Elections - A Question of Trust
Most elections are characterized by one or two overarching issues, such as the economy and health care, and the candidate's plan concerning them.
This year, however, popular issues took a back seat to something much more fundamental: trust.
While one is always concerned with being able to trust the party they vote for, the question of whether or not Canadians could trust the candidates themselves became the primary concern for both the parties and public alike.
There have been four general elections held in the last seven years, which is a fairly rare concentration of political unrest for our country.
Our elections tend to be less theatrical than the media-saturated political races they hold in the States, which can become as exciting as a neck-and-neck hockey match.
The Obama/McCain face-off in 2008 was particularly thrilling, and left one looking at our own sober political arena and wishing something would happen, rather like a child at the zoo hoping that the boa constrictor will eat something soon.
The difference here is that Canadian campaigns are primarily party-based, having a multiplicity of them to choose between, and American campaigns brand themselves with their candidate's face, using an individual as the primary focus.
Canadians across the board seem to be more concerned with which party leads them as opposed to the face of the party; it's not that we don't care who the Prime Minister is, but we expect them to work as a team, with one leader-among-equals to steer the ship.
This year, however, that changed.
The Toronto Star called this election "a question of trust", and we became highly concerned with who the candidates were as individuals, and whether we could trust them on that individual basis.
There were many contributing factors to this, the economy weighing particularly on voter's minds.
The influence that public policy exerts over privately owned firms and property has become very sensitive, for better or worse.
With such high financial stakes, any action taken by the government will be the making of its leader or the undoing, since everyone is watching so closely.
A candidate's trustworthiness became tantamount to his place on the political spectrum, if not more important.
Fully aware of this, the major candidates branded themselves not just as the leader of a party, but also as individuals that could be trusted personally.
It's easier to get a voter to trust one face and one voice than it is to familiarize them with your entire cabinet.
This may be why Stephen Harper changed the name of the Government of Canada to "the Harper government", in an effort to centralize the voter's trust and build confidence in the party.
Following suit, other candidates made a significant effort in their campaigns to represent the entirety of their party within their own person, offering a focal point for the public eye to follow.
It may have proven to be the best strategy for this election because of the unpredictable shift in power that occurred.
Though the candidates themselves and their parties made trust a platform priority, perhaps one of the most influential motivations for voters this year was mistrust.
This would account for the NDP's surge in the traditionally Bloc Quebec and for many life-long Liberals voting Tory, both acting out of mistrust of the alternative.
This kind of strategic voting sheds light on the difference that can sometimes exist between what one believes in and who one can trust in the political arena, or in any important decision in one's life.
Obviously there must have been a proportionate amount of people who felt no conflict between who they trusted to uphold their interests and whom they would have rather chosen based on a partisan ideal.
But many Canadians faced a difficult decision this year, given the precarious economic circumstances we and the world find ourselves in.
In ideal circumstances, people will generally act on their ideals.
Why wouldn't they? When there's little to lose and everything to gain, they can afford to have their actions aligned with their ideals.
But when one's back is to the wall, and a business, mortgage, or RRSP is at stake, people tend to follow their instincts.
And trust is developed at the instinctual level before it's refined by reason.
In the election that just passed, there may have been many instances where a voter's beliefs and ideals could not pragmatically be aligned with their actions-but did they trust the candidate they were voting for? One can never really know a single face any better than one can know an entire political party of them, and yet a very important contributing reason why trust was so predominant an issue in this election is that we as human beings cannot follow a faceless body.
We cannot trust something that has no eyes to meet our own; that's why, in yet another year in which we find ourselves challenged by an economic crisis, the trustworthiness of the candidates was so widely discussed in terms of the personal impressions they left on voters.
This shift in focus from the party to individual candidate may have been noticed many, particularly anyone who has worked in an executive hierarchical structure, and knows that behind the face it's marketed with is a very complex system dependent on the efforts of a team.
So this raises the question of whether you personally voted for the party, or it's leader? Would you have mixed and matched, given the chance, putting a leader you trust at the head of a party you believe in? Perhaps now that we've had this chance to get to know our politicians as people, individual trust will be a larger issue in future elections.
It behooves a voter to have an idea of how a candidate will act on an individual basis and consider that in conjunction with their ideals.
I think we can all agree that health, liberty, prosperity and security are important to everyone, regardless of political affiliation.
Canadian elections are traditionally based on ideals that presuppose action, but this election has drawn our attention to a question that requires our nonpartisan pragmatism: whom do you trust to care about your interests before their own? Until this recession lifts (and it will), perhaps it's kinder to ourselves to vote for whoever makes us feel the most secure.
