The Citizen Politician
The whole Gurmant Grewal fiasco (if you could even call it that) is unfortunate for Gurmant not because of how it brought focus onto how he taped Ujjal and Tim Murphy when they were trying to offer him a job, but because of how it caused a firestorm in the liberal media that put focus on Gurmant's various other shortcomings... if you could even call them that.
When Gurmant Grewal ran for office in 1997, by most judgments, he was overwhelmingly underqualified for the job of an MP. He had never even visited Ottawa prior to being sworn in. He had been a Canadian citizen for only a few years, he had only lived in his community for slightly over 5 years and from what I understand, he had no real experience in public service, at least in Canada. Nina Grewal's qualifications (besides the now famous fact that she exclusively watched CPAC from 1997 to 2004) seem even less impressive than Gurmant's.
I'm not trying to be unneccesarily judgmental about the Grewals, but from what I've seen, they don't really fall into the types of people I'd expect to see in politics (if I was totally naive and innocent, which is what I am). Again, I could be wrong but, it doesn't seem as if they have some overriding passion to work on behalf of their constituents (whom they never really served in any significant capacity before becoming MPs), it doesn't seem as if they have a strong desire for public service nor do they seem strongly ideological. So why are they in politics? The phenomenon of the Grewals is definitely not limited to them alone, but their example simply takes the visionless, idealess politician to the extreme (particularly in reference to Nina). I'm not trying to be harsh, and I'm not the type of person who gets embarrassed by "others" in my (Sikh) community... the simple truth is that the same has been said of countless other politicians. One aide in the relatively visionless and hardly ideological administration of the Senior George Bush said at the time... "Our people don't have agendas, they have mortgages".
And I'm so certain that the extra $150,000 (for a combined salary of approx. $300,000) had like nothing to do with Nina's decision to run in the riding next to Gurmant's. (I'm being completely sarcastic if that wasn't obvious)
I'm not trying to overly judge and question the Grewals' character - I don't think they're "bad" people by any measure, but they're just so ordinary. Like most Canadians, they're not very ideological, like most Canadians, they're just trying to get by and like most Canadians, they're not natural or overly groomed politicians. They just seem like regular people.
And that's potentially a serious flaw in the Canadian system of political parties. With nomination races that are closed to the public and which are manipulated greatly by political party apparatuses, nobodies make their way as candidates (and sometimes as MPs) all the time. If they have a fair bit of money and a small (but determined) organization, it is mind boggingly easy to secure a nomination.
This is good and bad, but mostly bad.
Actually, it isn't good at all. It's all bad. Bad, bad, bad.
In one sense, it makes politics more representative of the populace. However, if any average person can become an MP with enough determination (if he or she was driven for the purpose of obtaining a hefty salary or basking in the minor celebrity that accompanies being a Member of Parliament or for other superficial reasons), it seems less necessary to engage in civic duties prior to jumping into becoming an MP (which is relatively high-up on the scale of public service). If name recognition is not as much a factor in securing party nominations in Canada, the inevitable result is that less-qualified people secure nomination more often than they would in an American-style primary system.
MPs should NOT be just like their citizens. They should be informed. They should be driven by some form of ideology or belief system in relation to the way government should interact with the lives of the citizenry and they should be as much as possible, committed to the service of the constituents that elected them.
The Calgary Grit proposed something like a primary system not so long ago himself, so this isn't an ideological position, but when the Conservatives proposed something similar to this last year, the Liberals called their idea "Orwellian".
Yes - it would be an expansion of the role of the state in monitoring elections - but how is this Orwellian in any possible way? It would ensure that candidates are actually representative of the general Conservative/Liberal/NDP population in their ridings, and not representative of special interests or in an actual Orwellian sense, the judgments of the party machinery. It would make political parties far less powerful, and it would make a fantastic legacy for whoever becomes the next Conservative Prime Minister (whenever that happens). Every other action can be changed fairly easily; cuts in government spending can be instituted back immediately when the Liberals get back into power, but significantly altering the electoral system will empower citizens and likely be altered forever.
