I spoke to a friend about John Horgan and the NDP calling an election a year early in an attempt to purloin the election by running in the political vacuum created by COVID-19 and before the negative effects, costs and consequences for the government and citizens of British Columbia from COVID-19 come home to roost.

I was surprised when he felt the reasons motivating John Horgan and the NDP in calling an early election for October 24, 2020 were not as important as having a government in place with a mandate to deal with those negative effects, costs and consequences from COVID-19, before they begin to come home to roost.

As opposed to having an election at a time when the negative effects, costs and consequences of COVID-19 on the economy and finances were or had manifested.

An election held before voters have any true appreciation or understanding of the nature and the scope of the negative costs, effects and consequences from COVID-19.

You cannot disrupt the economy as severely as was done in response to COVID-19 and not have negative economic and financial fallout. That the fallout will have a significant and painful impact on British Columbians is evidenced by John Horgan and the NDP’s rush to call an election a year early.

It says something about the nature of politics and election campaigns in recent decades that my friend used the word mandate.

Mandate: authorization to act in a particular way on a public issue given by the electorate to its representative.

In a democracy voters have the right to give direction to their government on matters of substance, such as the economic and financial fallout from COVID-19.

By choosing to run a year early, John Horgan and the NDP in effect chose to run before the negative effects, consequences and costs of COVID-19 begin to impact and intrude on the public’s awareness; therefore running before voters have a true appreciation or understanding of the nature and the scope of the negative costs, effects and consequences from COVID-19 and before voters would be able to give the government direction on addressing the fallout of COVID-19.

As a consequence John Horgan and the NDP have chosen to deny voters any ability to give the government effective direction on how to deal with the economic and financial fallout from COVID-19 thereby excluding dealing with the fallout of COVID-19 from their mandate. .

Should significant economic and financial fallout from COVID-19 occur and the nature and magnitude of the fallout be substantially different from that John Horgan and the NDP implied during the election and John Horgan and the NDP fail to call another election they would be refusing to get the consent of the governed for their actions and therefore could not claim to be a legitimate and democratically elected government.

I doubt the NDP are concerned about this because they know with voters wanting politics and issues to be black & white, neat, tidy and easy, voters would have no interest in another election.

More importantly the NDP are aware the difficult choices and realities involved in dealing with the effects, and the magnitude of the effects, of the fallout of COVID-19 are #1 on voters’ list of subjects they do not want to see, hear, think or talk about.

Voters’ consistently refuse to accept any responsibility for the government they get because “the politicians lied.”

While politicians may commit the occasional overt lie, it is seldom (if ever) a matter a consequence and usually arises as a result of ideology or ignorance.

Politicians’ lies of significance, magnitude or consequence are by omission, the issues and matters they don’t speak of at all or what they don’t speak of when addressing an issue or matter and are dictated by what voters want to be true or believe to be true; are in willful denial about; or don’t want to see, hear, think or talk about.

Voters have trained politicians to behave this way by consistently punishing any politician who raises issues or matters they do not want to see, hear or speak about by not voting for them and rewarding, voting for, those who avoid any realities voters wish to avoid or willfully ignore.

If you want to change politics or governance you have to begin with a change in your behaviour.

…. when we get lazy, when we fail to educate ourselves about the major issues of the day, we get bad government and politics.

BarackObama