One More Vote for Democracy

It had been a mellow week for the giant puppets; a quiet time of rest and refocus.

The excitement of the municipal election was dying down, and the new Mayor and Council members were getting organized and gearing up for governance. Some good people had been elected, and some good people hadn't. Four of the seven elected had committed to boldly addressing climate change, the issue that could no longer be ignored.

The puppets had raked the fallen leaves and distributed them over the garden beds, which formed two

image courtesy of Pixabay

neat rows of golden brown horizontal rectangles in the back yard.

Time for an afternoon tea break.

*******

PER: I'll just get the scones out of the oven. There's some home made raspberry jam on the table.

GOOD TIME (bringing the tea pot to the table): I've got the mint tea. The mint from the garden was especially minty this year, don't you think?

NOWCA (pouring tea and putting jam on a scone): I love enjoying the bounty of the garden!

PER: Me too! So, the municipal elections are over with, and a few climate champions have been elected. I guess we can relax for awhile.

image courtesy of Pixabay

NOWCA: Not quite yet. We have another important vote coming up, and we need to educate ourselves and each other.

GOOD TIME: Seriously?

NOWCA: Ya, we have a chance to reclaim our democracy, at least in this province!

PER: What do you mean? How?

NOWCA: By voting in favour of proportional representation!

PER: I've heard scary things about that! Won't it allow fringe parties to have more power?

NOWCA: Per, those are scare tactics being used by people who benefit from the voting system we have now. In a winner take all system, like the one we have, extreme groups can have all the power even if they get only 40% of the vote. Take a look at this video.

GOOD TIME: I don't know -- why change what we have when it's already working?

NOWCA: But is it working? How many times have people had to vote strategically to keep someone out instead of voting for the person they want in? What about getting a bunch of great policies in place that are undone by a different party when they're elected? That's called 'policy lurch' and it really hinders our progress! Proportional representation means that your vote counts, and that those elected will need to collaborate. It works well in other countries and creates more stable and democratic governance.

PER: Other countries use it?

NOWCA: Yes, Wales, Scotland and New Zealand use pro rep systems that are similar to the ones we're voting on, and they work well.

MR. PIPELINE (coming in with a bag of golf clubs): My golf game was rained out.

NOWCA: Sorry to hear it, Mr. Pipeline.

We're just talking about proportional representation. Let me guess: You hate it, right?

MR. PIPELINE: Of course I hate it! When it comes to our electoral system, if it ain't broke, don't fix it!

GOOD TIME: Change can be scary.

NOWCA: But sometimes we need change. Sometimes we outgrow things, like the first past the post

image courtesy of Pixabay

electoral system.

PER: I'd like to know more about how it's working out for the countries that have it.

MR. PIPELINE: Why? Why even bother voting? Government will keep working and things will keep going whether you vote or not.

NOWCA: Voting is our civic duty, Mr. Pipeline.

Anyways, Per, some good things have happened for the environment in some of these countries, and they seem to have great representation. When everyone's vote counts, we get better decisions. For example, Wales is the first country to pledge to keep fossil fuels in the ground. Under the system we have here in Canada, that's almost unimaginable.

MR. PIPELINE: Shudder the thought! How would life have meaning?

PER: Seriously?! That's incredible! What else, NOWCA? What about New Zealand? And, Mr. Pipeline, with all due respect, maybe your sense of meaning needs an update. Sounds like you need tea and a scone.

NOWCA: New Zealand has a woman Prime Minister from the Labour Party named Jacinda Ardern, and she's the first to have given birth while in office. She recently announced a 12 month wage freeze for politicians, since she says they make enough money. She also took her 3 month old baby to the United Nations General Assembly.

GOOD TIME: Wow! That sure doesn't sound like Canada!

MR. PIPELINE: Yes, I hope Canadian women continue to know their place and, for the most part, stay out of politics.

NOWCA (staring at Mr. Pipeline): and then there's Scotland. Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon is a powerful ruler. In fact, this is from her Wikipedia page: Forbes magazine ranked Sturgeon as the 50th most powerful woman in the world in 2016 and 2nd in the United Kingdom. In 2015, BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour assessed Sturgeon to be the most powerful and influential woman in the United Kingdom.

Her policies? Again, from her Wikipedia page: Sturgeon has campaigned against replacing the Trident nuclear weapons system. She has been a critic of austerity, saying that the UK government's "austerity economics" is "morally unjustifiable and economically unsustainable". 

