Safe seats don’t make for great government

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 13/06/2023 (1026 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Safe seats are dangerous for democracy. That thought crossed my mind as I listened to various pundits sketch the political landscape of our next provincial election.

Wisely, Premier Heather Stefanson chose to let her government go out with a whimper of private members’ bills, rather than with the bang of passing dangerously flawed legislation left over from Brian Pallister’s regime.

Her most significant legislative action of the past couple of years, however, was — after years of dithering — to rescind the cosmetic pesticide ban. Bluntly, the Pallister/Stefanson governments have done less to mitigate the devastating impacts on future generations of a changing climate than any other government in Canada, Alberta included. So, poisoning children to keep the grass green is at least consistent.

You might think I am showing my NDP colours here — given the propensity of other op-ed writers to wave the red, white and blue — but I’m not. I am one of those mythical voters the pollsters love to pester: the undecided.

In fact, the only party card I ever carried was a Tory one, way back in the days when it was possible to be both progressive and conservative, before Preston Manning and Stephen Harper yanked everything to the Alberta hard right with their Reform Party.

But I am not rushing to put up a Wab Kinew lawn sign just yet, either. While the Manitoba Tories lately have as much of a winning record as the Jamaican bobsled team, the pollsters have not given them as much to worry about as you might think.

This brings me back to “safe seats,” of which apparently the Tories believe they have a large number, at least outside the city of Winnipeg. By definition, a safe seat is one where, no matter how bad the party’s record (in government or out); no matter how inane or non-existent its policies; no matter what kind of candidate answers the party’s bugle call, the same number of voters will cast their votes in support, regardless.

This is bad for democracy, whatever party you support. The cornerstone of democracy is accountability. Our representatives are supposed to represent us. So, one would think that, if they do a bad job, the next time around they (and their party) would be booted out.

That logic doesn’t seem to apply to a safe seat. So, instead, the pollsters and pundits tally up how many safe seats there are, on all sides, leaving a handful of “swing seats” where the ultimate decision will be made — by the undecided — as to who will form the next government.

No wonder elections have become so boring — and voter turnout has continued to drop, especially in those safe seats. Many people simply stay in bed, instead of voting. Why bother, if the result has been preordained?

This all smacks of the Big Lie that persuades, but isn’t true. If everyone actually showed up to vote, the results would be much less predictable. In the 2019 election, only 55 per cent of eligible Manitobans voted. Add 45 per cent to any constituency results last time, and pretty much any candidate would have had a chance of winning.

I have always voted, even if I made my final decision walking into the polling booth. For different reasons, I have voted for each of the mainstream political parties — although there were times when the Pirate Party or the Rhinoceros Party would have been better options.

So, while I am still undecided right now, I am not going to be spooked by “the Ghost of NDP Past” into forgetting the serial disasters of the past seven years. Nor does borrowing money to send me a cheque for “Carbon Tax Relief” paper over Tory mistakes, especially on the climate file.

For example, had Pallister and his ideological sidekicks accepted the federal carbon tax proposal in 2016, Manitoba would have received upwards of $250 million every year. Even if $50 million was given to lower income Manitobans as a subsidy (as a Manitoba stakeholders’ consultation agreed), that still meant $200 million to spend on local infrastructure to mitigate the effects of global warming.

Do the math — preferring ideology to pragmatism has cost Manitobans $1.4 billion so far, enough to subsidize EV purchases and charging stations; buy electric buses; and have money left to relocate rail lines and build a light rail/streetcar system for the 21^st century.

For that gaffe alone, there should be no safe Tory seat in Manitoba, anywhere.

That is, if Manitobans think before they vote — and show up to be counted.

Peter Denton is an activist, writer and teacher, living in rural Manitoba.