By Emily Stonehouse
Nearly every Canadian would recognize Steve Paikin. His face has graced the screens of CBC and TVO for decades, and he was the moderator of the English debate during the last federal election, and many before that.
His life is deeply entwined with Canadian politics. He lives and breathes for the past, present, and future of political changemakers.
When he spoke to a sold-out room last Thursday at the Pinestone, he spent over two hours discussing politics to an audience who hung on his every word.
It was politics, but it wasn’t political.
As I drove away from the venue; a new sense of journalistic integrity and a spark for committing to sharing local news stories, I realized that I had no idea what his own political leanings are.
And that’s rare.
We live in a world where politics is pigeonholed and brought to the table in many contexts. And while there is tremendous value to unpacking the propagandistic tendencies of political leanings, perhaps it adds a label to an individual not necessarily warranted.
I have been accused of taking a left-wing stance in many of my editorials; adding accountability and blame to the Conservative side of things.
But that’s because locally, they’re the ones in power. And I haven’t been happy with what I’ve been seeing. Many aren’t. I don’t agree with the actions of Doug Ford, with the priorities of the Conservative Party, with the direction they are taking our province, and the future of our people.
And I strongly disagree with parties who lean even further to the right, mitigating human rights and peppering their platforms with hoaxes and conspiracies.
But I realized during the Paikin talk, that if the roles of power were reversed, I’d likely have things to say about those parties in power as well – even if they had left-leaning tendencies, which have traditionally been more aligned with my personal beliefs.
And that got me thinking about the people behind the politics. We add names and party colours to people in an effort to create a sense of structure and organization to a world that would otherwise be murky.
But perhaps identifying those parties and waving those flags is keeping us on this streamlined path of dichotomization. A clear cut red or blue, black or white.
Paikin stood up to talk about the people behind the politics, without adding his own weight to it. He didn’t need to. And while I strongly support standing up for what you believe in with conviction and purpose, I wonder if sometimes we get lost in the colours.
This is why municipal elections are so important. The party colours are absent, and in their place, stands one solo person. One individual not tied to an organized framework of thought, but rather, core beliefs and a thrum of passion to make this community a better place to live.
When we take a step back and take off our political 3D glasses; lenses that show only blue and red, we need to look at the people behind the politics, behind the parties, and take into consideration who puts other people first.
It’s not red, blue, green or orange. Values and priorities and missions and passions can weave and wander and traipse and turn throughout all colours of the spectrum.
