Writing about the political paralysis facing our neighbours to the south, a paralysis many observers believe has worsened over the past year, Slate's Jacob Weisberg points a finger at one suspect - or group of suspects - who often escapes scott-free.
We the people.
This
very provocative piece, Weisberg suggests that instead of blaming various politicians or cable news stations, the American public needs to stop simultaneously demanding then rejecting change on any number of issues (witness health care, climate change, economic stimulus). To quote from his piece, "our collective illogic is mostly negligent rather than militant... we like the idea of hard choices in theory [but] when was the last time we made one in reality?"
It's a good question. And how are we faring here? As at least one writer
points out, we don't really do the tea party thing. We'd rather just stew in the status quo. Earlier this year, columnist Gary Mason
almost pleaded that we engage in some discussion on the host of long-term challenges that confront us - from healthcare to pensions to the environment.
That said, there are plenty of movements afoot, nearly all of them citizen-led. Last weekend,
a group assembled in Edmonton to advance discussions on Alberta's future. Next week,
another will gather in Toronto to figure out how to strengthen relationships between people and civic institutions. In March,
others will meet in Ottawa to plan for Canada's 150th birthday, and later in March,
another group will do the same. Type
TEDx into Google and you'll see lots of Canadian discussions in the works.
And here at Samara, we're
doing what we can to get at the disconnect among politicians, our media and citizens. Please stay tuned. Advice, ideas always welcome.
Labels: apathy, Change Camp, Conference on Alberta's Future, featured, Gary Mason, Jacob Weisberg, John Ibbitson, media and citizens, sesquicentennial, Slate, TEDxTO
One big driver of turnover is electoral defeat, accounting for two-thirds of the total turnover (retirement comprises the rest). Thanks to the kind folks at
the Pundits' Guide, I've been able to browse their
extremely thorough analysis on incumbency, which suggests it's higher than this casual observer may have thought. In other words, once an MP gets a seat they have a pretty good chance of keeping it, particularity if you're in the Conservative party.
Here are some
facts from their site:
- In the 13 elections between 1968 and 2008 about 78% of incumbent MPs were re-elected.
- The flip-side of this coin means it's pretty tough for someone challenging the seat to win. Over the same period, that happened only 7.7% of the time.
- While the odds of keeping your seat are pretty good, they're not as good as they'd be if you lived in the States. In the 19 elections that took place between 1968 and 2009, the re-election rates for incumbent members of Congress was over 94%.
In both Canada and in the U.S., your party affiliation affects these numbers. Up here, for the seven elections between 1988 and 2008, the
incumbancy rates were:
- 96.7% for the Reform/Canadian Alliance
- 96.2% for the Conservatives (CPC)
- 88% for the Bloc
- 84.4% for the Liberals
- 67.8% for the NDP
- 46.7% for the Progressive Conservatives
Just the facts ma'am. Anyone have any thoughts on why?
Labels: Alice Funke, Bill Stanbury, featured, MPs, political leadership, Pundits' Guide
One of the most common questions I'm asked, maybe because of my own gender, is whether Samara's exit interviews take a particular look at women in politics.
The answer is yes and no. Yes, because we are interviewing women (our pool, which draws form those who left public life during or after the last two Parliaments, includes 36 women, or about 26% of our total interviewees). This is a bit higher than our current Parliament, where women comprise just over 22% of the total.
No, because we're not specifically asking them to talk about their life in politics as women. We're asking them about their life in politics. Ditto our approach with all possible sub-groups of politicians (e.g., immigrants, Liberals, Maritimers, lawyers, backbenchers etc.).
We're in the midst of analyzing the results of our first 65 interviews, and we're interested to see how much variability there is in perspectives based on gender and on other variables.
In the interim, have a closer look at some facts about the female MPs in our interview pool and see how they compare with the larger group. For example, the women in our sample:
- Were 47 years old when they entered Parliament and 56 when they left;
- Served for 8.75 years (slightly less than the overall group, which was just under 10 years);
- Were more likely to be defeated. 56% of the women lost their election, where it was 48% for the larger group;
- Had a lot of legislative experience. 10 women were cabinet ministers and 18 were parliamentary secretaries; 4 served in both capacities;
- Are extremely educated. 78% publicly listed their college or university degrees;
- Were largely from the Liberal party. 3 were from the Bloc, 2 were Conservatives, 4 were from the NDP and 27 were Liberals.
