CBC has made available a ‘Vote Compass‘ that purports to help you figure out which leader and party most accurately represents your political position. While I’m not sure how much value this tool has, I was very pleased to see that in the section about the party leaders, I was asked both how trustworthy and competent I thought each leader was. I’m glad that this is being talked about, because it reflects my fundamental political philosophy – discussion about policies is useless without considering the competence and integrity of politicians.
On the matter of competence, an election campaign actually gives voters a chance to judge this first hand. Running a campaign is not identical to running a country, but many of the same skills are needed. To run a successful campaign, you have to be able to get a team of people to work together. You have to agree on a message and promote it through all available channels. You have to create and execute a strategy, you have to juggle competing priorities, you have to work with a budget, and you have to do all these things while others are actively competing with you.
So, how are the local candidates doing so far? I was disappointed yesterday to see how hard it was even to find out who our local candidates were, let alone any useful information about them. Are we doing any better today?
- The liberal candidate has a brief message commenting on the upcoming election, although this was posted four days ago.
- The NDP still doesn’t seem to have anything to say to the people of Barrie yet.
- The Green party is asking for money.
- The conservatives haven’t updated their website in several days. It’s not obvious looking at it that there’s a campaign in progress.
So, overall I’m disappointed. It’s been obvious for a week that an election was coming. I would have thought that any competent candidate would have had a personal message to the voter front and center on their website the moment parliament dissolved. Now is the chance to demonstrate your competence, folks! Update your blog, tell me about yourself, why I should vote for you, where you stand, what your experience is, and what you’ll be doing during this campaign!