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Editorial: Making our voices heard

Canadians are notoriously complacent and deferential toward those in positions of power.

Canadians are notoriously complacent and deferential toward those in positions of power. No matter how our political leaders and corporate bigwigs annoy us, we rarely do more than write a letter to the editor or carry a home-made sign at a brief demonstration.

But every so often, we are roused to un-Canadian fits of outrage that shiver the foundations of our legislatures and shake the walls of head offices.

Last week, Canadians jolted MPs and CEOs with their reaction to news that banking giant RBC was bringing foreign workers to learn its IT systems, then dumping the Canadian workers who trained them. After a couple of stumbling attempts at denial and half-hearted apology, RBC delivered full-page mea culpas in newspapers across the country.

The swiftness and success of the protests were reminiscent of reaction to the B.C. Liberal introduction of the harmonized sales tax. So fierce was the anger that premier Gordon Campbell stepped down, and former Social Credit premier Bill Vander Zalm rose from the political grave to orchestrate a campaign for a provincewide referendum.

For good or ill, B.C. taxpayers voted down the tax, and at the beginning of this month, it disappeared to make way for the return of the provincial sales tax and the goods and services tax.

Setting fiscal policy by referendum is a bad idea, but the uncharacteristically intemperate reaction of B.C. voters shows what is possible when the outrage of massed voters is focused on a goal.

Sir Thomas More said of Henry VIII: “If the lion knew his own strength, hard were it for any man to rule him.” The same could be said of voters.

Two incidents do not make a trend, but Canadians can learn from them. We don’t have to wait for elections to make our strength felt. When we see things that need changing, we can throw off the habit of deference and make the powerful listen to us.