I’ve been following current affairs in Canada in recent months, and I am continually impressed at the civility of public discourse up there, and at the quality of the judgement of governing officials. Today Canadians are going to the polls to cast a their vote in their 40th federal election.

I think one important thing is that people do not vote directly for the prime minister, as we vote for our president in the usa. The party with the most members in parliament appoints the prime minister (invariably this will be the leader of that party). The problem is that at election time, federal issues are often an abstraction to people. It’s unusual for people to feel like they have “skin in the game” (This 2008 usa election between Obama and McCain is an exception to that). And when there’s an abstraction, there is room for a third party (the mass media) to come in and “spin” the issues; in other words, they can create a narrative about things… which plays on people’s passions and guides them in how to vote.

We had the same problem with all these investment banks in recent years - AIG, Lehmann Brothers, Bear Stearns, etcetera. The shareholders owned those companies and had ultimate control over their direction. However, all the dealings of those companies were made into abstractions - mathematicians were hired to draw up very complex schemes of risk management. And because of that lack of transparency, the shareholders were at the mercy of whoever wanted to create the narrative about the health of those companies. And the shareholders consequently lost their shirts when the companies went under.

In Canada, people only vote for their representative to the federal parliament. And there really isn’t a way for any local publication or television station to make the citizens of that community believe an absurd and offbase narrative about the events in that town or city or county. People are living there day to day, and sure they’re curious about the specifics of what’s going on, and about causes and effects which pertain to events and trends in their community. But you can’t snow them. They see the town in front of them daily, as they go about their lives.

It’s interesting that the residents of Washington DC are immune to the spin of the mass media in the usa. They always see things more clearly. Unfortunately, those folks don’t even get to appoint a voting member to congress.