by Robin Guard

It is written that there were these two senior civil servants who needed some fresh air and exercise, and arranged to spend a weekend helping a farmer of their acquaintance. Deciding that they needed to be shown what hard work was like, the farmer gave them a pair of manure forks and told them to muck out some stalls. He was astonished to find that they finished in a couple of hours and had done a great job. So to give them something less strenuous, he asked them to sort a barrel of apples into saleable and culls. He was even more astonished to find them at the end of the day sitting morosely by the barrel with almost nothing done. Asked what the problem was, they explained that in Ottawa they were perfectly used to dealing with bull, but were not accustomed to making decisions.

Although we enjoy dreadful jokes like this, in practice we generally respect the civil servants we actually know. But the poll tells us that we rate elected politicians near the bottom of the heap when it comes to trust. Bottom place is held by used car salesmen.

An organic magazine is no place to play party politics, but this is an important election year, and I have been trying to think out from first principles what I expect from government in the light of my philosophy as an organic farmer.

In the first place, I strongly agree with the views of economist J.K. Galbraith who in a recent book argues that with the threat of global warfare receding, what we need to watch is the manipulation of our lives by the great international corporations. It is they who promote the idea of a Global Marketplace, telling us that our work has little meaning if it does not involve selling things to the people who live at the far ends of the earth so that we may buy the things we need from them. They also tell us that in order to be competitive, we must make things cheaper, and the best way to do this is to use machines and eliminate expensive things like people from the workplace. But I would much rather see Canadians making as much as possible of what they need for themselves. And I am especially opposed to globalization when it comes to food. Of course there are some things we should import. I live in an area where bananas do not do at all well, and I am happy to see them in the local store. But I draw the line at free trade in what we can grow here, because it is good for neither my health nor my community. The big guys shop world-wide for the cheapest ingredients, ship them to giant "consolidated" factories in whichever country has the cheapest labor, and put on the supermarket shelves food that has travelled thousands of miles and is many months old. That is wrong, and it is inextricably bound up with politics. We can choose to say that we want our food to be grown locally, whether or not it can be bought more cheaply from another country.

The rising cost of health care is what puts the biggest strain on provincial finances. But I see people who choose to live exclusively on fast food, demanding as a right a heart transplant which costs the province an astronomical sum. Someone is floating the idea that there should be tax concessions for those of us who try to live healthy lives and do not make use of the services of doctors and hospitals. This is an idea I feel like fighting for politically.

But is there any hope for individuals and groups to get their ideas across? The whole democratic process is becoming increasingly corrupt. Last year in Britain the same party was returned to power yet again. It has now been revealed that two-thirds of the money they spent on their election campaign came from foreign donors (guess who) "with an interest in the success of the Conservatives". What distresses me most is not so much that people and corporations pay to have their friends elected, but that the voters almost always vote for the candidate or party that spend the most money. Here in Canada, a government which can push through plant and drug patent protection rights at least make no pretence about whose interests they serve.

So what should I do on election day? Many people simply drop out of the system altogether. They become self-sufficient homesteaders and have little to do with government, paying as little as possible in taxes and receiving as little as possible from medicare or the school system; so to them voting is irrelevant. The trouble with this choice is that it does require an acceptance of poverty, at least as it is conventionally defined. I have a professor friend who is on the lecture circuit and can earn more for one speech than I can earn in a year growing produce. These are the values of today's world.

Others may take the opposite approach, and join a party such as the Greens, and work like stink to get their ideas accepted at the political level. The trouble is that most voters seem to regard an election as a kind of horse race where you try to get your money on the winner. So you watch to see who spends the most on TV advertising and vote for them. Voting for a fringe party which represents what you believe in would "waste" a vote.

I don't understand why the media, and the voters, take such an interest in who the leader of the party is. Pollsters announce that if so-and-so were elected leader, more people would vote for that party. What difference does it make? If a party elects a leader who is younger and prettier, is that going to change the party's philosophy? Government is far too huge and complex to be influenced by one person. The leader really has only to look plausible and be good at remembering lines. I mean, you could probably get a retired actor to lead a country.