There are several major disconcerting political myths in Canada concerning the New Democratic Party.
In my 45 years living in Canada, I have been amazed at the proliferation of inaccurate myths directed at the NDP, both provincially and federally. What is even more amazing is the fact that very few pundits or political writers have taken it upon themselves to expose these myths.
Much like the United States, we know that most media outlets, whether they be radio, TV or newspapers, are controlled by a handful of large corporate outlets. Although many editors will claim that they simply report the news; it is obvious that this is far from the truth.
Why is it that the same, tired old myths of "NDP’rs cannot even run the corner grocery store,’ or "whenever NDP governments get elected, the economy takes a dive,” and "NDP governments are poor money managers" etc. etc. Facts prove that this is all hogwash.
Even the Federal Finance Department has stated on countless occasions, that the best run financial records from across Canada have proven to be Provincial NDP administrations.
We are not just talking about Tommy Douglas’ governments in Saskatchewan, where he perfected financial "miracles" after inheriting horrendous messes from the Conservatives.
We are also talking about more recent governments in Manitoba, British Columbia and YES, even in Ontario.
These media outlets did a wonderful job of clouding the NDP record in Ontario from the 1990's. They misrepresented and distorted everything that happened to the point that many ill-informed pundits still refer to the " financial mess" of the Ontario NDP government. The facts state these misrepresentations are simply untrue.
In a so-called "democratic" society where less than half of the people get out to vote (17% in Chilliwack in the last municipal), it is apparently easy to manipulate the electorate into believing anything.
Half of the people are too lazy to bother to vote. The other half can be brainwashed by distorted facts, simple lies and manipulated facts.
A case in point is the last provincial election in British Columbia, where Adrian Dix was destroyed by outright lies and distortions.
The people fell for this crap.
Instead of being poor money-managers, the NDP across Canada has proven itself to be the very best financial manager that this country has ever seen.
I'm waiting for the day when some of our media outlets report the truth and stop being lackies for corporations that have a direct interest in seeing to it that the NDP is not elected.
As a local city councillor for years in Ontario, the very first thing that we learned was that "Conflict of Interest Legislation" prevented us from participation on issues that could directly benefit us financially.
Yet, you now have many, many examples where conflict of interests arise that benefit media outlets in their "reporting" of "fair" political happenings.
It is long overdue that the voter becomes more aware of the corrupted reporting of NDP affairs and comes to realize that these myths about the NDP are just that — myths.