Democracy - can we actually achieve it?

We consider democracy to be our holy grail, our flag that we wave to proclaim that we are enlightened and "have figured it all out". The unfortunate thing is that what I see occurring in our country today seems to be resembling democracy less and less each year.

We have a five party system - four of those parties resemble each other somewhat in terms of economic policies, social spending, and social policy. Of course they have major differences, but they are still closer to each other in ideology than any are to the fifth party. This was of course evidenced in the recent political debate where these four leaders essentially banded together in their attack on the policies (or lack thereof) of the fifth party.

Despite the fact that the most recent polls show that these four parties actually enjoy the support of 62% of the population, the fact is that the Conservatives (the "fifth party" described above) will likely win this election. Yes, the party that has the support of less than 40% of people in this country, will in a few days be "elected" to rule this country for four years.

Democracy?

Okay, so the above example is a flaw of our definition of what makes up a government, and a flaw in our riding system, our "first-past-the-post" system, etc. etc. So even if we change the system - can democracy actually exist in our country in any tangible way??

When I was going through medical school, we were taught that when talking to patients we must use a vocabulary equivalent to a grade 8 level, because this is what the average literacy and education level in our country has been shown to be. When the government publishes health-related literature they deliberately write it to a grade 5 or 6 level.

Clearly we are able to acknowledge that our education system is flawed in that we are churning out adults that have lower literacy (?and possibly lower critical thinking ability?) than that of our 10-13 year-old children.

How can democracy truly ever exist in such a scenario? How can someone with such a low education level possibly be able to sift through the nuances of political discourse? How can this person actually make an informed decision? After all, isn't democracy about informed choice? What is left then to sway voters is not any of things that make a good leader - it is not the leader's intelligence, it is not the leader's ideology, it is not the leader's ability to adopt useful models from other nations - simply put, it is how good the leader's marketing manager is.

We have turned our democratic process into a series of branding excercises - and he/she who can attract the best marketers in the business is more likely to win. So, you hire the GAP's branding team, and you rise 10% in the polls. You learn that wearing a sweater vest, kissing babies, and starting every sentence with "Let's be clear..." inspires confidence, and you win a majority government.

In this age of corporate messaging and branding, our children should surely receive some training in how to sift through these media messages and how to separate the truth from the image. If we truly believe in democracy, should we not also have available in schools courses on current issues that start from a young age? So that political awareness and critique of media messaging becomes ingrained from a young age, pushing out any space that apathy and intellectual vulnerability could take up.