Apathy is a thing. It’s killing our country.
Not literally killing, no. It’s not like obesity or cancer in the mortal sense. But it is infectious and has devastating effects on pretty much any social or cultural aspects. It rears its biggest ugliest head in politics. In Canada we have what could be a very good political system. Parliamentary democracy, at its core, is a system for the people that works for the people. There are checks and balances in place that hold our leaders accountable. At least, there were. Now we have wonderful things like party voting and zero accountability. How did it get there? In the most distilled essence; apathy. People don’t care enough to stand up and say “hey”.
Sure, if you poke us enough we’ll get mad. Look at what happened to Bill C-31. We got that stopped and reviewed. But then we all quieted down and the government got back to doing what it was doing before and many elements of the bill got slipped through in a larger bill nobody cared about. See that? Nobody cared about. In fact you don’t see mass protests or online twitter trending demanding an increase in MP free votes, or asking why federal scientists seem to have a media gag. In fact it’s almost a safe bet that 4/5 average Canadians asked on the street probably wouldn’t even know these were things. But they are, and big ones. They’re not the only ones either, there are tons more. The environment of apathy has allowed the government to slowly morph itself into something that can be barely called a parliament.
So what can you do then? Well, do something. This is a wonderfully free country where you have nearly open access to the political system. Get beyond facebook groups and retweets. Start writing emails or making phone calls. Hold groups or rallies. If you find a significant number of like minded people, get a petition to your MP or MPs. Just, do something. Get mad, get excited, get passionate! If you’re really not sure, join the party you support and get into their local Electoral District Association. Suddenly your actually helping change things.
Perhaps we have become to comfortable simply blaming the government for our woes. It’s far easier to say “it’s your fault, fix it for me” after all. But what if it was actually our fault, and we’re the only ones who could fix it? Time to step up as citizens and, well, start acting like citizens, not children.