Your recent editorial talked about the increasing fragility of democracy and the importance of monitoring government and speaking out when one has concerns about decisions of those in leadership roles.
Canada scored highly in the reports cited for 2022, despite having invoked the Emergencies Act in February 2022 to quell a mostly peaceful protest in Canada’s capital – which doesn’t say a lot for the other democracies, I guess. When measuring the health of democracies I’m curious if the authors of those reports took into account the ‘disingenuousness factor’ exhibited by politicians.
Here in Saanich, I wonder how many of the current slate of councillors would have been elected if they had proclaimed on their myriad election signs that they intended to hike tax rates on property owners in order to implement a strategy of diversity, equity and inclusion, which Coun. Colin Plant refers to as one of the “wonderful initiatives” that are “responsive to community concerns” in the current budget. Precisely what concerns is this initiative responding to?
Are Saanich taxpayers concerned about the lack of identity politics in the administration of Saanich’s affairs? Or is this more about local politicians using taxpayer dollars to virtue signal as they scramble to appear progressive? If it’s the latter, it’s disingenuous politics worthy of a low rating on the democracy scale.
Mike Pankhurst
Saanich