Memo from Anne McGrath, National Campaign Director, “Canada’s New Democrats,” asking me to participate in a “survey.” Extracts:
Since just last week, more than 10,000 Canadians have taken this survey on the election and what to focus on moving forward.
Before we finalize our next steps, I’d like to know what you think.
The more we know about your priorities, the better we can help bring the change you want after a decade of Stephen Harper’s Conservatives.
What do you mean by “we,” Anne?
Anyway, a mere five minutes of my time is considered sufficient to let the NDP know what I think. I am asked to rank, on a scale of “Very Important” to “Not Important,” better health care, a more secure environment, affordable childcare, electoral reform, full-time job creation, and so on. The NDP agenda, in other words. Nothing wrong with it, I hasten to add.
I am then asked if there are additional issues to be added to the wish-list, and if I have any “other thoughts about the election.” “Other” is good. As though filling out this push-survey is thinking, in any serious sense of the word.
If I felt alienated from the Old Democratic Party after the election, this idiotic gesture finishes the job and ties an orange bow on it. The High Command, still very much in charge, is just running a plebiscite here: the “survey” is nothing more than a “Yes” ballot, a flabby attempt to gain further confirmation that it did nothing wrong.
What a patronizing gesture, what a flick of lordly contempt.
To be sure, the plebs are permitted to offer those “other thoughts.” But how will they be correlated and tabulated? More important, what consideration will they receive? How will they be fed into the onanistic deliberations of the committee of inquiry the High Command is presently conducting? They will have no more effect than those of phone-in callers on a talkshow.
The survey will sustain the High Command’s illusions until the report of the inquiry comes out in January. And the latter will find, I can guarantee, that no serious errors were made, and that, as a commenter here put it, the NDP, like the Toronto Maple Leafs, did really well in the second period.
Reflection? Self-criticism? Hey, that’s for losers.
