intermission - Occupying Public Spaces

There is, according to all of the political pundits and social commentators on Canadian news and public affair programming, a new social movement developing before our very eyes.  People, mainly young people, are gathering in front of stock exchanges or other public representations of the power elite to protest the obvious imbalances between the very rich and everyone else. It is happening throughout the USA, in a number of countries in Europe and this weekend in Canada. If one listens carefully to the sociologist and other political and social affair experts, they are declaring that this is a new sociological phenomenon. I am not too sure it is a new sociological phenomenon or at least if it is, if it has any staying power. I also think that it is a bit of a stretch to find direct links between what happened in Egypt seven months ago to what is happening on Wall Street today. I think it is far too early to make such a judgment.

More interestingly as a Canadian, I wonder if the complaints that people legitimately have in the USA are valid in Canada. I suspect that many Canadians will assume that the political and financial situations are identical. They are not. The US protesters are rightly angry that their government bailed out major banks who in fact caused the financial problems in the first place – no Canadian bank needed to be bailed out; the protesters are legitimately concerned that big business can and does invest large sums of money in ensuring that the “right” people get elected – in Canada our laws forbid such direct infusions of cash into campaign coffers; and finally the protesters are concerned that the cost of these bailouts and tax cuts to the very rich means that health care and education spending will be cut – no government in Canada whether provincial or federal has raise such a possibility.

There are issues in Canada that need to be resolved. We have a neo-conservative government in Ottawa that is systematically destroying many of the rights and protections we all assumed to be enshrined in law. Labour laws, privacy laws, access to information, and the right to be an equal participant in legal issues have been either violated or taken away completely. There is a clear agenda that supports not only the international/globalized business sector, but more importantly that does not support those who need our help.

There are issues in common between those who protest in the USA and those who may protest in Canada. Neither government is anyway addressing the issue of the environment, neither country has been able to develop a consensus as to how social programs should be paid for; both countries have far too high unemployment rates (it is difficult to get consistent, comparable statistical information – but it appears as if youth unemployment rates are somewhere between 15% and 19% in Canada and the US respectively); and unless there is a profound shift in how we elect and access our politicians, the young will continue not too vote.

It is worth noting a couple of additional facts.

1)      there have been seven federal and provincial elections in Canada in the past year. All of the elections resulted in the previous government being returned to office; all of the elections had reduced voter turn-out.

2)       while the Tea Party is in decline – last year a full 40% of the American voters thought it was a good thing, this year it is 20%

 It is exciting that people, especially young people are interested and passionate enough to get involved. For those of us of a certain age it is somewhat reassuring that those interests and those passions that energized us 35-40 years ago are still alive and vital in the hearts of others. It gives me hope for the future. But we need to be very clear as to who the enemy is. We need to be focused on changing how our political institutions are run and by whom. Banks or corporate elite are not the enemy – the enemy are those who let them do whatever they want.