In university I was a communist-socialist and my attitude was: tax the rich. I was but a poor student and I could have used the money. After I graduated and started paying taxes, I picked up a copy of Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand, and became a capitalist-libertarian. I wanted to keep all of the money I made.
Throughout this turbulent period, I chose the political party that was most likely to achieve my version of utopia. I have always voted in every important election since I could vote. To me an important election was, at a minimum, provincial and federal. I left municipal politics to the locals. I didn’t feel much like a local because back then I moved around more. Now I guess I am a local and I have been voting in municipal elections for several cycles.
Local politics is, mercifully, not meant to be political party politics. Apparently the province thinks it a very bad idea and, as we have recently seen, municipal governance is at the pleasure of the province. Political parties have a philosophy or ideology they wish to impose on the electorate. Political parties want to engineer society in one direction or the other. Political parties want to liberalize certain aspects of our lives or return society to some mythological past. Political parties do not belong in municipal politics. I say this for a couple of reasons.
Municipal politics is about the day-to-day issues in life. Are the roads passable. Are the trees being properly cared for. Can you speak to someone at Town Hall about something or another. Is the garbage being picked up. Municipal politics is not about social engineering, or at least it shouldn’t be.
Lately local politics has been taking on the mantle of political party politics and the social engineering that comes with it. If a mayor, or the like, decides that automobiles must go, or at least be discouraged, a town could end up with road obstacles like chicanes or punishing speed bumps or painfully narrow single lane roads that lead to something called a woonerf, all in an effort to get people to walk, cycle or take a little white empty bus. This at the expense of proper open roads.
Now we hear that a cabal is running the Region. This clique controls some Authority, Committee or Board. We are even being told, through letters to the paper in some indecipherable code, to be careful who we vote for because the candidate might be one of “them" or some such warning. Vote for this group of candidates to stop the other group of candidates. It’s all very wrong.
In the important elections, mentioned above, we do indeed vote for an ideology or philosophy. We hope that the party we choose wins and implements their policies so utopia will be here. In municipal elections we choose a person to look after the place and keep our taxes low. This person’s name is all we see on the ballot. There is no mention of party and, by extension, a philosophy. We are being left in the dark as to what this person may or may not secretly represent.
Are they a member of one of these cabals or cliques? If they are and we don’t know that, are we voting for the right person?
If this change in the political dynamic of municipal politics is the new normal, and I feel it is, then it must be properly exposed and we, as voters, have the right to know which ideology we will be getting if we vote for whoever we vote for.
To all of the candidates running for whatever office, you have been officially been challenged. If you represent something more than yourself and a desire to keep the place running efficiently and at a reasonable cost—if you are a secret Liberal, NDP or Conservative but calling yourself “A Better Niagara” or whatever the “opposition" is calling itself—then when I, or any one else asks you what you represent when you come a knockin’, you must tell us.
If you refuse or start hemming and hawing, then you will not get my vote.
If this move towards party politics persists, then it is time that your political affiliation be placed on the ballot with your name. So don’t be shy or sly but be up front. Put your logo and team colours on your lawn signs and websites.
We voters have enough on our plates, what with paying higher taxes and trying to navigate around this congested little town, without all this second-guessing and petty subterfuge. ◆
