The anger hiding in plain sight
American poet Mary Oliver, an astute guide to the business of living, has said that “to pay attention” is the endless and proper work of humankind.
In Canada, the past month has suggested we haven’t made too good a job of it — startled as we are by events that, to those who have been paying heed and sounding alarms, have been a long time coming.
Of the many aspects of the siege of Ottawa that will need to be investigated once order is restored, the policing and governance failures key among them, is how Canadians and Canadian leaders paid so little notice to discontent and alarming attitudes that had been building for years.
The furies driving the occupation of the nation’s capital and border crossings in Ontario and Alberta have basically been hiding in plain sight — seldom acknowledged, rarely addressed.
In recent years, a variety of experts and analysts, surveys and studies have identified the weakening commitment of Canadians to democracy and its institutions.
In 2019, for example, the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue at Simon Fraser University published a report on the state of democracy and the appeal of populism. To revisit it now is, in some senses, to see the present situation foretold.
At the time, the study found that almost 60 per cent of those surveyed believed Canada was democratically governed, but only 10 per cent held that sentiment strongly.
Forty-four per cent did not believe that voting gave them a say in how government runs things. Fifty-six per cent said they could not influence government. Sixty-eight per cent believed officials don’t care what ordinary Canadians think and 61 per cent believed government ignores their interests in favour of “the establishment.” The finding suggested “a lukewarm embrace of democracy” and the appeal of populism was apparent.
Eighty per cent of those surveyed said they would be more likely to vote for a candidate if he or she stood up for the “common people” against the “elite.”
A full third said that “attacking the media would be a motivator for them to vote for a candidate.”
Undercurrents of xenophobia and racism were also identified. “A full third do believe that those who were born elsewhere and became citizens should have less say” in how the country is governed, the report found. Those most likely to believe Canada embodies democratic principles were those who lived in British Columbia, urban and suburban communities, had more education and were more financially secure.
Those most likely to say Canadian-born citizens should have a greater say than those born outside the country lived in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, Quebec or Atlantic Canada, had less formal education and were struggling financially.
The key take-aways, the centre said, was Canadians’ “dissatisfaction with the way their democracy is working, and a less than full embrace of representative democracy as the best way to govern their country. “The appeal of populism is rooted in the views that government ignores the interests of ordinary Canadians,” it said.
Four years ago, pollster Nick Nanos published a book called “The Age of Voter Rage,” which in its subtitle spoke of “the tyranny of small numbers.”
Nanos wrote that “creeping anti-establishment rage” was on the move and making gains.
It has had many manifestations, from the Buffalo Declaration in Western Canada, to the musings by Saskatchewan’s premier about his province’s potential status as a “nation,” to the noise of the People’s Party of Canada in the past two federal elections.
It is founded on a feeling that institutions and elites have failed citizens, that younger and future generations will have a lower standard of living than their elders.
It’s fuelled by the consequences of globalization and automation, by technology and propaganda and political opportunism.
“It is here to stay unless the fundamentals in democracies are recalibrated,” Nanos wrote. “The fundamentals being that more citizens need to feel that they have a chance for a better life and that governments are opportunity enablers.”
What can no longer be denied or evaded is the recognition that a significant minority in the country are madder than hell and disinclined to take it anymore.
The virulent rage suggests a fundamental diagnosis of “disconnectedness, disaffectedness and economic pessimism,” Nanos wrote. The job of finding tangible ways to restore faith in the electoral process, in government, in its leaders and in the future can no longer be ducked or evaded.
Say this for the occupiers: if nothing else, they got the country’s attention. Whether any good will come of that remains to be seen.