I am still floating from the general election we just held here in the Beaufort Delta.
While it’s unfortunate other parts of the territory had problems through the election — a few candidates found their campaign signs vandalized with Nazi symbology, which I hope was just the idle hands of bored individuals trying to get a reaction out of people and not a sign the hate groups proliferating down south are moving northwards.
But here in the Delta, I think it was probably the most pleasant election I’ve experienced in my life.
It’s not so much what occurred over the campaign than what didn’t occur.
Where I come from, Alberta, elections follow a very routine pattern. The writ is dropped. Someone running for MLA for the incumbent party says something unforgivable about Indigenous people, the LGBTQ2S+ community, immigrants, non-Christians… or all of the above. Someone says something completely inaccurate and easily fact-checkable about climate change, medicine, or history. The incumbent party then blames all their bad decisions on the federal Liberal party — even when the Grits are in opposition — and is then re-elected with a huge majority. Four years later, the process is repeated.
None of this muskox excrement happened up here. I really cannot properly describe how magical of a feeling it was to actually hear politicians discuss policies, facts and ideas like grown adults. There was no nonsensical rhetoric about taking the fight to Ottawa or about Northerners being persecuted. There were no conspiracy theories about globalists, the world economic forum, the United Nations or anything else that’s replaced actual issues in the elections of my past.
Beaufort Delta voters have put the rest of Canada to shame by showing just how democracy is actually supposed to operate. Your territory, province or country is only as good as the quality of your voters, and we clearly earned a seat among the best. I tip my hat to you guys, girls and all in-between.
So what makes us so special? As much as we would like to claim some sort of superiority, as I’ve mentioned in this space many times human psychology is extremely malleable and highly exploitable. The absence of childish politics is most likely the result of the absence of political parties.
Political parties can do a lot for a candidate. They give access to money for signs, advertisements and publicity. They ensure you will at least get the devoted party grassroots vote, regardless of how you behave. They can provide you with training on what to say when some self-righteous reporter like myself starts asking tough questions, or when a member of the public wants to challenge you on something your government did. If the party leader likes you, you might even be fast-tracked to a cabinet seat.
All you need to do for all this is to surrender your own ambitions and adopt the leader’s goals, which in theory should align relatively close to what you hope to see changed or improved in society.
In practice, this reduces politics to “brands” where each party comes to represent a set of values in the voter’s head and the candidate stops being important — getting your particular team in is the priority. It’s worth noting the political party doesn’t actually have to live up to those values for voters to associate the party with said values — the fear of losing is motivation enough. Alongside this comes overinflated rhetoric — people will often times claim a government run by the opposing party is oppressing them, when in reality the worst they’re doing is costing said person a few extra dollars.
But as mentioned above, there are plenty of people in Canada, particularly Indigenous groups and the LGBTQ2S+ community who have been demonstrably oppressed and, in many cases, are still being kept down. Inevitably, among the competitive political parties their interests fall by the wayside as Machiavellian leaders draw the majority of relatively-well-off voters’ attention to their endless financial inconveniences like cats with a laser pointer.
So it was a huge relief to witness an election free of all that stupidity. Thank you, Inuvik.