Comprehending how a benign issue can rile up voters into a furious frenzy while meaningful problems hardly elicit even the mildest reaction is rather perplexing.
The federal Opposition has recently been crying foul over a proposed change to Canada's national anthem. Many supporters have rallied behind the call, expressing outrage.
Upon first hearing about the “issue”, I admittedly was curious to know how much the Liberals' proposed change actually altered the song. Judging by the vehement vitriol expressed by many Conservative supporters on the party's social media presence, one might be led to believe O Canada could potentially be completely rewritten word for word.
As it turns out, however, the change is merely to reflect the new millennium by updating the line “in all thy sons command” to “in all of us command”. The proposed change doesn't even affect the flow or rhythm of the anthem. For that matter, it barely even sounds any different.
Nevertheless, it's apparently enough to warrant devoting time and energy fighting against.
Yet when it comes to actually egregious problems like, for example, telecommunication corporations gouging consumers with outrageous charges for data under completely bogus pretences, there's nary a peep to be heard.
“If you actually caught a technologist from a broadband provider, rather than a business person or lobbyist, they'd quietly admit that there was no congestion problem, and that basic upgrades and network maintenance could easily deal with the growth in usage. But, of course, that took away the broadband providers' chief reason for crying about how they ‘need' data caps,” reads an article on techdirt.com, which already dates back to 2013.
“The reality, of course, is that data caps are all about increasing revenue for broadband providers — in a market that is already quite profitable. But if they can hide behind the claims that they need to do this to deal with congestion, they can justify it to regulators and (they hope) the public.”
So it's not even news anymore that data caps imposed by telecoms are nothing more than flagrant highway robbery.
Meanwhile, some voters would rather make a fuss over a nearly imperceptible change in the anthem.
Getting worked up and dedicating any amount of effort over an “issue” that really doesn't affect anyone to any meaningful degree while remaining utterly passive over an actual issue that affects us all — regardless of our political or ideological leanings — makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
To be fair, very few voters of any political stripe seem to righteously be making any waves over the extent to which telecommunications companies are taking advantage of us. And the simple fact is there is no politician in the world who will champion an issue that voters aren't being vocal about. So we can't blame government inaction on the matter since voters have not even made it an issue.
As long as people rally around non-issues, politicians will gladly play along to appease their voters. But if Canadians are more concerned about “issues” like the proposal to update a couple of words in our anthem than they are about the egregious practices of telecommunications companies, nothing will change.