When Gurmant Grewal ran for office in 1997, by most judgments, he was overwhelmingly underqualified for the job of an MP. He had never even visited Ottawa prior to being sworn in. He had been a Canadian citizen for only a few years, he had only lived in his community for slightly over 5 years and from what I understand, he had no real experience in public service, at least in Canada. Nina Grewal's qualifications (besides the now famous fact that she exclusively watched CPAC from 1997 to 2004) seem even less impressive than Gurmant's.
I'm not trying to be unneccesarily judgmental about the Grewals, but from what I've seen, they don't really fall into the types of people I'd expect to see in politics (if I was totally naive and innocent, which is what I am). Again, I could be wrong but, it doesn't seem as if they have some overriding passion to work on behalf of their constituents (whom they never really served in any significant capacity before becoming MPs), it doesn't seem as if they have a strong desire for public service nor do they seem strongly ideological. So why are they in politics? The phenomenon of the Grewals is definitely not limited to them alone, but their example simply takes the visionless, idealess politician to the extreme (particularly in reference to Nina). I'm not trying to be harsh, and I'm not the type of person who gets embarrassed by "others" in my (Sikh) community... the simple truth is that the same has been said of countless other politicians. One aide in the relatively visionless and hardly ideological administration of the Senior George Bush said at the time... "Our people don't have agendas, they have mortgages".
And I'm so certain that the extra $150,000 (for a combined salary of approx. $300,000) had like nothing to do with Nina's decision to run in the riding next to Gurmant's. (I'm being completely sarcastic if that wasn't obvious)
I'm not trying to overly judge and question the Grewals' character - I don't think they're "bad" people by any measure, but they're just so ordinary. Like most Canadians, they're not very ideological, like most Canadians, they're just trying to get by and like most Canadians, they're not natural or overly groomed politicians. They just seem like regular people.
And that's potentially a serious flaw in the Canadian system of political parties. With nomination races that are closed to the public and which are manipulated greatly by political party apparatuses, nobodies make their way as candidates (and sometimes as MPs) all the time. If they have a fair bit of money and a small (but determined) organization, it is mind boggingly easy to secure a nomination.
This is good and bad, but mostly bad.
Actually, it isn't good at all. It's all bad. Bad, bad, bad.
In one sense, it makes politics more representative of the populace. However, if any average person can become an MP with enough determination (if he or she was driven for the purpose of obtaining a hefty salary or basking in the minor celebrity that accompanies being a Member of Parliament or for other superficial reasons), it seems less necessary to engage in civic duties prior to jumping into becoming an MP (which is relatively high-up on the scale of public service). If name recognition is not as much a factor in securing party nominations in Canada, the inevitable result is that less-qualified people secure nomination more often than they would in an American-style primary system.
MPs should NOT be just like their citizens. They should be informed. They should be driven by some form of ideology or belief system in relation to the way government should interact with the lives of the citizenry and they should be as much as possible, committed to the service of the constituents that elected them.
The Calgary Grit proposed something like a primary system not so long ago himself, so this isn't an ideological position, but when the Conservatives proposed something similar to this last year, the Liberals called their idea "Orwellian".
Yes - it would be an expansion of the role of the state in monitoring elections - but how is this Orwellian in any possible way? It would ensure that candidates are actually representative of the general Conservative/Liberal/NDP population in their ridings, and not representative of special interests or in an actual Orwellian sense, the judgments of the party machinery. It would make political parties far less powerful, and it would make a fantastic legacy for whoever becomes the next Conservative Prime Minister (whenever that happens). Every other action can be changed fairly easily; cuts in government spending can be instituted back immediately when the Liberals get back into power, but significantly altering the electoral system will empower citizens and likely be altered forever.
posted by Japnaam Singh at
8:12 PM
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