The notion that you catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar seems to have informed Stephen Harper’s latest masterplan for trapping Canadian voters. The plan’s goal, according to a recent article in the Globe and Mail, is to increase the party’s links with religious and ethnic minorities in Canada through an “ethnic outreach team,” which will presumably be supplying the honey.
The fly-honey analogy is particularly fitting to Harper’s attempt at reaching out to “ethnic voters.” The prime minister’s team sent out “happy new year” greeting cards to the Thornhill Jewish community for Rosh Hashanah, the holiday in which apples dipped in honey symbolize the sweetness of the coming year. This tactic is in line with the team’s strategy, which consists of targeted, one-on-one meetings at “major ethnic events,” and the creation of a large database of new Canadians.
But as any child knows, too many sweets can leave you with a bad taste in your mouth, and the same is true of Harper’s ethnic outreach campaign, for two reasons. First, because it is inherently discriminatory, and second, because it distracts voters from core issues by appealing to their feelings.
One obvious problem with the campaign is that it is inherently discriminatory. The fact that there is a subcommittee aimed specifically at the “ethnics” in Canadian society betrays the Conservative Party’s belief that there are Canadians and then there are “ethnic Canadians,” suggesting that Jews and other minorities have not really integrated into the country, which is far from the case.
Furthermore, by appealing to the specific needs of a minority group rather than the collective needs of the country, the ethnic outreach campaign ignores the federal government’s reason for existence: the betterment of society at large. Any strategies it carries out ought not to address specific demographics but rather the collective citizenry.
The second major problem with the campaign is that it distracts voters from the core issues by appealing to their feelings. The significance of this problem has been evident since the earliest political societies. In Plato’s dialogue Gorgias, Socrates says that pastries seem to do the work of medicine but do not make us healthy, and cosmetics seems to do the work of exercise but does not make us fit; so political sophistry seems to do the work of legislation but does not make society just. Should our prime minister be trying to woo voters with holiday cards, or with convincing policies?
Harper is appealing to people’s emotions and flattering them by targeting their cultural identities, but is not telling voters anything useful. He’s not helping them make decisions about which party would make better leaders.
Politics ought to be about engaged critical debate surrounding the core issues, not about whether the politician in power or running makes you feel good about yourself.
Fortunately, Canadians are smarter than Harper thinks. Likely few will be swayed by his ridiculous political games, and most citizens will pay attention to something more substantial, like how he governs.
