IN OUR OPINION: Skeena-Bulkley Valley candidate Danny Nunes candidacy not funny

The candidacy of comedian Danny Nunes, a.k.a. the-man-in-the-bear-suit in the Skeena-Bulkley Valley riding of the 2019 Canadian federal election proves the power of our current democracy and what’s funny about it.

Winston Churchill is supposedly quoted as saying, “Democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.”

Nunes, a self-absorbed, self-promoting, democracy-denigrating, waste of time, was unfortunately a legal candidate to represent the hard-working men, women and children of Northwest B.C. at the national level.

Nunes, who has shown up in Freddy Krueger and Kool-Aid man costumes in this and previous elections, has plagued and reprehensibly attempted to diminish the importance of democratic elections all for self-aggrandizement.

But let’s face it, a comedian is now the president of the Ukraine, a wrestler and a bodybuilder-turned-actor were elected governors in the U.S. and, well, there is Donald Trump.

There are some either very stupid, disrespectful or severely disenfranchised people casting votes. Case in point, Nunes received 164 votes.

These votes are also a warning against proportional representation elections rather than first-past-the-post.

The best part of Canadian parliamentary first-past-the-post democracy is, in effect, a dilution of the vote that prevents the like of Nuneses of the world gaining real power.

Parliamentary first-past-the-post democracy is the antidote to the stupid, alt-left and alt-right of the country that proportional representation could potentially allow.

This is not to say all antidotes are successful — see Trump. But as Churchill said, it’s the worst form of government but better than all others tried.

Nunes was a waste of every minute, column inch and online post. But as a legal candidate, responsible local media outlets had an obligation to report on his candidacy — fairly, objectively and accurately, even if we were knowingly playing into Nunes’ little joke.

But the only thing funny about Nunes and his candidacy was: For a supposed comedian, he wasn’t very funny.

The Northern View

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