political commentary
My questions:
1. Wasn't the G8 made somewhat irrelevant last autumn when it was decided that the G20 would be more important?
2. Why is this our business? Like, a bunch of women in poor countries are going to care about what Canadians say and do. WTF. You'd think paternalistic programs would be something Conservatives avoid. And perhaps this is where they are coming from? I don't know. I do know that getting all upset at their ideology is a predictable distraction to the fact that this story has no substance. Why can't we have a discussion around the thesis: "Poor women are capable of taking care of themselves". If that statement is false, why? And why is it our (G8) problem as opposed to the governments of the countries where these people live?
Birth control won't be in G8 plan to protect mothers, Tories say
Posted via email from Timothy’s posterous
Michael Ignatieff listening to Isaiah Berlin tell a story about Ludwig Wittgenstein, from his 1995 interview broadcast on BBC in 1998. (YouTube)
Taking the Go Train home on Saturday 26 February 2005 (I had been at that afternoon’s panel discussion put on by the Canadian Art Foundation which I reviewed for BlogTo) I picked up that day’s National Post lying on the seat in front of me. I came across Peter C. Newman’s article on Michael Ignatieff regarding his keynote speech at the upcoming Liberal convention. The article suggested that Ignatieff’s long-term goal was to become the party’s leader and by extension a potential Prime Minister.
The following Thursday (3 March 2005) I saw Darren O’Donnell’s A Suicide-Site Guide to the City , and afterward went to a C Magazine launch on College St. That afternoon, four RCMP had been killed in Mayerthorpe Alberta. The day was already full of Canadian content, and so perhaps I was already primed to appreciate Ignatieff’s speech & vision for the country. I had a midnight snack with CPAC on and the speech mid-way through, I later shifted to the couch to finish watching it. Before retiring I put a tape in the VCR to let it run overnight, to catch the repeat.
With that in hand, I ripped the audio and made the transcription that I posted on Goodreads. Ignatieff had first come prominently to my attention in 2000 when he delivered that year’s Massey Lectures (I remember listening to one as I drove in the November rain) but even at that time I was already vaguely aware of him, having read the Globe & Mail review of his 1998 biography on Isaiah Berlin. Through the speech and the background I thought Prime Minister Ignatieff would be a good thing.
As I’ve written previously, part of this was the idea that ‘Canada deserves to have a Massey Lecturer as Prime Minister’. But that’s just my bias for intellectual public figures asserting itself. Privately, I share the reservations of many: that he’s an expat who left only to return when it suited his ambition. That he advocated for the Iraq war (writing in The New York Times using the ‘we’ implying he was an American citizen) and that he’s been an Imperial apologist through his ‘lesser evil‘ arguments. However, it would still be nice to have a Prime Minister who thinks out loud, rather than those who do not seem to think at all, yes?
So, at some point in early 2006, I went on the Ignatieff website and sent them a note, offering to volunteer toward his campaign. I got no response whatsoever, not even a email list auto-responder message. However, on 5 September 2006, while I was browsing in Ten Editions bookstore on Spadina, my cell phone rang with a number I didn’t recognize. My hesitant hello was matched with a female voice asking me to be a delegate for Ignatieff in Montreal’s November convention. I was like, uh, ok. What does that mean?
I was told that it wouldn’t cost me a dime, and at that point they merely wanted to put my name on the ballot in my riding. The Liberals would be voting for delegates, and elected delegates would then go on to Montreal. There was some paperwork. I was like, ok, cool, whatever.
My walk to the train station that evening was filled with thoughts of destiny by way of the weirdness of out of the blue phone calls that can change your life. I had literally be called to join to Liberal party and have politics become part of my experience. I kind of wanted that happen. I had thought about joining the party the previous June in order to vote for Iggy. I’d decided against it, but now it was back as a request.
Because I had a September 13th deadline, I joined the party via the Liberal website on Monday 11 September. (What I has always seemed odd to me was that I never received any form of official documentation stating that I was a member of the Liberal party. I think my membership expired the following year, but I’m not sure). There were forms I was asked to fax. I told my contact that I could easily drop them off at the headquarters.
I did the paperwork and dropped off the forms on Wednesday the 13th at the Ignatieff campaign headquarters on Bloor St. While walking down the street I saw the poster for The Fountain against a building, put there for the film festival, and sparking my interest in seeing it when it was released later that November.
At the headquarters, the girl who I’d dealt with over the phone was pretty and polished and this further gave me thoughts that maybe my life was changing for the better – I’d start to meet really interesting people who are involved with politics rather than the cultural scene. The prospect of going to the convention seemed exciting; I’d have a chance to participate in a small moment of the country’s history, like being at the convention which elected Trudeau.
The delegate election was set for September 30th. I’d emailed my contact at the campaign headquarters asking if I needed to attend, because I had a scheduling conflict – this being that weekend’s Copy Camp at the Ryerson University Campus. I was told it wasn’t necessary.
Personal monetary issues where also on my mind. At the end of September I began what would turn out to be a year-long temp-assignment with TD Bank. With my email-list background, and with a list of Liberals in my riding provided by the campaign, I drafted a letter to them on a notepad during my first day at the bank, while waiting to get settled. I set up the email list on my server but never sent the message, realizing that it really wasn’t worth my time.
