Why are many Canadians more interested in US politics?
Posted August 5, 2015 4:22 pm.
Last Updated August 5, 2015 4:24 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – It seems many people are more interested in US presidential politics over our own federal election.
University of the Fraser Valley Political Scientist Hamish Telford says there are three main reasons for that.
One is the difference in systems is the fact that Canadians vote for MPs and Americans can vote for an actual person who may become president.
The other two are the amount of money going into elections there and the role that media plays.
“Even though we have our 24 hour news networks here, they don’t have the same level of prominence as a Fox News or a CNN does in the United States. They have a lot of airtime to fill in this is cheap entertainment from their perspective.”
Telford says people running for president have much more freedom to speak their mind.
“We’ve got Donald Trump making a lot of headlines and being seriously mocked by John Stewart every night and that makes for a spectacle. I just saw a clip on the news of Ted Cruz making bacon on the end of a machine gun, how can you not talk about that?”
He says Canadian candidates are very much bound by party discipline and the perception can be that our elections are a bit boring.
