{"id":2084,"date":"2013-05-14T18:03:59","date_gmt":"2013-05-14T22:03:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=2084"},"modified":"2013-05-21T15:59:03","modified_gmt":"2013-05-21T19:59:03","slug":"politics-as-usual","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/politics-as-usual\/","title":{"rendered":"POLITICS AS USUAL"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Alison Collins-Mrakas<\/strong><\/p>\n

I am writing this column very early on a rather dreary Saturday morning.<\/p>\n

After nearly 10 days of glorious sunshine and warm days, it is a bit of a letdown to return to cold wet and gray, and I fear it has affected my mood and hence my topic of discussion this week. <\/p>\n

I am gloomy and glum of countenance and frame of mind. And reading the national newspapers this morning, of course, did not help. Scandal. Disasters. Tragedy. Even the full page story on famous mothers had an entire section devoted to examples of \u201cbad mothers\u201d both real and fictional. Sigh. Couldn\u2019t there be one story with an entirely positive focus? Can\u2019t we even leave mum alone? On Mother\u2019s day?<\/p>\n

As an aside, I wish our major newspapers would take a page out of the books of local papers, such as The Auroran, that make a sincere effort to report the good along with the bad and\/or salacious or at least affect a balance of sorts. Unrelenting reports of misery and despair are not the only form of news that the populace requires \u2013a few \u201cfeel good\u201d stories would be appreciated once in a while. <\/p>\n

I would think we are well past the \u201cif it bleeds it leads\u201d style of journalism. But perhaps that is mere na\u00efvet\u00e9 on my part. Prurient interest in calamity and tragedy does seem to prevail. As does a kind of collective sense of schadenfreude \u2013 or joy in the misfortune of others. Why else are we constantly bombarded with stories of \u201cfallen\u201d movie stars, and leaders? <\/p>\n

Nowhere is this more pronounced than in the political realm. <\/p>\n

Reporters seem to relish in uncovering the peccadilloes \u2013 small and large \u2013 of our political leaders and splashing them across our TV screens and newspapers. I don\u2019t think you\u2019d be able to find one paper, anywhere, on even one day that is completely devoid of stories of political shenanigans. <\/p>\n

Allegations get front page, the more scandalous the better. Retractions or findings of innocence \u2013 if they are reported at all \u2013 are relegated to a back page of course. They\u2019ve already moved on to the next scandal.<\/p>\n

My heart does not bleed for our political leaders, though, as they do themselves no favours, of course. <\/p>\n

As I have stated previously, they are a much maligned lot, and justifiably so for the most part. Case in point – a quick scan of the papers this past week revealed reports of an ongoing Conflict of Interest case, potential fraud allegations against members of the Senate, kick backs to local mayors and councillors and an arrest of a former mayor on charges of gangsterism! I had never even heard of that charge before, and certainly not used in the context of a politician. <\/p>\n

The former mayor of Laval has been charged with (allegedly) using intimidation and violence to achieve his goals \u2013 which apparently was to get more money.<\/p>\n

But our political leaders don\u2019t really need the assistance of the media to do damage to themselves, they are quite adept at doing it all by themselves. For example, the seemingly unending cavalcade of nasty, negative ads that lower the public\u2019s estimation of politicians to near rock- bottom levels. <\/p>\n

The pundits say that negative political ads work \u2013 and I would assume that they must, or they wouldn\u2019t bother wasting millions of campaign dollars in their creation. They don\u2019t always work of course. The recent ads about newly crowned Liberal leader Justin Trudeau have created a bit of a backlash and most famously, the ad that seemed to mock Jean Chretien\u2019s partial facial paralysis backfired colossally, arguably handing the federal Liberals an electoral victory.<\/p>\n

Nasty attack ads and negative news stories have shaken the general public\u2019s confidence in those who govern and their ability to govern responsibly. If electoral participation rates are any indication \u2013 just 30 plus percent in our most recent municipal election for example \u2013 the public has become disenchanted and thus disengaged.<\/p>\n

This downward trend in public participation in the political process needs to change. But for that to happen, we need to have renewed faith in our political leaders; that they will do the right thing, for the right reason. <\/p>\n

Recently, Aurora\u2019s Council did the right thing for the right reason \u2013 and issued a public apology to the three residents named in an unsuccessful $6 million lawsuit. It was a right step forward, and to borrow from Councillor Thompson, it was an important decision that reflected a belief in \u201c\u2026accountability, responsibility and being an agent for change.\u201d
\nIt is unfortunate that it was not a unanimous decision, but it is a positive decision none the less. <\/p>\n

Let\u2019s hope that in this, the last year to year and a half of their term, the Council will be the positive agents of change that they were elected to be and as a consequence re- engage the residents they serve. It\u2019s in all our best interests.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s it for this week. Until next week, stay informed, stay involved because this is after all, Our Town.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Alison Collins-Mrakas I am writing this column very early on a rather dreary Saturday morning. After nearly 10 days of glorious sunshine and warm days, it is a bit of a letdown to return to cold wet and gray, and I fear it has affected my mood and hence my topic of discussion this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-xC","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-05 03:31:11","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2084\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}