Sturgeon is noted for campaigning for women's rights and gender equality, and is a self-described feminist; she has argued that Scotland's feminist movement is not simply symbolic, but "sends a powerful signal about equality". She has hailed Scottish feminist economist Ailsa McKay as one of her inspirations.

I think Scotland's doing quite well.

PER: OK, I want this for Canada, not just BC, but I guess our province is a good place to start.

NOWCA: It's our chance to show the rest of the country how proportional representation works. We were invited to a rally in support of it, but -- you know -- we don't do so well in the rain.

GOOD TIME: Maybe when it clears up we can do something on the streets to show our support for proportional representation.

MR. PIPELINE: Why do you want to be governed by a bunch of radicals?

GOOD TIME: I want at least the chance of a smokeless summer, and we won't get that until we start addressing climate change. And this system isn't doing it.

PER: Let's put our heads together and figure out a way to show our support for proportional representation. If we get it here in BC, maybe the whole country will follow suit.

*******

The puppets sat silently, watching the rain drops, drinking their tea and eating their scones. Some were considering what they could do to support proportional representation, and one was making very different plans.

image courtesy of Pixabay

Time to Vote for Our Vision

It was a sparkling, Autumn day, the colourful leaves evenly distributed between the tree branches and the ground below.

The giant puppets had been attending all candidates meetings earlier in the week and the next day was voting day.

How do you think they'll vote?

image courtesy of Pixabay

*******

After cleaning up the breakfast dishes, Good Time, Per and NOWCA sat around the kitchen table talking about the municipal election, and how they were going to vote the following day.

PER: Does anyone know where we vote tomorrow?

NOWCA: According to the City of Nelson website, it'll be from 8am - 8pm tomorrow, October 20th, at Central School, 811 Stanley Street.

GOOD TIME: Do I need to bring ID?

NOWCA: According to that site, you need two pieces of ID, such as a driver's license, passport, SIN card or BC ID that prove who you are and where you live. One piece needs to have your signature on it.

PER: Shall we all walk up to the school tomorrow after breakfast? Now that we have that

image courtesy of Pixabay

information, all we have to do is figure out who to vote for. The hard part.

NOWCA: Maybe the best way to figure that out is to think hard about the kind of community you want, and then see which candidates' visions best match yours.

GOOD TIME: Here's something that might help us with that -- did you hear that Sesame Street will be celebrating its fiftieth anniversary next year? I'd like Nelson to feel even more like Sesame Street than it does now.

PER: Wow! Fifty years! That's a long time. What a great show! I'd like Nelson to be more like that too.

GOOD TIME: Don't we all want to live on a street like that? Caring, fun, safe: somehow, those days feel so far away.

PER: Ya, I know what you mean. It seems like the world is meaner and nastier now, don't you think?

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NOWCA: It seems like that to me too, Per.

Actually, I saw an initiative that would make our streets kinder and friendlier. It's called Delivering Community Power, and it would transform sleepy old Canada Post into a hub of green innovation and community.

It would expand door to door services, and not just deliver mail, but parcels, groceries, and people's medications with a fleet of electric vehicles. Canada Post staff would check in on seniors, and even provide postal banking which would be wonderful for small communities.

PER: That sounds amazing, NOWCA! I sure hope we do this in Canada.

NOWCA: Canadian citizens will have to urge our federal politicians to. Maybe if enough people sign the petition on their site, our government can be persuaded.

PER: Anyways, back to the task at hand: voting in our municipal election. After listening to the candidates, I get a sense of the kind of future each of them envisions. So maybe the thing to do is get really clear about our visions for the future.

Here are some of the things I want: I want them to address the defining issue of our time, climate change. I also want everyone to have enough food, money and shelter, since that would make it much easier for all of us to be kind, gentle and able to focus on broader issues than day to day survival.

And I want people on Council who will ask tough questions, look at what other jurisdictions are doing, and involve Nelson's citizens in decision making.

What about you, Good Time and NOWCA?

GOOD TIME: I like the idea of having more fun, chatting with friends and learning neat stuff while walking down the street. Just that feeling of congeniality and warmth is so nice. And I don't want our summers to be smoky, so I want our politicians to address climate change too.

image courtesy of Pixabay

NOWCA: I want it to be easier for people to trust each other and work together for the common good. I want a feeling of generosity, abundance and security, knowing that there's a strong social safety net. And I want to see us working together to mitigate climate change. There's no time to lose!