Equal Voice is a great place to go for more facts and figures on women in Parliament. I'm also working my way through Sylvia Bashevkin's latest book on the topic.
Labels: featured, MP Exit Interviews, Sylvia Bashevkin, women in politics
Talk to any politically-oriented person in B.C. for long enough and eventually Vaughn Palmer's name will come up. For those living east of the Rockies, Palmer is the provincial political affairs columnist for the Vancouver Sun.
A
reader of this blog sent me one of Palmer's posts, where he
recaps an interview he did with Jim Hume, who is retiring after 50 years of covering B.C. politics. I'm a sucker for these kinds of things, which are, when well done, part nostalgia for days gone by, part cute anecdote and part wise advice for the future.
I loved Hume's opening line: "You know, my mother said there'd be days like this, when journalists run out of ideas and have to interview each other. But go ahead."
He had some gripes for today's political media, reminding me a bit of
this great talk from Senator Hugh Segal. Among his comments, paraphrased for length: "It's not too ago that [media] luminaries would say after an election, 'Okay gentlemen, we've got a new government to bring down.' ... that feeling still pervades. Why do they want to bring down a government? The people elect an opposition. It's not the media's right or responsibility to be the official opposition, it's their right to challenge."
And like every retiring journalist, he was asked about the future of newspapers. His (paraphrased) words: "I think newspapers will survive. I believe that the great age of Facebook and Twitter and 'send us an email' ... and nobody checking facts - I think that will go. Maybe it's an old man dreaming of the past, but I think we saw what can go wrong with
bloggers in Copenhagen, where they did a very authentic-looking scam. It was caught, and caught in time, but eventually somebody is going to work one of those scams and the world is going to fall for it. I think that will spend the end."
Time will tell.
Labels: B.C., featured, Jim Hume, media and citizens, Vancouver Sun, Vaughn Palmer
It's a good question. First, a few facts. To begin, we'll borrow from Ned Franks again, who shows
here that, on average between 1945 and 2008, 37% of MPs after an election were new. More recently, that number has gone down (in 2008 it was just under 22%) but the trend is by no means straight. For example, after the 1993 election over 72% of MPs were new. In 1980 it was about 23%, in 1949 it was almost 48%.*
We know a bit about why and the reasons behind it. The first is retirement. On average, about 12% of MPs choose not to run again, which accounts for about one-third of the turnover.**
Two profs at Memorial researched voluntary turnover and found a few things. MPs with narrow victories are less likely to run again, as are those who live far from Ottawa. Quebec MPs are also more prone to turn over, perhaps because of the call to provincial politics is stronger there.
Above all, though, their research suggests that those who come to Ottawa wanting to impact public policies tend to be twice as likely to leave as those who primarily want to serve their constituents or view themselves as members of their party.
The second, and bigger reasons is electoral defeat. On average, one-quarter of MPs lose their election.** I've not seen an analysis of this, but anecdotally MPs tell me that their personal profile gets one about 5-8% of their votes - the rest is due to perceptions of the party and the leader.
So if we think turnover is a problem, we can do one of two things. First, is discourage retirement. If the Memorial profs are correct, this'll require either a small country (!) or more power to individual MPs (which has been the
direction of much of Parliamentary reform in the last generation) or some other change in party management. The provision of pensions after 6 years of service probably don't help either if you want to get people to stick around.
A second, and more powerful, route is to reduce electoral turnover. This is where it gets tricky and pretty undesirable, frankly. We could gerrymander ridings, like in the U.S., so they're safer. We could have fewer elections. We could brainwash voters.....
So is it a problem? Maybe, maybe not. It's a good thing to have fresh minds and a comparatively open political system. Furthermore, it's unclear how realistically we can change it even if we wanted to (although better HR management in politics would be a most welcome change). To paraphrase a
wiser observer than myself, I guess the real question is whether our Parliament is too transient to properly do its job.
** Again, depends on the year. See
Franks page 6.
Labels: Andrew Potter, featured, Kelly Blidook, Kerby Matthews, Memorial University, MPs, Ned Franks, Ottawa Citizen, Parliament