Editor: There is a popular, cynical saying, “People get the government they deserve.” It’s hardly true. Most governments, throughout the course of history, have been imposed by force, not by the will of the people. In all those cases, whether the governments were good or bad, the people could not be considered to be getting the governments they deserved.
There have only been a few experiments with real democracy. Most of the systems that we call democracies have been at best representative democracies, or functionally republics, in which a handful of people get elected to power, and those people then proceed to do anything they want, with no regard to what they promised to do, and no oversight or consequences.
Canada is such a republican system.
The big problem with republican systems is that it is very easy to subvert them. Because the people are not strongly involved in the political process, and because the elected representatives can do anything they want, it pays for them to lie their way to power. As a result, the people become cynical, and they make up sayings that say nothing at all. Furthermore, because it costs so much to even attempt to run, the representatives typically wind up serving only the rich and powerful. Therefore, most of the systems that we call democracies are really oligarchies and kleptocracies, where a handful of people hold all the power and use it to steal the public resources.
Such has been the past “Wild West” decade in B.C. The BC Liberals lied their way to power.
The big lie: “Elect us and the economy will thrive!” But in fact, the economy of B.C. has been gutted. BC Hydro, gutted, and rates have gone way up. ICBC, gutted, and rates are going up. The medical system, gutted, and necessary procedures are unavailable, but the rates have gone up. The list goes on and on. How is this a thriving economy? It’s true that we have low unemployment. But most of the jobs are low-wage, precarious and unsafe. With all these negative indicators, which everyone is fully aware of, how is it possible that the people believe that the economy is thriving?
The answer is that the B.C. economy for the past decade has been based on land speculation. The cost of land has become exponentially larger. Land speculators have raked in insane profits. Non-speculators who owned land have also profited. But most of the people are unable to own homes, and in many cases are unable even to rent homes.
Of course, this should be counted as a huge negative factor, proof that the economy is in fact collapsing. But if you own the government and the media, you can cook the books, turn a negative into a positive, and claim that the economy is booming, which the mass media then repeats ad nauseum, and who is able to disagree?
The people have a duty to themselves, to their children, and to everyone else to stand up and fight to ensure that decent representatives step forward, that they get elected, and that they are held accountable. That is the only way for the people to get the governments they deserve.
Victor Finberg, Burnaby
