'Keep fighting' to build strong communities: Naheed Nenshi

Ideas53:59In Defence of Democracy: Naheed Nenshi

*Originally published on Dec. 9, 2022.
 

We've all heard it more times than we care to: that democracy is in trouble. Backsliding on the democratic ideal is now commonplace, and speeding up all over the world, including Canada.

That's why the Samara Centre for Democracy holds a public lecture each year called In Defence of Democracy — this year it was delivered by former Calgary mayor, Naheed Nenshi in November 2022 at the Toronto Public Library.

After his talk, IDEAS host, Nahlah Ayed, sat down with Nenshi to talk about the 

Nahlah Ayed: What I found myself thinking about throughout your speech, the one question that kept coming to me is, do you find it easier to be optimistic about our democracy now that you're outside of politics? 

Naheed Nenshi: No. Because when you're living it, you understand the nuance to it. You understand that some people are going to think this is a really dumb decision, but there are reasons behind it. And when you're outside and you're experiencing it the way others are experiencing it, you can see how it's easy for folks to be cynical.

Now, look, there are bad players. There are people who are there to watch the world burn. But the vast majority of people in public life just want to do good for their community. But then they find they might be stymied by the system. Some will complain that they were stymied by the media. They're stymied by the process. They're stymied by the other players. And this is what gets really difficult.

So I do recommend everyone read Tragedy in the Commons. The most shocking thing about Tragedy in the Commons is all these people went into Parliament wanting to do good and almost every one of them was disappointed when they came out feeling that they were not able to achieve what they wanted to achieve. 

The Samara Centre for Democracy, who during the 2021 federal election in Canada, conducted research into the toxic messages that politicians were getting on Twitter. It monitored over 2.5 million tweets in a period of five weeks that were sent to the accounts of 300 political candidates. I don't have to tell you this. This is a reality you lived. So, nearly 150,000 contained sexually explicit content. Over 200,000 featured profanity.

What impact does that kind of thing have on the quality and the current makeup of the political class that rules this country? Are we getting the right people in those roles? 

Let me say something super controversial because everyone's going to expect me to say it scares people off, which it does. But the people who are left are strong. So when you look at my successor as mayor of Calgary, she has to deal with crap that I never had to deal with. She's a very strong woman of colour. So take what I had to deal with and, for women in politics, multiply it by a million. I never got sexually threatening messages. But she's so good and she's so strong, she's able to go beyond that. But you know what? She shouldn't have to. My last note to her was, you don't need anybody to fight your battles for you, you're stronger than I am, but I'm happy to punch people in the throat for you if you want. And she replied, saying, 'I can do my own punching.' So that's part of it.

I got into politics because I was — believe it or not — trying to convince more diverse people and particularly more women to be involved in municipal politics. I spent a year and a half going for lunches and dinners with people trying to convince them to run in the upcoming municipal election. I struck out every single time. And women in particular would say to me, 'it's divisive, it's angry. I don't see a place for myself.' But then they would ask me simple questions that no man has ever asked me who's interested in running for politics, which is, 'can I pick my kids up from school?' And the answer is actually, 'yeah, it's a pretty flexible job, except if you're in Parliament or you're in a council meeting.' We would never think to advertise that to people. And so part of that is systemic. Part of it is deep. But you're right, part of it has gotten much, much worse. 

You have to be able to remember one thing: to this day, a year after being out of politics, I can walk down the street in Toronto, I can walk down the street in Calgary, and the single most common thing anyone says to me is thank you for your service. Thank you for what you did. And my favourite thing to hear is if someone says, 'I really disagree with that decision you made but I understand why you made it.' And the vast majority of people are like that. Somehow you have to be able to focus on that and not the divisiveness. But those people also have to feel like they belong in the system, that they want to vote, that they want to be engaged, that they don't feel crowded out by the angry, loud voices. 

But that toxicity doesn't just affect the choice of politician or, as you say, their resilience or their ability to remain in the system. But it also affects the process and it affects us as voters. And so Maria Ressa, the Nobel laureate, the Philippines journalist recently on our stage — she's also an optimist like you — she said that 'we are in the last two minutes of democracy.' 

Wow. 

"That with about 30 elections to be held in the next two years, under the thickening cloud of disinformation and with fewer and fewer people living truly in democracies, democratic societies, we are entering a firmly authoritarian era." What's the evidence to the contrary in your mind? 

No, she's right. And it's something that you're seeing around the world. But the difference is whether people — citizens around the world — value it enough. I read on Twitter ironically recently someone who said the mistake that most thinkers make is they think people care about democracy, whereas many people would say, 'hey, if I could have cheaper rents or lower taxes, a little authoritarianism might be okay.' And so this is really the issue. It is really about igniting the spark in people to understand that the community is in their own hands and they have the ability to change it.

But all sides of the political debates, there's an opportunity that's being squandered, which is to appeal to people's better selves instead of to their pettiness. So, you know, I'll give you an example. In the last election in the province of Quebec, there was actually very little opposition to the blatantly unconstitutional and racist bills that we have seen coming out of that province. Because surveys show that 70 per cent of people are in favour of banning religious garb for public sector workers. And so politicians are too scared. We have a national party leader who wears a turban who himself could not be a judge in Quebec and yet won't speak out strongly against this. People are too scared. You know, I'll tell you what, if my experience proves anything, it's that really long winded politicians can still be successful. But if it proves anything else, it proves that when you can help people appeal to who they want to be, you can be successful. And I guarantee you one thing: if we had one politician in Quebec in this last election who had spoken out for the basic human dignity of people, they would have won. 

I think if we reach out to people and say, you want to live in a community where your kids have more opportunities than you had. You want to live in a community that is prosperous — and I use the word prosperity rather than wealth. You want to live in a community where we look after our land, air and water. People don't disagree on those things. We disagree on the means of how to get there. But we have to remind people that ultimately my neighbour's strength is my strength, my neighbour's success is my success. Those are the first words of Calgary's anti-poverty strategy.

But it also means the corollary is also true. My neighbour's failure is my failure. And we have to be able to come back to that. And it doesn't matter whether you're right-wing or left-wing, it doesn't even matter whether you believe in mask mandates or you believe COVID is a real thing. What really matters is do you want to live in a society where people are healthy? You want to live in a society where people can grow old in a way where they still have dignity. And I think that we need to appeal much more to that. 

*Q&A edited for length and clarity.This episode was produced by Naheed Mustafa.