Get involved: join a political party - Online

I have an editorial up on Xtra.ca today, which talks about how getting involved in a political party at a grassroots level is one of the ways in which we can help get people engaged in the political process once again. The more I've been involved in covering the political beat, and the more I study about politics as a result, the more I'm convinced that it's not our system of democracy that's actually broken, the way most of the chattering classes insist, but rather, we've simply forgotten how the system works. Party membership is one of those ways in which we've forgotten. In fact, during the last election, during the one "all-candidates debate" that I attended (where one of the candidates declined to attend), Liberal candidate Penny Collenette suggested to one of the more vocal members of the community that she join a party - not necessarily Collenette's - but any party in order to see that her issue was being addressed.  And that sparked part of my idea for this column.

This editorial ties in nicely with my new political blog, and is in fact designed to be that, from the header picture, to the "Hill Queeries" subtitle, to the nice big graphic advert for the blog in the middle of the piece. I'm hoping it's a message that my readers will take to heart.