Who Are You Voting For? Who Are You Speaking For?
When you read this Canada will either be in an election or close to one. The press has been saying something similar for a year or more, I know.
The Trade/Tariff War with the US, the longing for a change in government, the economic hardships, immigration, housing, etc., etc.: all issues are urgent. You hear the same voices as we always have, but about different matters.
You have to live long enough to remember enough elections to compare tactics and strategies and I have! As the very short-time Prime Minister Kim Campbell once said, “Election campaigns are not the time to talk about serious issues.” Though she was pilloried for it, politicians have lived by that rule.
The brief election campaigns that Canada has mean that the media buildup to elections is many times longer than the actual campaign.
But this is the system we have. So, let’s use it.
The media landscape has completely changed. The old legacy media is mostly used by Boomers and our numbers are dropping fast. The new media is diffuse and rapidly changing. It’s significant that Carney announced his election bid on an American satirical show with more internet watchers than TV watchers. The new Prime Minister has dodged Canadian press conferences just as the old one did. New media don’t do press conferences very much except in a performative way such as in the Trump press briefing room.
This means that we must use new media and voices. Podcasters, bloggers, Youtubers, influencers, and other rapidly evolving voices are what people are listening to. Who do you watch and listen to?
New coalitions and “networks” of communication are being formed and, as Kamala Harris found out to her detriment in the US election, it takes work to go after the diverse groups who have split into tribes of voters. Which tribes do we need in our fight for justice?
Frustration with the current states of affairs gets us nowhere. We have new media too. There have been Canadian efforts to become updated with voter outreach methods between elections both provincially and federally, but as Catholics we have shied away engaging with them. As priests and bishops, we need to look critically at our proper roles in the formation of civic conscience and actions. It is obvious that old ways of promoting engagement are ineffective. Voter guides published in the last weeks of a truncated campaign don’t work.
Such guides push moral equivalency of all issues. The mass killing of preborn Canadians and the medical execution of the sick, elderly, and mentally ill citizens are NOT equivalent to development issues. The multiplication of issues just leads to apathy and confusion.
We have voices by our own websites, YouTube, and more contacts than you might think with bloggers and podcasters. These have to be sought out and nurtured and just plain asked for! Ask for space and time now and offer yourselves as voices of conscience, reason, faith, and direction.
Publish your own YouTube video and don’t let the best be the enemy of the good!
Ask people who THEY listen to and reach out to those media and content producers.
Be clear about conscience in the midst of the whirl of election noise and trade war booming.
Get realistic about the disgraceful public scandal of our party leaders who hold a Catholic baptismal certificate, but preach immoral, non-Catholic views and promote anti-religious policies.
The “old” ways still work when possible - demonstrations outside and inside public political events, asking questions in person at town halls, writing in whatever form to media and candidates (Yes, writing to ALL regardless of which party), speaking up to all circles and groups, and being clear about moral issues in the midst of other chaos. We know what the old government did in promoting the Culture of Death. Let’s not make that deadly mistake again in this critical Time of Decision.
CHOOSE LIFE.
Fr. Tom Lynch (PFLC National President)