More than half of Metro Vancouverites feel they have no influence on democracy, SFU survey

METRO VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) — Over the next two years, researchers at Simon Fraser University are delving into concerns many people in Metro Vancouver don’t feel they have much influence over government.

A survey by SFU’s Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue found that 52 per cent of Metro Vancouverites do not feel like they have influence on the democracy they live in. Further, 41 per cent of people feel voting does not necessarily “give them a say in how government runs things and two-thirds (65 per cent) think elected officials do not care what people like them think.”

However, 73 per cent of the surveyed still think it is still “very important” that Canada has a democracy as its key governing principle. Now, the researchers want to study how to re-engage Vancouver’s citizenry.

Robin Prest, acting executive director of the centre, says he’s worried the public’s disengagement with their governments may give rise to governments with authoritarian tendencies, though there is no imminent threat to democracy in Canada.

“More and more citizens are wondering what their role is and how they can be active citizens and really have an impact,” Prest tells NEWS 1130. “The more the public feels disengaged from its democracy, the more there is a risk of bad things happening within Canadian democracy. The resilience of our democracy decreases.”

He says the goal of the two-year initiative is to learn more about and combat this distrust and the decline in the public’s sense of not having an impact.

“Citizens really care about their country, they care about their democracy, but they are not sure what they can do to impact it, and they are not sure any more that the institutions of democracy are fully serving them,” Prest says.

Prest and his teams want to come up with a program to have people be fully involved with their democracy and to “have a virtuous affirmation to their role” in it, as opposed to feeling as if nobody is listening.

“How can we make sure that citizens are prepared to understand and defend their democracy where it’s important to them,” he explains about the tenets of the effort.

The study was done August 7 to 13 and sampled some 1,506 people in the Metro Vancouver region. Highlights of the survey are:

• 40 per cent said they had never taken part in many democratic activities
• 67 per cent pf people would not vote for a someone who attacks the media
• 24 per cent feel “it doesn’t really matter” if the government is democratic or believe authoritarianism is OK “in some circumstances”

 

— with files from Marcella Bernardo