How does one describe Rick Mercer? I could go with pundit, comedian and patriot. I wouldn't go with objective. It shouldn't come as a surprise that Rick Mercer is rabidly anti-Harper. His rants would confirm that very thing. It would almost be a conflict of interest to use your bully pulpit as election advertising. You would need to circumvent election law to make it legitimate.
That's the glory of this "Vote Mob" thing. The highly polished veneer reflects the notion that this is all about just getting kids to vote form whomever they want (wink). However, scratch that just a bit and you can see that what lies underneath, and it's simply a movement to vote out the CPC. Which is fine, just call it what it is. Which he can't do.
What should be concerning to people is it seems that what Rick Mercer says is being taken as gospel. Rick Mercer says something on one of his Rants, and it goes viral. Is it fact checked by anyone? Not as far as I can tell. That's the problem. Seeing as how there numerous Facebook groups called "Rick Mercer for PM" it stands to reason that his audience isn't really sure how this whole democracy thing works in Canada.
There is a push to legitimize a Coalition, and he's one of those leading the charge. That's fine. I don't think anyone has a problem with two or more parties coming together in coalition to run the country. It's happened before on a provincial level. The NDP and Liberals in my province got together and formed a fairly successful one. The NDP and Liberals got together in Ontario and crippled their economy. So, they are legal and they are cool and whatever. That's not really the argument against the one that was proposed.
What is constantly overlooked, and I think for good reason, is that to control confidence of the House, you need more than half of the members to vote your way. So, do the math. If the end result is a rerun of the 40th Parliament, then the NDP and the Liberals as a coalition will not control more than half the seats. That's just math, and no Rick Mercer Rant can change that.
So, how do two parties with less than half the seats in the House of Commons manage to retain the confidence of the members? A third party has to vote with them on financial matters. You can't really alter that with a handheld video shot in B&W.
So, now we are the meat of this whole thing and why an unreasonable and irrational dislike of a political figure does not end well for anyone. In order for this "ABC" thing to actually work, you have to enlist the Bloc Quebecois. They aren't just some political party with differing outlooks, they are a party dedicated to the dissolution of confederation. I wonder how you stay in power if you don't financially compensate the Bloc? Rick Mercer doesn't tell the kids that such things are even an issue.
He gives these kids the most basic understanding of how the Westminster system works and hopes that armed with this, they will simply vote for the MP they like the best who isn't a member of the CPC. That's not quite how it works. That's the theory of it, and in a few rare cases, it works (Ralph Goodale). The reality of it is that you are voting for a party, not an individual, based on the platform. You aren't voting because the candidate is someone you want to have a beer with.
I expect that his desire to use Canada's young people to forward his agenda will fail. Turnout will go up across the board, but the overall percentage of young people voting will be about the same. Hopefully, the youth will vote based on something outside of what Mercer says within his 1:30 snapshot of Parliamentary procedures.
0 comments:
Post a Comment