Politics as Usual
Government poll suggests widespread distrust of politicians
A strong majority of Canadians don’t take part in politics beyond voting and don’t trust their federal parties or MPs, a new report suggests.
What’s more, four in 10 Canadians said they hadn’t had a single political conversation in the past 12 months, according to Samara Canada, a non-partisan charitable organization that works to improve Canadian democracy.
Samara’s report comes as CBC News hosts a live discussion on voter engagement. Tonight at 7 p.m. ET, CBC’s chief correspondent, Peter Mansbridge, moderates a debate in Toronto that asks the question, Is Politics Broken?
Democracy in Canada: little interest, distrust of politicians
In yet another disturbing account of the state of politics in Canada, a new survey reveals a substantial percentage of Canadians don’t think politics affects them much, don’t trust politicians to do what is right, and simply don’t talk about politics with each other.
The online poll commissioned by the non-partisan, non-profit public interest group Samara Canada, contacted some 2,406 Canadians across the country, and based on the responses, gives democracy in Canada a grade of just “C”.
Distrust and disengagement
The report called “Democracy 360” says the grade shows that, “Canadians are not participating in politics as much as they could, they don’t believe it affects them, and they don’t see their leaders as influential or efficacious”.
http://www.rcinet.ca/en/2015/03/25/democracy-in-canada-little-interest-distrust-of-politicians/
Politicians lie because there is no incentive to tell the truth
Stop me if you’ve heard this one. A party, let’s call them the Quebec Liberals, campaigns on a promise, say, to freeze the price of subsidized daycare, adjusting only for inflation. It attacks its opponents, call them the Parti Québécois, who had proposed raising it from $7 a day to $9, as heartless and out of touch.
Sure enough it is elected, only to propose scant months later — surprise! — an increase in day-care rates, to as much as $20 a day for the wealthy, with lesser but still substantial increases for any family earning more than $55,000 a year. Wait, you say you have heard this story? Many times? Only with different party names, and different promises? Well I told you to stop me.