We are seeing a trend across the country of Conservative candidates (and other parties) intentionally opting out of local debates.
We saw this in our riding a couple weeks ago with the Conservative's Ellis Ross not being at the Terrace debate. The Liberal's Inderpal Dhillon and the Green's Adeana Young also did not attend. Ross and Dhillon claimed to be busy visiting other communities or constituents. It seems Ross responded to local pressure to attend the rest of the debates, which is good news.
Of course, some candidates are working with a smaller budget for travel in this huge, beautiful riding, but it's also 2025 — I think debate organizers should use video conferencing to include candidates who cannot attend in person due to legitimate reasons.
Some claim that politicians avoiding the media is justified by the desire to avoid media twisting stories with biases. But rather than losing faith in the potential for the media to get the story right, we need to understand the risks of politicians relying on social media to communicate with the public. The way forward is to address the root causes of biases in journalism, but first and foremost, politicians need to continue to show up for public questioning.
I agree that biases (towards both the left and the right, depending on the source) are important to be aware of. We should make an intentional effort to take in information from both/many sides. Biases in the media are often linked to polarization as a symptom of our shared, collective trauma. Biases don't come from thin air, they live inside us, the people too.
That being said, I think if politicians aim to bypass biases in the media and "tell their own story through social media," this risks much more than it has the potential to gain.
It keeps them from being accountable to public questioning, filters the information the public gets to know about their aims, reduces equal comparison of platforms side by side and further contributes to political polarization through information bubbles produced by social media feeds. It also shows that they are not making time to listen to the public (which is the job). There is a direct negative effect on the functioning of our democracy.
It likely means that candidates have more control over which campaign issues are focused on, and we get less opportunity to voice our wishes and hear their responses directly.
We the people should be guiding the ship here. I agree that biases need attention, but externalizing the problem to only reporters and journalists, not within us, misses a great opportunity for societal learning and growth as a community, biases and all.
No matter what party we each support, I encourage us all to hold our politicians accountable for showing up to answer questions directly in public. We can support our politicians to be accountable by being kind with them, owning our individual internal reactions and being clear about what we want from them. We the people can apply our power to see through distorted stories and call for alignment with democratic principles, with kindness and strength.
Bhavani Britt McDougall
Terrace, B.C.
