This morning in the Toronto Star Christopher Hume leveled a j’accuse at the city of Toronto. Not at the mayor, city council and city administrators (though they, by extension, are targeted too), but at us. For those of you outside the city (or who live here but don’t follow the news) Toronto is dealing with the latest in an ongoing series of budget crises. This time budget cuts for social services loom, though the city councilors refuse to give up their recent pay raises or cushy perks, even as a symbolic gesture. Hume points the finger squarely at the collective citizenry of the city, the province and indeed the country for electing the numpties (to borrow a word from my brother) who get us into these messes. A sample of Hume’s column:

We’re the ones who reward politicians who tell us the fantasies we want to hear, not the truths we need to hear. We’re the ones who have made it impossible for leaders to talk about anything much more substantial than tax cuts.

Aided and abetted by the media, we ask the wrong questions and get angry when we don’t hear the wrong answers.

We’re the ones who vote for the Mel Lastmans and the David Millers because they promise they won’t raise taxes. Then when the spit finally hits the fan, we turn around and scream bloody murder.

Democracy boasts many virtues, but it also has serious weaknesses, including the fact that it allows citizens to vote thoughtlessly and without regard to reality. Indeed, look at who gets elected to see just how irrational, even moronic, the process has become. How else does a George W. Bush end up the most powerful person on Earth?

Sobering words, but not angry ones. I got the sense that Hume was writing from a place not of rage, but of frustration. My own sense of pragmatism tells me that democracies will act stupidly for some time, but will correct that stupidity over time. Hume’s a smart man, so I suspect he understands that too, but we’ve now reached the point in Toronto’s struggles — some ten years into amalgamation — where the populace should be getting smarter about these things, but isn’t.

And Toronto, as he points out, is only a symptom of a larger problem. He raises the spectre of George Bush, surely the ultimate example of this non-thinking approach to democracy. We can observe, south of the border, the slightest of twitches in the pendulum, suggesting it’s about to swing back to (relative) normalcy in reaction to eight years of a fairytale kingdom led by a child prince. Hume seems frustrated that Torontonians, who cast so smug an eye toward such goings on in America, do not show the same signs of turning the corner.

I think Hume’s column, brave as it is, will be largely ignored; most people don’t like to stare their own ignorance in the face. But it will resonate with thinkers, and will shame a few of those with consciences who’ve struggled to reconcile their voting habits in past years. For all our pride in social programs and rich society, by and large Canadians still vote for themselves and for the short term. Hume’s column implores us to use our brains, to think of each other first, to look beyond glossy promises and stale placards. If only our elected leaders had the courage to ask so much of us.

[tags]christopher hume, toronto star, toronto city council, democracy[/tags]