But in a room in a town a few hundred clicks away, where people elected a guy they don’t see much anymore, who admits he is helpless, such hope is yet to arrive. All they had was me. Which proves you have to start somewhere.