Heavy themes in the Foyer

 

I was listening to the final chapter of the Public Order Emergency Commission hearings yesterday. They took a fifteen-minute afternoon break and I took the time to compose and print a sign-up sheet for the condo Christmas dinner. I took the sheet down to the foyer and posted it on the bulletin board. 

Two residents of the condo were sitting in the foyer and chatting as residents often do, and I thought, “Why aren’t they at home, listening to the Commission proceedings, like I am?” A silly question, of course; a more relevant one might have been, “Why am I spending hours listening to the repetitious, predictable questions and answers when there’s so much more to do?”

In short, we know that people engage in the big questions of democracy in direct proportion to the degree to which they’re directly implicated. “They’re raising the carbon tax,” may come to us as coffee gossip and we take note, but gasoline prices fluctuate wildly, we see ourselves as involved in the grand debates about climate change and economics supporting the tax in the same way that we’re involved in the science of quirks and quarks: it’s all up there and out there and nothing I could do—even if I understood it—could possibly make a difference.  

An independent trucker may take greater note of the tax increase because his/her/their livelihood is directly affected. But if the principle and the need for it isn’t understood and acknowledged, he/she/they may see it primarily as a personal affront and--being unable to affect any influence--might well be reduced to a “f*** Trudeau” rage and to attempt influence in this matter by joining an enraged convoy of truckers to Ottawa. 

When the collective interest and individual interest conflict, protest, even outrage, are to be expected. In a democracy (a politic where each individual has an equal voice in selecting leadership) the tyranny of the majority can’t be resolved by substituting for it a tyranny of the most vocal minority; this conundrum will always need to be addressed, particularly in stressful times.

In the Freedom Convoy case, a vocal minority (according to Trudeau’s testimony) “… didn’t only want to be heard; they wanted to be obeyed.” Could the democratic “will of the people” be broadened to include an exception declaring, “Notwithstanding the border-crossing mandates, truckers will be allowed to cross from the US to Canada without giving evidence of vaccination?” To have the general citizenry debate the principle behind a question like this—a question that goes to the heart of decision making in a democracy—would only be possible if the majority were informed and engaged, which might mean not sitting in the foyer chatting about winter tires or the price of coconuts, but sitting up in one’s apartment, watching, listening and taking notes on the perspectives being expressed there.

And then, going down to the foyer to compare views on these subjects. 

Good luck with that.