It was great to see the emergency debate in our Canadian Parliament over the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report earlier this week. But will it make a difference?! I'm terrified, and need more than talk. And I'm tired of the partisan bickering!

I wish our federal politicians would present a vision of a green country, and then create a credible plan to get us there.

There's a petition going around urging Minister McKenna to take immediate climate action. I've signed, and hope it'll do some good.

GOOD TIME: Back to the municipal elections, the candidates I like all take climate change seriously.

PER: Me too, Good Time. And I like the ones who show that they've listened closely to what voters want. And the ones looking for ways of mitigating climate change that will make us an example for other communities, and that solve other problems too like poverty and lack of housing.

NOWCA: I'd like to see us develop new ideas that help prevent forest fires, and reduce our emissions from housing and travel while putting people to work and making our community more caring and liveable.

image courtesy of Pixabay

PER: I wonder why we're not doing that now?

NOWCA: I think part of it is the bully boy mentality of the fossil fuel industry.

MR. PIPELINE (walking into the kitchen): What, no breakfast?

NOWCA: We just finished the dishes. If you'd gotten up earlier, you could have joined us.

MR. PIPELINE (grunts, and opens the fridge door gazing inside): What? No bacon and eggs?

PER: We've been cutting out the meat and dairy, Mr. Pipeline. There's some tempeh and broccoli, if you're interested. And there's oatmeal.

MR. PIPELINE: Forget it. I'm going out for breakfast. (slamming the door behind him)

The three remaining puppets sat in silence for a moment.

PER: NOWCA, what were you saying about the bully boy mentality?

NOWCA: You know, the politicians who will do anything to win, including lie, cheat and slander others. The ones who don't really listen, and just try to push their agenda through. When you suddenly hear unsubstantiated horrible things about good candidates, that's bully boy stuff.

GOOD TIME: If that's what they're willing to do to get elected, imagine what they'd be like in office?

PER: Not what I'd envision for a Sesame Street like future. I like it when people talk respectfully and solve problems together.

NOWCA: Me too.

Hey, you know what would take us to the kind of future we want? Applying the same transformative thinking Delivering Community Power uses for Canada Post to other issues. I wonder how that kind of thinking could be applied to things like transportation or housing?

image courtesy of Pixabay

GOOD TIME (jumping up): Here's what I can picture for housing: make sure all new buildings are energy efficient, fuelled with electricity from clean sources. And make sure there are programs to help fix up older homes to be more energy efficient.

PER: Kind like the EcoSave Program here in Nelson?

GOOD TIME: For sure!

Also, what if we had little pods like co-housing communities where people had smaller dwellings, but lots of great shared spaces? Gardens, libraries, playgrounds, studios and a big kitchen and gathering space.

Older people could sometimes babysit kids, and everyone would have more time on their hands since so much of the gardening and yard work would be shared; and if people were sick or injured they'd have community support readily available.

There could be lots of units, enough so that no one would be homeless. Life would be so much more fun, and so much easier, don't you think?

PER: That sounds like such a great way to live, Good Time!

Here's an example I can imagine for the transportation sector. Instead of uncomfortable buses for long distance travel, I'd make them all electric, and make sure the seating could easily fold out into comfortable beds.

They'd stop at restaurants that sold great meals showcasing locally grown produce, and buses and restaurants all would have wifi. That would bring down our greenhouse gas emissions and would make travelling by bus so enjoyable!

NOWCA: That sounds great, Per!

I'd like to transform the energy sector too. I'd hire unemployed oil workers restoring the boreal forests where the tar sands are now and creating wind and solar farms in place of abandoned mines. And I'd get the oil companies who've profited from this mess to pay.

I'd stop fracking and pipeline development and use the funds that were going to those projects to invest in wind, solar, geothermal and tidal power. That way Canada could become a leader in tomorrow's technology instead of throwing money into fossil fuels, which are becoming stranded assets. The whole world is turning away from oil and gas. Why is Canada still subsidizing and promoting this industry?

PER: That sounds great, NOWCA! I hope we can create the kind of future that Sesame Street helped us envision. When all is said and done, We're just one big family. All we need to do is learn to live together in a way that helps, and doesn't harm, the beautiful planet that sustains us.

GOOD TIME: I'm looking forward to casting my ballot tomorrow.

PER: So am I, right after breakfast.

NOWCA: Thanks for talking this through, Per and Good Time. I'm looking forward to it!

image courtesy of Pixabay