The Effective Citizen: How to Make Politicians Work for You by Graham Steele

Author:Graham Steele [Steele, Graham]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Canadian, Politics, Political Science, World
ISBN: 9781771085311
Google: 37k5swEACAAJ
Goodreads: 35873492
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing
Published: 2017-01-15T08:28:15+00:00

Reverse the Onus

A politician says, “Please put it in writing,” and it sounds like they’re interested. But it means nothing. It really means, “I’m tired of talking with you.”

The politician knows that most people will not put something in writing. And if they do put it in writing, it gets thrown onto a slow, bureaucratic conveyor belt for response.

Reversing the onus is not always a bad thing. Sometimes people would come to me and allege criminal behaviour on someone’s part. To me, a lawyer, it is quite something to allege that someone is engaged in criminal wrongdoing. It is almost always exaggerated. It is meant as a figure of speech — he’s a criminal because I really don’t like what the politician is doing — and not an allegation of an actual crime.

So I would deal with it by reversing the onus. I would say, “If you really believe that someone has broken the law, don’t bring it to me, take it to the police.” Or I would say, “I’m not a police officer. I don’t have the means to investigate what you’re alleging. If you have evidence of a criminal act, take that evidence to the police.” Of course they never would.

It’s worth remembering that politicians aren’t the only people who act badly. Some citizens do too, and politicians’ rhetorical techniques are partly designed to fend off the bad actors.

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