Site 41 puts the lie to citizen apathy

Alliston Herald October 21 2009
Need change
With the demise of Site 41, citizens of Simcoe County should take heart. It took a lot to reverse a decision to put a dump on top of a major aquifer, but it was finally accomplished.
It also puts the lie to citizen apathy.
People do care and will get involved when they feel they have to and when they feel they have a chance of making a difference.
Which leads to a closer look at why voter turn out at all levels is at frighteningly low levels. It’s been a long time since any government can truly claim a majority since the majority is not even voting.
Poll after poll has shown that Canadians do not want an election at the federal level at this time, despite the fact that other polls show there is hardly resounding confidence in the Conservative government.

The other parties are not faring any better. Prime Minister Stephen Harper was very clear about his position on the Senate, until he became PM. And he is far from alone in this ‘say one thing and do another’.
Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty promised no more taxes, so he played the semantics game and came up with a health ‘co-payment’.
A comfort seems to come over people once they have MP, MPP or councillor attached to their name. They become desensitized to the very issues that caused them to run in the first place.There are ways to change this:All politicians should pay full income tax, the same as the people they represent so they can see the effect on their pay cheques every week.
All offices should have a limit of three elections. After that the incumbent must sit out at least one full term.
No political party should receive funding of any sort from taxes. Supporting a candidate or party should be a matter of choice.
The notion of public service has long since parted company with elected office. While it is true that serving politicians work long hours and have little or no personal privacy, perhaps they would be able to push back on some of the rather meaningless duties, such as showing up for cheque presentations, and demand some sort of normal life if they were not so self-serving.
Until there are some significant changes in the system, citizens will continue to view elections as a very small part of the democratic process. The real democracy, demonstration and petition on specific issues, will grow with citizens seeing those actions as the only way to really be heard.