A Manifesto For Caring (About Local Politics)

When I lived in Germany, I could not vote. I couldn't go to the embassy and vote in Canadian elections. I couldn't vote there. At the time, Canada's reputation abroad was at an all time low thanks to the Stephen Harper government's inability to cooperate with others, especially on matters of huge scientific, environmental and world peace import. There was not a single thing I could do about it.

People often ask me why I am so political and I tell them it is because of that decade when I had no voice.

For me, returning to Canada and getting my right to vote back was a renewal of my hope for the future. I don't know what the future will look like, even if I know there are going to be community gardens and arguments over the cherries on the tree by the tennis court in St. Patrick's Park. I don't know what the future will look like, but I know manufacturing is not coming back. I don't know what the future will look like, but I see sunlight and green spaces and air and water that is cleaner and healthier than any breathed or that will have been drunk down in three generations -- if we work for it.

And I know, too, that there is greater reason for despair than ever before. As a rule, we don't earn fair wages but are taught that the condition is a personal failing because of the few exceptions who earn so very, very much.
We are made to feel like failures when the price of rent rises to unaffordable levels while there are empty houses in so many neighbourhoods owned by absent investors. We are told not to grieve when people who experiment with drugs, or are addicted, or whom the system failed, die on the pavements.

Still, I have hope that we can elect people who really care about their fellow citizens. I see demonstrations of care every single day. And, the greatest demonstration of care I see is the knowledge of what is going on around us -- not just in our own neighbourhoods -- but in the city and region as a small ecosystem of the world.

I love democracy, but more importantly, I love informed democracy. Whether it is a point of international relations that impacts the globe, or an article about choosing locations for a dog park, I will read it and consider all the implications. While I do have party loyalties, not one of those loyalties is more important than my own conscience and judgement. I put the people of my place (city, region, province, country, planet) above any party platform.

What I don't understand is NOT being political.

When people say, "all politicians are the same," I hear, "I am too lazy to check who is running, what they stand for and what their experience is."

It's totally judgmental of me to hear that, of course. I'm not always reasonable.

People aren't lazy. They are tired. They no longer believe that life might get better or easier, or fairer. They just know the slog of trying desperately to make ends meet and not making it, at least, not every month. I know that slog too. It's a slog that has gotten into our very souls and cracked them.

Here's where the hope is: we can elect people who also know the slog. Who know there is a crack in each of our souls because it is in their own soul too.

Our best chance for change starts at the lowest levels of government. These are the people whose decisions affect our daily lives. They keep the buses running, prevent the garbage from accumulating, keep the furnace on the in homeless shelters and kids fed in breakfast programs at schools around the region. And, for the rest of us, there is infrastructure. Roads and sewers, schools and community centres, pools and centres for older adults. It keeps us connected to each other.

We need to work together to identify who these caring people among the candidates are.

It's only one job. It's the heart of a manifesto for caring.

Are you in?