A cat's view of democracy

As you know, cats are, by nature, extreme democrats. If you share your home with a cat, you will know what I mean.

So I can look at the world (or at least the Canadian part of it) from a unique perspective. And here's what I see.

Politicians love democracy when they are in opposition, running for office or talking about some other country. When they get into power, they detest democracy. They detest democracy because it is messy and impossible.

It is messy because it shoots off in all directions, all the time, on all issues.

It is impossible because it leaves politicians with no one to deal with.

That's why we have what might be called "stakeholder" democracy -- or democracy that is conducted by making deals with representatives of various interest groups. You may call these stakeholder groups by other names -- special interests, lobby groups, whatever. But the fact is that politicians need these groups, seek them out, even set them up, in order to balance the messy, contradictory wishes of a factious populace.

This approach has worked moderately well for the past few decades, although voter participation has dropped off the charts. But it is reaching the end of its shelf life. Everyone knows it, but no one knows what to do about it.

The problem is this. Back in the day after the Last Great War, people could easily be lumped into identifiable groups. If you wanted to know what moderate Christians thought of anything, you talked to officials in the United, Anglican or soft-line Catholic churches. These people had big flocks. Together they covered most of the "interest" groups you cared about. And the people who belonged to these groups basically toed the line as far as thinking went. Same with average families -- most of them belonged to a small world of organizations, participated in similar activities and listened to the same influence peddlers. So you could easily gauge the feelings of, say, small-town merchants or parents with boys in Little League.

In more recent times, politicians could count on their identified stakeholder groups. Environmental groups spoke for people who cared about the environment. The Catholic Youth League reflected the opinions of young Catholics. The Nurses Association spoke for nurses; and the Teachers Union for teachers.

As marketing people now understand, that well-ordered world is vanishing. And it will be even longer goner in the years ahead.

So how do you practice stakeholder democracy in a 500-channel universe? In a world where most young people don't join officially recognized groups? In an environment where the moderator of the United Church hasn't got a clue what his or her flock thinks about anything? Where, in fact, most of the populace isn't part of anyone's "flock"? Where interest groups are beginning to represent a smaller and ever-shifting piece of the populace pie?

In Canada, David Emerson has just demonstrated that even political labels are more or less meaningless as indicators of people's beliefs. There may be an ideological foundation to Mr. Emerson's behaviour, but it has little to do with democracy or representative government or giving voice to the people.

Where do we go from here? The chaos of every voice for itself? Or the imposed order of "managed" governance, similar to shareholder-diddling practices we see in the corporate world? The first may produce greater vitality, a lively body politic and higher turnouts at the polls, but it will most certainly lead to messy government. The second would mean slow death for our democratic dreams.

I have no faith in Canadian leaders to make the democratic choice. This land of "peace, order and good government" has always chosen order over vitality; a civil face over a bawdy voice. Entrenched interests will always prevail. And the people, schooled as they are in their role, always defer to their betters.

A shame that. People should be more like cats.