With the Canadian federal election coming up on October 19th, there’s been no shortage of political advertisements, both from the parties themselves and from community members and organizations. In particular, Canada has seen the emergence of a strong anti-Harper movement, with organizations and individuals telling us not who to vote for, but rather who not to vote for. One of the most prominent of these campaigns is by the website Shit Harper Did (SHD), which just yesterday released a comedic documentary called Whoa Canada which uses the stories of various individuals, among other tools, to discuss “Canada’s surveillance programs in an era of climate change,” according to their facebook event page.

The documentary highlights a number of personal narratives: the story of a relative of one of the film makers in the Philippines who lost her home because of climate change, an indigenous woman introduced as “a woman who cares about kids” who was subject to lengthy and elaborate government surveillance, another indigenous woman speaking about her experience in a residential school, and a man who fled political persecution in Zimbabwe only to be arrested in Canada for participating in a peaceful protest.

These narratives are what kept my attention when watching Whoa Canada. Though advertised as a comedic documentary, comedy was never used when telling these stories. They were meant to evoke sympathy, not laughter.

The power of life narratives is not only used by SHD. I decided to look through the Conservative party website and came across a page with the pictures and short bios of all Conservative candidates. Most bios included the mention of how many kids they had, where they grew up, and other information that had little to do with politics.

Life narratives appear everywhere, even in conversations about the upcoming election and who to vote for. When a visit to a party website tells you that the Conservative candidate for your riding is the mother of three and went to the same high school you graduated from, does that humanize her? Does it make you more likely to vote for her? I’d argue that it does, in the same way that watching a documentary about people who tell you how negatively a certain political party (or person) has affected their lives makes you less likely to vote for that party.

Who wins an election has to do with much more than who tells the most resonant or sympathetic story, but it is clear that even in politics names and faces carry a great deal of power, and that this power is being utilized in a variety of different ways. How much these narratives effect who we support and who we vote for, I don’t know, but I would like to find out.

In a Chapters bookstore, under the title “Heather’s Picks” on a table at the front of the store, is where I found Chris Hadfield’s An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth. 

You can’t tell from far away, but the astronaut on the front cover is riding a skateboard. Flipping the book over, the words the pop out on the back cover are “inspiring” and “make your dreams come true.”

Recalling the conversation we had in class about the young adult edition of I Am Malala, I remembered a comment about the use of the phrase “change the world” to appeal to a younger audience. An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth at first appears to have the same sort of appeal, but a quick glance at the first couple of pages proves otherwise; the language is hardly kid-friendly. This is not a book written for children, so why such a cover?

It’s possible that the book was designed this way to encourage recollection of the reader’s own childhoods, of wanting to be an astronaut or some other “dream” that they couldn’t realize. It seems to be created as to appeal to a wide range of people, with reviews from all the big names like the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail, Kirkland Review and the New York Times.

The content itself, judging from the back cover, the blurb and reviews on Amazon, seems to align with the values of society: hard work, perseverance, and following your dreams. The word “Canadian” comes up a lot as well, perhaps to create a  sense of nationalism in the reader who can feel proud to be Canadian too.

Hadfield’s memoir seems to be marketed to the “average Canadian.” It doesn’t appear to touch on controversial topics, or engage compassion or sympathy. Instead it tells the story of an ordinary person who managed to accomplish something out of the ordinary, showing the reader that he, too, can follow his dreams… Provided he isn’t an asylum seeker trying to escape persecution, that is.

I found it interesting, considering some of the turmoil going on in the world right now, that this narrative was brought to the front of the store and that, according to the listings on Amazon, it is a bestseller. Maybe this is because readers are more likely to buy books that make them feel happy and that don’t poke at controversy or difficult issues, but the books surrounding An Astronaut’s Guide to Like on Earth seemed to follow the trend of being about older white men. Personally I would like to see more diversity in narratives brought to the public’s attention – whether that be by placing them under “Heather’s Picks” or putting them on Amazon’s home page – so that the voices and stories that are so often ignored have the chance to be heard.