LETTER

Let’s have a party - but you’re not invited!

 

In this year’s municipal election, little had been said about the insinuation of “party” politics into this level of government. A political party is, by its very nature, bad for the people because “the party” inevitably becomes the primary consideration. The constituents whom the elected member is supposed to represent become a secondary consideration.

Election time brings promises about how a party will be better able to fulfill your wishes. This has proven to be an illusion. Once in office, the party is the focus (look at the federal Liberal Party’s recent response to a member voting against one of their proposals to see the “consequences”).

In my lifetime, the party system has changed from one under which the individual representative was free to vote as their constituents wish or according to their own conscience (with the exception of budgets or “money bills”), to the current system where - no matter how trivial the bill - the representative must vote according to party lines.

History shows that the parliamentary system was never intended to be representative of anything more than the interests of the aristocracy and landowners against those of an intransigent king. Today, the parliamentary system has become the  tool of the extremely wealthy.

This oligarchy, under the guise of democracy, has worked well for the wealthy. The problem is that it does not serve you or me. And please don’t tell me we live in a democracy because we have the right to vote - people in those great democracies, China and Russia, also have the right to vote.

During the last federal election, the Liberals promised that it would be the last election held under the “first past the post” absurdity, namely, the electoral system under which a party that over 65% of the people voted against can get a majority government and rule as a dictatorship.

Once elected with a majority, based in part on this promised electoral reform, the current Liberal government had the audacity to claim that there is no consensus on reform - without bothering to gain any such consensus - and to therefore shelve the whole idea. We are not served by our governments. We are exploited by them, and the party system serves this exploitation very well indeed.

Back to municipal parties. What is their purpose? It is to take away the last vestige of representative government and to institute a system that is far removed from you, the voter. The elected official will be responsible to his or her party first and always, with you as an afterthought… except at election time, when once again they will claim that it’s all for you.

By all means, vote. This is your right and obligation. But please consider an independent candidate who will represent you and not just another party.

Tony Ruffo
Aylmer