Through My Glasses, Anyway

For months, since the brunt of our election campaign descended, I felt as if I’d been wearing glasses that had me viewing things entirely differently from other Hamiltonians. I’d the glasses off, and I’d see things the 'conventional' way. I’d squint, I’d strain to focus, I’d blink for context...and then I’d put the glasses back on. Clarity...if only of the personal kind.

Off they’d come, and I’d wince. I’d look around, I’d take in what most everyone else was taking in, seeing things from their perspective, I’d click a mental snapshot...and I’d put the glasses back on.

And I’d shake my head.

I don’t think it’s unfair to say that we’ve just been through an election campaign filled with mud-slinging and a dearth of sound solutions to an abundance of substantive issues. Mostly a whole lot of small-minded, personality-fueled 'debate'. Sorry debate that was latched onto and augmented by a generally uninformed public, yet still wholly justified in their frustration, their anger at what they've perceived to be a dysfunctional City Council, and gloriously accentuated by Mainstream Media. I believe the result is best referred to as a 'non sequitur campaign'.

But despite having all this set against a backdrop some pressing problems, despite the fact that even ignoring the Pan Am Games stadium site selection process having diverted attention and focus, despite the saddening dearth of robust debate, for me what mattered most was this ‘something else entirely’. And in seeing things so differently, I've felt this strange sense of the surreal.

I believe that unless we find a way to change the culture of non-involvement within local governance on the part of our citizenry, everything that was pushed to the front of the stage is hardly more than “...a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

During Election 2010, some -including our brightest mayoral candidate- railed against Media, demonizing them, accusing them of transgressions against the democratic process, conducting themselves in a self-serving manner. I would prefer to say that they'd not been particularly responsible in executing their duties as purveyors of information.

Others, myself included, railed against many candidates for lowering the decorum bar, not only in their behaviour, but in the fact that they've declared for the race at all, something I can only see as a form of arrogance, an expression of the rampant 'entitlement' ethos that has come to define so much of modern life.

And then there's the most contentious element of all, the public, which seems to have gotten off scott-free, receiving a pardon issued by itself...even though it can’t be declared a conscious player on either front.

Currently, it appears that our primary hope for good governance is to select the right people for office, provide sufficient rules and regulations to frame their conduct, then hope for the best.

And how do we view the selection process? Pretty casually, apparently. General apathy towards press coverage, poor voter turnout, questionable ways of arriving at our candidate-of-choice... Which means that aside from containing bad behaviour by way of rules and regulations once the Councillors are in office, we’re pretty much crossing our fingers that we get lucky.

Oh, and I shouldn’t forget about the whining and the bitching and complaining that accompanies this default setting when the inevitable happens and things turn out the way that foibles inherent in the human condition pretty much demand: rife with disappointment.

Surely this cannot continue.

Surely we all deserve better.

Surely we can all do better.

At least that’s the way I see it.

(Please read Editor Ryan's post here at Raise the Hammer; this was very much the email he sent to me months ago when we were exchanging thoughts about the election, voting, civic responsibilities, etc.)