These days, Canadian politics is dominated by a surge of regionalism. None of the four major parties have a convincing nation-wide support to enable an oncoming majority government in the foreseeable future. The media is in part responsible for this trend in two different but equal areas of impact.

The first area is media coverage of the parties to inform the public. During an election (and even off-election times) the media rushes over to the various party campaigns and flocks to the leaders. What ensues is usually a popularity contests based on the personality of the politicians and not what he/she stands for. Sometime during the election campaign, each of the parties gives the media a scent of their respective vulnerabilities by releasing a policy book. It is literature in which the said party declares what it truly stands for and offers its solutions to impending political and economic problems the country is facing. If it is the media’s responsibility to inform Canadians of their political choices then a comprehensive understanding of these policies need to be understood and relayed to the public. Instead, the media has been satisfied to follow each campaign looking for some memorable quotes, criticisms, and banter from the leaders. This suits the politicians as well because they do not have to answer tough questions on their own policy when they can easily criticize the other guy.

The second area is reporting and interpreting data such as polls and election results. I have seen many in the media summarize the last three minority governments as “Canadians only trust the Conservatives with a minority government”. Well, no …Canadians did not manipulate together as a nation and decide a Harper minority government. They were split and could not agree. Presenting data and correct interpretations need to be done so that Canadians can make a decision to cast their vote properly. The leadership debate is another example on how the media tends to muddle the political forum for the Canadian public. The first problem is developing a debating format which can fairly contrast each candidate based on his/her ability to address the issues. Secondly, “The Federal Leaders Debate” is not necessarily a “Prime Ministerial” debate. In fact, at least two of the five leaders in the last debate were not in the running to lead the country.

Finally, there is a bit of advice for the Canadian trying to decide. We are looking for the leader who can be best skilled and organized to manage the country’s finances and represent Canada in the world context. What better way to observe how each party handles its own finances? That alone may be a better indicator than any media report on the campaign trail.

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Tags: canadian politics, election, Media, political campaign

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 18th, 2009 at 2:27 am and is filed under Federal Election, Federal Government. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.