Home » Politics & Society » Canadian Federal Politics » What if they threw an election and no one came?

What if they threw an election and no one came?

© David Russell

And they're off.

On Sunday, May 23, Prime Minister Martin made the arduous journey from his house at 24 Sussex to the monarchical neighbour across the street to seek permission to dissolve parliament and call an election. Perhaps not surprisingly, she gave it.

With that, the four major party leaders took off in various directions to begin their various campaigns in various corners of the country. And they've said little since.

Sure they've actually spoken. Leaders in particular and their handlers have carefully crafted sound bites designed to appeal to Canadians' apparently limited attention spans and provide a memorable quip with just enough substance to hopefully sway the uninformed voter in the right direction.

And therein lies the problem. Still.

Marshall Mcluhan's axiom notwithstanding, there has to be something more than flash to draw not only voters back to the polls but people back to politics. All the major parties decry the pathetic public participation at the polls but so far they've offered very little in the form of substantive ideas to woo back their constituents.

Health care, for example, is touted by politicians and pollsters as the single most important issue facing the majority of Canadian voters. But the seriousness of the issue is hardly reflected in the standard ambiguity offered by any of the major parties.

The incumbent Liberal Party platform on health care is to date the most concrete of the offerings, which regrettably isn't saying all that much: "Our objective is to ensure that everyone, regardless of income or wealth, has access to a first-rate, universal public health system." [http://www.liberal.ca ]

Honestly, is there anyone running for office in this country that doesn't want to see that?

Still, at least some numbers are involved. The Liberals have promised several billions of dollars in increases to federal funding, identified five key areas that will see measurable improvement within five years, promised to create a thousand new training spaces for medical personnel and would raise the contribution of federal funding for health care to twenty-five percent.

The opposition, understandably and with some justification, were quick to point out it was under Paul Martin's multi-year term as finance minister that medical transfer payments to the provinces - who are responsible for the provision and administration of medical care to the standard established, ironically, by the federal government under the Canada Health Act - that caused the financial difficulties in our health care system to begin with.

Unfortunately, that's about all they're saying.

The copyright of the article What if they threw an election and no one came? in Canadian Federal Politics is owned by David Russell. Permission to republish What if they threw an election and no one came? in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.