Voter Cynicism and the Federal Election

If you happened to watch the leaders' debates on June 14 and 15, you may have noticed that one of the recurring themes is voter cynicism. Many people no longer have faith in the government's ability to respond to their needs, and feel as though their vote doesn't really matter all that much. Party leaders were asked how they would address this situation, and their answers invariably focussed around the Liberal party sponsorship scandal. In focussing on this, I think they really missed the point, and, based on my observations of the election, I want to talk about what I think are more important causes of the increasing feeling that the beliefs and opinions of voters don't matter that much.

A Two-Party System?

Although Canadian voters have many more than two options on election day, some of our leaders act as though this isn't the case. This is perhaps most evident in Paul Martin's assertions during the debate that if people don't want to subscribe to Stephen Harper's vision of Canada, then the Liberals are the only other option — ignoring, of course, the fact that there are four parties with seats in the House of Commons, and countless other smaller parties trying to present alternative visions of the future of the country.

It's not hard to understand why he would make such a statement from a strategic standpoint — obviously, the two "old-school" parties would like to maintain their stranglehold on the political system. But the kind of arrogance involved in pretending that there are only two choices in this election turns off a lot of voters. Sure, there may be seven candidates in your riding, but don't worry your little head about it — Paul Martin's narrowed your choices down to a managable two so you won't have to think too hard. You say you want to vote for the Christian Heritage Party or the Marxist-Leninist Party? Sorry, those options don't fit into the black and white (or red and blue) world of politics. Try again.

Jim Who?

The Green Party is making its strongest showing ever in this election. Polling at 7 per cent is a significant gain for a party that doesn't even have a seat in the House of Commons. A significant number of people are planning on supporting them, and certainly a larger number are interested in hearing what the party is all about. That being said, it's not particularly easy to find out a lot about the party. Media coverage of the Green party is minimal — the media prefer to focus on the Martin-Harper horserace instead. Green party leader Jim Harris was not invited to participate in the leaders' debate, despite the level of interest in his party. (It's not like having five leaders there would be unusual — it's been done for the past three elections.) Like the party leaders, the media have fallen into the same trap of presuming to make decisions that ought to be made by voters — thinking voters don't need information about the Green Party because the Green party isn't worth voting for anyway.

A Decision That's Already Been Made

Another contributing factor to cynicism is the feeling that voting doesn't matter, because the decision has already been made. The media foster this by being all too willing to declare the winner as early as two weeks before the polls even open. Why even bother voting? The pollsters have already saved you the trouble.

The parties worsen this problem by talking about negotiating coalitions as though the election's already taken place. Perhaps the most jarring claim along these lines was Harper's assertion that his party was on track to form a majority government. Since governments typically favour projects in ridings that support the governing party, many voters read statements like Harper's as "I don't care what you believe in — we're going to win, so you'd better jump on the bandwagon now so you don't get shut out of the pork barrel."

Each of the three problems described above have the same fundamental cause — a lack of respect for voters to make their own decisions. Whether it's telling voters their choices are limited to two, deciding that information about smaller parties just isn't important for voters, or acting as though the election's already decided, politicians and the media do a lot to suggest that people's opinions and votes don't really matter — which I suggest is the cause of a lot of voter cynicism in this country.

Craig Sloss