Ontario Premier Doug Ford lashed out Wednesday against “terrible, bleeding-heart” judges who he claimed are blocking the government’s agenda, musing that perhaps judges in Ontario should be elected so that they are more responsive to public sentiment.
Also how many elected officials are actually good at their job? Why do we want more…?
It’s the case that the entire premise of popular elections is kind of flawed system. Actual leadership and technical aptitude and the ability to play to a crowd are not really the same skills at all but we treat them like they are. It is a way to select someone who will make a bunch of promises that give them popular directives… But they aren’t beholden to those promises at all.
Having a balance between groups which are hired and fired based on their technical ability to follow the directives and achieve the objectives set by elected bodies is crucial. That they persist through different governments means a continuity of service and the ability to commit to long term planning.
Honestly what most people don’t seem to get is that any actual improvement made by a government takes almost a decade to pay off. Half the time they are dissatisfied with “broken promises” it is that those initiatives haven’t had time to work because elections aren’t that far apart. There’s a certain amount of technical fleshing out, research before the fact, wrangling of contracts and trial and error in execution before anything does what it’s supposed to do which often means an elected party is praised or damned by the actions of their predecessors.
I know you just meant public servants and I agree, but at the same time I would like to see staff-elected people in most workplace leadership positions. I think it’s worth bringing up here that it would do a lot of good to have democracy and employee ownership within more organizations.