More as a lark, though with a little bit of seriousness, I turn each election to a growing number of online aids that help me work through the various issues. Maclean’s Magazine has one called Policy Face-Off Machine. You are asked to choose between at least 20 different policy pairings, after which the machine will tell you which federal political party you should vote for.
As I start I am given two options: “Bolster RCMP budget for crack down on grow-ops and meth labs.” Or, “Support the expansion of the Universal Child Care Benefit.”
As you can tell these issues are not comparable; but I have to choose one. I have to choose which one of these two is more important to me. So, I do and then I move to the next random choices: “Create a publicly accessible database of high-risk child sex offenders.” Or, “Reject calls for an inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women.”
While the first random choice was relatively easy for me, this second one is difficult. I certainly would not reject a call for an inquiry, but I’m also not convinced a public shaming list will help society significantly. But I have to choose one.
The CBC has its Vote Compass. Here I have to go through dozens of questions and rate their importance to me. The first question asks, “How involved should the Canadian military be in the fight against ISIS?” I have to choose from Much Less to Much More.
Both of these very different processes will come to a similar conclusion placing me in a rough tie between the three major parties. My internal confused compass had already told me that, but I guess it’s good to have it confirmed. I end up voting more emotionally than intellectually.
Still the online result isn’t exactly accurate. These aids are issue-based, and issues are shifting sand, moving between parties constantly. There’s a parable about shifting sand. Jesus proves more prescient than ever in this election. Political parties are opportunistic. The government says they’ll do X; challenging parties come up with variations on X, every now and then pulling from completely different alphabets. A party that might have preached austerity in opposition becomes a free spender in power; a party that fought free trade in one era becomes its defender in another.
That’s why our potential leaders are always polling us so they can reflect back to us what they think we believe. Chasing public opinion leads to the bottom. A politician can always find broad public favour in the lowest common denominator.
As you head to the ballot box this month, do not shove your faith into your politics. Let your civic sensibility be motivated by Christ, by the Beatitudes, by the Lord’s Prayer, by the Golden Rule, by the parables. Do not settle for the politicians’ desperate need for power; let your faith instruct your vision for Canada.
There is never either/or; the vision we feed our politicians has to come from our faithful reflections. The economy is important, so is feeding the hungry, clothing the naked; security is important, so is embracing the stranger; we may have to go to war at times, but we also have to provide relief and development. This is church at its best; and it should be our national standard.
