There are a lot of stories about the way that radical politics creep up on an unsuspecting population. The way that, after a series of small concessions, ideas that once would have been considered insane seem reasonable. High school teachers warn us about the possibility of this happening to us. Books and movies use thinly veiled Holocaust metaphors in everything from coming-of-age stories to post-apocalyptic action thrillers. Yet none of these sources explore the flip side of the equation: what happens when we don’t even grace an issue with our attention, never mind forming an opinion on it?
On a large scale, political alignment seems to be as strong as ever. Everyone seems to have an opinion on matters such as abortion, same-sex marriage, social spending, the military budget, and provincial and federal political leaders. But very few people have equally strong opinions on local issues such as municipal spending and student politics.
Of course, there are excuses: that it doesn’t really matter who’s in charge, since everything will be the same anyways; that local leaders don’t really have the power to make huge changes. But this isn’t even true on the scale of student politics. Take a look at the Kwantlen Student Association in recent years. First, one board allegedly embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars of student money, and then the following board’s members, dropped the lawsuit against the perpetrators, with whom they had personal connections. In a slightly less dramatic example, look at last summer’s SFU lockout. Whether or not you agree with the SFSS board’s actions, those actions were taken because the board was empowered to do so by the students who elected its members.
So, yes, it matters who’s running the SFSS, an organization that spends millions of student dollars every year. It matters that hundreds of dollars are going to be added to future student fees for the student union, whether or not you’ll still be attending SFU.
Ultimately, the reason there is so little participation in local politics is because there are no hot-button issues that can be simplified along party lines. In order to debate the issue, you have to know something about it. It’s easy to look at military spending overseas and conclude that Canada should be taking a peacekeeping role, or that Canada should boost its military spending to create a more active presence in world events, because these ideas exist more as abstract concepts than concrete reality. Local politics is nothing but reality. If Gregor Robertson had run his last campaign simply based on “Hope” and “Change,” he would have been laughed out of office. Local politics are important because they do not run solely on emotional appeals or nationalist dreams. Apathy is inexcusable. In years past, the SFSS Annual General Meeting was held in Convocation Mall, and the place was packed. I dare you to do half as well.