Democracy itself is an honour system, a symbiotic reciprocation of trust, and it has to start with the individual.
This year, however, popular issues took a back seat to something much more fundamental: trust.
While one is always concerned with being able to trust the party they vote for, the question of whether or not Canadians could trust the candidates themselves became the primary concern for both the parties and public alike.
There have been four general elections held in the last seven years, which is a fairly rare concentration of political unrest for our country.
Our elections tend to be less theatrical than the media-saturated political races they hold in the States, which can become as exciting as a neck-and-neck hockey match.
The Obama/McCain face-off in 2008 was particularly thrilling, and left one looking at our own sober political arena and wishing something would happen, rather like a child at the zoo hoping that the boa constrictor will eat something soon.
The difference here is that Canadian campaigns are primarily party-based, having a multiplicity of them to choose between, and American campaigns brand themselves with their candidate's face, using an individual as the primary focus.
Canadians across the board seem to be more concerned with which party leads them as opposed to the face of the party; it's not that we don't care who the Prime Minister is, but we expect them to work as a team, with one leader-among-equals to steer the ship.
This year, however, that changed.
The Toronto Star called this election "a question of trust", and we became highly concerned with who the candidates were as individuals, and whether we could trust them on that individual basis.
There were many contributing factors to this, the economy weighing particularly on voter's minds.
The influence that public policy exerts over privately owned firms and property has become very sensitive, for better or worse.
With such high financial stakes, any action taken by the government will be the making of its leader or the undoing, since everyone is watching so closely.
A candidate's trustworthiness became tantamount to his place on the political spectrum, if not more important.
Fully aware of this, the major candidates branded themselves not just as the leader of a party, but also as individuals that could be trusted personally.
It's easier to get a voter to trust one face and one voice than it is to familiarize them with your entire cabinet.
This may be why Stephen Harper changed the name of the Government of Canada to "the Harper government", in an effort to centralize the voter's trust and build confidence in the party.
Following suit, other candidates made a significant effort in their campaigns to represent the entirety of their party within their own person, offering a focal point for the public eye to follow.
It may have proven to be the best strategy for this election because of the unpredictable shift in power that occurred.
Though the candidates themselves and their parties made trust a platform priority, perhaps one of the most influential motivations for voters this year was mistrust.
This would account for the NDP's surge in the traditionally Bloc Quebec and for many life-long Liberals voting Tory, both acting out of mistrust of the alternative.
This kind of strategic voting sheds light on the difference that can sometimes exist between what one believes in and who one can trust in the political arena, or in any important decision in one's life.
Obviously there must have been a proportionate amount of people who felt no conflict between who they trusted to uphold their interests and whom they would have rather chosen based on a partisan ideal.
But many Canadians faced a difficult decision this year, given the precarious economic circumstances we and the world find ourselves in.
In ideal circumstances, people will generally act on their ideals.
Why wouldn't they? When there's little to lose and everything to gain, they can afford to have their actions aligned with their ideals.
But when one's back is to the wall, and a business, mortgage, or RRSP is at stake, people tend to follow their instincts.
And trust is developed at the instinctual level before it's refined by reason.
In the election that just passed, there may have been many instances where a voter's beliefs and ideals could not pragmatically be aligned with their actions-but did they trust the candidate they were voting for? One can never really know a single face any better than one can know an entire political party of them, and yet a very important contributing reason why trust was so predominant an issue in this election is that we as human beings cannot follow a faceless body.
We cannot trust something that has no eyes to meet our own; that's why, in yet another year in which we find ourselves challenged by an economic crisis, the trustworthiness of the candidates was so widely discussed in terms of the personal impressions they left on voters.
This shift in focus from the party to individual candidate may have been noticed many, particularly anyone who has worked in an executive hierarchical structure, and knows that behind the face it's marketed with is a very complex system dependent on the efforts of a team.
So this raises the question of whether you personally voted for the party, or it's leader? Would you have mixed and matched, given the chance, putting a leader you trust at the head of a party you believe in? Perhaps now that we've had this chance to get to know our politicians as people, individual trust will be a larger issue in future elections.
It behooves a voter to have an idea of how a candidate will act on an individual basis and consider that in conjunction with their ideals.
I think we can all agree that health, liberty, prosperity and security are important to everyone, regardless of political affiliation.
Canadian elections are traditionally based on ideals that presuppose action, but this election has drawn our attention to a question that requires our nonpartisan pragmatism: whom do you trust to care about your interests before their own? Until this recession lifts (and it will), perhaps it's kinder to ourselves to vote for whoever makes us feel the most secure.
Democracy itself is an honour system, a symbiotic reciprocation of trust, and it has to start with the individual.
