Thanks for the tip.

  

In a rather patronizing op-ed in today's Globe, one Jason Brennan, an assistant professor of philosophy at Brown University, Providence, R.I., and author of The Ethics of Voting, exhorts Canucks to vote May 2. Because, Brennan says, "Despite having a seemingly never-ending stream of federal elections, Canada has one of the most successful and admirable democracies in the world. Still, there’s room for improvement. The better voters behave, the better Canada will be."

Well, thanks. Actually, we've had just seven PMs in the past three decades, about par for the course. Prominent among nations whose denizens are indeed poll-crazy, and revolving-door heads of government are the norm, are, I'd guess, Italy and Japan. (Above.)

Still, I promise to "behave." This year I might even have Gus accompany me to the polling place. And I can reassure Mr. Brennan that our next PM won't be selected by five high-court jurists. (No. 43 in the left-hand column above.)

 

 

Comments

[Darwin O'Connor]

The 2010 election for the US House of Representatives was the forth election in six years. So will the 2012 election and almost every other election for the US House of Representatives past and future.

[dolive]

Great point and hardly a role model. Members of Congress are basically up for re-election the moment they're elected. And so their preoccupation is with fundraising and especially with not casting a vote that might cost them votes. The whole Burkean thing of I'll vote in your best interests, that's what you pay me for, now leave me alone with your referenda and petitions goes out the window. So many U.S. pols are in election mode all the time, if one includes the senators and governors with presidential ambitions. And it's often said every U.S. senator is convinced he or she could do a better job than the incumbent.
But this idea that we've been having too many elections is nonsense. And considering what, relatively recently, Pearson was able to do entirely as a minority-government leader, does make you wonder if folks have even a smidgeon the historical sense you do.