Today our key party leaders still beg for the help of their volunteers in collecting donations and reaching more voters, but soon after the election they will forget about the majority of their helpers as constituents.
After winning, politicians find it more advantageous to serve the real financial rulers of our democracy, as they are so deeply manipulated by their money and influence. Unfortunately, in today’s politics we have too many typical opportunists whose only mastered skills are catchy declarations of respect for different social values during elections. Trying to correct such approaches is useless; it is more efficient to question their legitimacy by temporarily applying the alternative method of not voting.
Reaching 30 per cent turnout can efficiently expose weaknesses of the traditional electoral mechanisms, which supposedly select the best representatives for ruling the country on the federal and provincial levels, but are, in effect, exploited by the key financial forces. This will stimulate deeper and longer discussions about such fundamental issues.
What is needed is replacing politicians with professional specialists, who are socially mature and recognized as trusted authorities, with confirmed leadership skills for ruling the governmental institutions. The real specialists possess more self-confidence and self-respect in comparison to politicians, whose only strength is the ‘flexibility’ of their opinions.
At McGill, the top administrators remind us of politicians – they are focused on promotions and shielding their highest salaries and perks instead of improving students’ and staff members’ study and work conditions.
—Slawomir Poplawski, former McGill staff member