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No place for party politics at local levels
Kootenay Crust By Ian Cobb
Op-Ed Commentary
There is a push afoot by the year-old Conservative Municipal Party (Conservative Electors Association) to bring party politics to local government in British Columbia, outside of the Lower Mainland where it is already staining and straining things.
Conservatives in this province, and often right across the country, cannot agree on many things, from leadership style to policy to exactly how far right they should lean, so what in no hope beyond Hope do you think they will accomplish by insidiously inserting themselves into municipal politics right across the province?
This smacks of the ongoing bigger picture usurpation of society by a steadily diminishing demographic terrified of losing its power.
Conservatives do well in rural or small town B.C. but tend to poop the bed in urban centres because of the diverse make-up of those communities. The focus of conservatives is too often on societal control as opposed to simple governance – doing what is right for all.
This is why the NDP will continue to retake power election after election because the Lower Mainland and Victoria, where most seats are located, will wash over the smaller efforts coming from the hinterlands, such as the East Kootenay.
There is a petulant, weak energy emanating from conservatives in this country and province nowadays. They feel they have to march farther right in order to separate themselves from the Liberals and the NDP, who are railed as socialists and communists by right wingers in need of dictionaries, or at least a Xanax. What ever happened to the rational conservative?
Conservatives in this province are clearly split and pack a penchant to follow game plans that will fail to resonate with urban voters who see life much differently than folks living in Brisco or Burns Lake or Boston Bar. A quick example is how the BC Conservative Party has separated itself from the Conservative Municipal Party, so far. A divided right is a wet dream for the NDP.
Remember how federal conservatives shit the bed back in the 1990s by splitting into two (Conservatives and Reform Party), thereby handing the eastern elitists, so many western conservatives despise, power time and again?
And now some conservatives want to infest the last remaining bastion of ‘good politics’ – local government – with politicians who come with the entrenched stench of a party.
Party politics is the worst thing going right now. Never mind the braindead, corrupt, disgusting and loathsome performances we witness each and every day with our confused cousins to the south, the detached, cold and calculated partisanship so central to party politics is eating Canada and its provinces from within.
Good people – possibly great leaders – do not wish to become involved in politics because once elected they become pawns of the party and even those with the strongest of love for their riding over party, become encircled and tamed and brought to heel (or they are punted).
Party politics doesn’t solve a damned thing. It creates division. Nothing more. Why? Social media engagement, added on top of all the noise and splattering of political shrapnel that has always existed, makes it harder for rationality and common sense to emerge. Stick to the party message; damn the torpedoes full steam ahead. Don’t vote your conscience – vote as dear party leader demands because Daddy Warbucks Puppet-Master with his chest full of cash will look elsewhere.
And that is what will happen if this dangerous and dimwitted movement continues in B.C. Those who are elected under the Conservative Municipal Party banner will become nothing but pawns for the federal and provincial party back-roomers and leaders to use and abuse, should they see fit. And they will.
Local issues will be shoved aside in favour of ‘larger’ issues that are popular with conservatives – usually related to religion or coffee clatch gab sessions (gun control, immigration, 20th century economics yada).
Thanks to endless senior government downloading (think homelessness, urban deer, health, time etc.), local governments in B.C. are now waylaid and adrift from their original destinations – which was ensuring infrastructure is tickety-boo and keeping budgets in check and balanced.
Do you honestly think it is wise to add in elected officials who are more devoted to party than community? That produces shallow cheese muffin politicians, so easily swayed from what is right and necessary by whispers in the ear or threats of interference come election time.
So often, good people who should have received nominations to be candidates of federal or provincial parties are shunted aside by party ‘elites’ for more ‘party type’ candidates, who turned out to be exactly what astute political watchers warned they would be – sycophants to the leader and party and constantly AWOL when it comes to helping all constituents, aside from just those who voted for them or pat the pocket.
Do party plants focus on the bigger picture and try to get some stuff done for their ridings? Solve a highway dilemma or help a municipality find a way to improve a local hospital? Nah. They flail about in the arena of public opinion by shouting “fire” and distracting an ever-more-easily distracted voting base, just as the party demands!
Can you imagine what would get done in Victoria, or Ottawa, if party politics didn’t rule the day? Elected officials voting with their consciences, as well as their brains, rather than the black and white insipidity of towing the party line – for fear of being drummed out of the party for not being a good enough sheep. Proportional representation must become a thing. It will help diminish the greasy grip of party politics.
Now, of course, party politics has always played a part in local government. I could meander through any and every local government in the East Kootenay and point out the right and left wingers, as well as the middle of the roaders.
But an amazing thing always happens shortly after every October election. I have seen hard core righties and lefties get elected and they march into office with the ardent flush of zealots only to quickly learn they are merely one of a collective and if they want to survive in local politics, they better adapt and expand their horizons.
I’ve seen many newly elected local government politicians who I thought would be complete shit in office become diverse leaders who are acutely aware of their entire constituency – and not just the backers and party members. I’ve seen many mayors and councillors grow and it has done the heart good. It makes you think there is hope for humankind when hard core types experience epiphanies.
Allowing party politics to invade local government elections will be a death knell to good governance and the seeding of a new age of wild apathy, which is what the far right and far left controllers want. They want the common sense majority hovering on either side of the political division line to grow weary and go away.
Sweeping apathy is a bane of our time. It must be corrected, not expanded.
Party politics create political party ‘stars’ – a misnomer of epic proportions –who then find their way upstairs to Victoria or Ottawa and the feeder system, open only to those who are most loyal to the master and party. They turn into cheese muffin copies – shells who sit in legislative seats and bark like drunk beagles whenever the leader shouts “bah” at everything and anything suggested by their opposites – sensible, right, needed or not.
Stalemates linger; society is harmed.
Modern British Columbians and Canadians are capable of working together to create far more effective communities and approaches toward future requirements. The only thing getting in the way is the entrenched, tiny mindedness of those passionate about the party over the community – where personal principles, often archaic and damaging, are more important than what is right for a given community.
Local government politics must always be about what is best for community and not about what is best for the funding ghouls in the background who pull puppet strings of the parties.
Cranbrook is on a list of 40 B.C. communities being targeted by the Conservative Municipal Party (CMP).
Our two mayoral candidates, Lynnette Wray and Tom Shypitka, are not cool with party politics infesting local government. They are community-first minded people. Keep that in mind when October comes.
Vote for locals who want to make their community better; not parachutists who seek to strengthen fading ideology for offshore and out-of-region manipulators. The local community IS the party.
– Ian Cobb is owner/editor of e-KNOW.
