Raise the Hammer

"The level of citizen engagement in our democratic society has dropped to dangerously low levels. The federal election of October 2008 saw a turnout of 58.8% of eligible voters, the lowest participation rate since Confederation, resulting in the second Harper minority government."

A study of these numbers from Simon Fraser University notes: "Unfortunately, there are some fundamental problems when one tries to compare voter turnout over long periods of time. Because "turnout" is simply the percentage of the people on a list of eligible voters who actually vote, the reliability of that measure depends entirely on the accuracy of the list of eligible voters." At Confederation, 11.2% of the population was eligible to vote; by the 2004 election, electors made up 74.9% of the population – and yet in absolute numbers, the 2004 election was about a half-million votes shy of the 2008 tally. Civic engagement is a moving target.

http://www.sfu.ca/~aheard/elections/historical-turnout.html

Examining votes cast as a percentage of the Canadian population, rather than as a percentage of registered voters, the average of 1953-1968 electoral turnout was 42.58%, lowest in 1953 (40.7%), 1957 (41.6%) and 1968 (41.1%) – that compared to the 2008 election’s 42.0%.

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Time will tell if the focus on a five-year "culture of entitlement" has helped dispel memories of the previous dozen years of breathtaking exceptionalism - marked with sensational turmoil, palm-greasing and back-scratching: the Radwanski audit, the Gomery Commission, the HRDC scandal, the EI scandal, Challenger Jets/Sea King scandals, the Gun Registry, the lobbyist culture (eg. funding the pro-Gun Registry group Coalition for Gun Control, drafting lobbyists into the PMO), the Canada Steamship Lines scandal, the tainted blood scandal, massively slashed health care transfers, tax cuts to the rich and corporations...

http://www.rabble.ca/news/paul-martin-he-has-record