Also, I had gotten a phone call from another Ignatieff candidate in my riding who seemed a social-austic. We had a nice chat, and I told him why I was supporting Ignatieff, and when I asked him for his last name, he asked me why I wanted to know. Uh, I don’t know, because it’s polite? (This is what Ignatieff’s is attracting?!) In the end, Gerrard Kennedy’s delegates won, but I didn’t find this out for two weeks. (Professional communication, FTW).
On October 18th, I wrote a friend:
And did I mention before that I was running in the Ignatieff Liberal Leadership campaign as a delegate? The process was the Liberal party members elect delegates to go to Montreal for the convention – the election was Sept 30 and I only found out on Monday [October 16th] that I lost. I was hoping to get 0 votes but I don’t know the tally. I’m just glad I can sort of ignore the Liberal email stuff from now on. My taste of it was not impressive. I thought going to Montreal would be awesome, and was led to believe the whole thing could have been subsidized, but it turns out that wasn’t entirely true. Attending the convention alone cost $1000, and to ’subsidize it’ they suggested hosting a fundraising dinner, where you could get ‘family & friends’ to donate $500 to $25 and have Mr. Ignatieff talk to them afterward. Like any of my family & friends care! And I’d hate to hit them up that way. I got a good impression of how disorganized and unprofessional they were, which was at the same time, not a good impression.
Here it becomes easy to acknowledge the inherent corruption within the democratic process that party politics represents. It is very much a pay-to-play system than in the end cannot truly represent the citizens who do not want or cannot pay to be a part of it.
At some point between mid-October and late-November, I got another phone call from the campaign, asking if I’d still like to go to the convention. I returned the call in the lobby of my building at the TD Centre. Biopic: the scene consists of I pacing while framed by Mies Van Der Rohe’s windows with my Nokia at my right ear; my dialogue: ‘I cannot make the time nor can I afford it, so no, I am not interested in being a delegate in Montreal’. Sound of regret, (and I must say, the evident desperation that I was even being asked) on their end.
Skip now to the first days of December 2006: I watched the convention on CBC that weekend. I remember seeing Bob Rae look amazed when one of the drop-outs came over to his side. I remember seeing the two-channel shot of Ignatieff vs Dion while they awaited the final count, this shot also projected in the convention centre, and thus keeping both men pinned to their chairs while the count was being officiated; the voice-over commentary saying it was cruel. The cruelty being that Stephane Dion had won but they were awaiting the count to be formalized and the announcement prepared. It was known because it word-of-mouthed on the convention floor during the interim. I believe it was Susan Bonar who reported that Jean Chriten was seen checking his Blackberry and showing his wife, who mouthed ‘Stephane!?’
From my Journal, 2 December 2006:
5.17pm, awaiting the announcement of the fourth ballot results. The feeling seems to be that Stephane Dion has won the leadership, but we have to wait and see. I’ve had an underlying anxiety all day, I want Ignatieff to win, but at the same time recognize that he’s too much of a rookie. Dion as Liberal Leader? As a Prime Minister? I’m looking forward to this being over so that I can relax. In September I had such a sense of certainty that Ignatieff would become leader.
Back in September, after I dropped off my papers on Bloor St, I met with a friend and we had lunch. During our talk, I said to him, ‘Ignatieff is going to be the leader. I’ve seen it in my crystal ball’. My crystal ball was off by two years, but it’s evident to me that a hundred years of movies have embedded scripts into our thinking to such an extant that once you get the narrative going, it takes on a life of its own. Michael Ignatieff will be Prime Minister of Canada one day. That was decided in 2004, and the media was seeded with this idea by Peter C. Newman’s National Post piece, and an interview in April 2006 in MacLeans (also by Newman), and a profile in the Globe & Mail (which was reprinted last December).
Gerrard Kennedy and his supporters threw sand into the gears of the story when they backed Stephane Dion. Theirs was an attempt to say that democracy should work on merit and occasionally on surprise, not through elites and backroom deals. I, as a newly minted Liberal under dubious circumstances shrugged. Whatever. We have to live with it, not so bad.
6:32pm – Stephane Dion did win. They dragged out the process so that it was announced at about 6pm; Dion is giving his speech but I have the TV on mute and the left-ear bud in since I’m back to working on the transcription. I’m disappointed that the Liberals didn’t see the potential of Ignatieff but there’s nothing one can do.
Maybe it did turn out so bad. So be it, bygones being what they are. However, my crystal ball did not anticipate a Parliamentary insurrection due to the bastard-politicking of Mr. Harper. Stephane Dion, having “lost” (he did not lose, his party simply didn’t get as many members elected to Parliament as the Conservatives) the election, and bungled a coalition attempt, was forced out, and Ignatieff appointed in his place. Thus, my 2006 vision became a reality. Through a back room deal.
A lifetime of Star Trek (and this is written also in light of the release of the latest movie, which was supposed to be released last December) makes me want to speak of alternative time lines here. The Kennedy-Dion alliance in November 2006 seems to have altered history, postponing Ignatieff’s Prime Ministership by a number of years. And so, as part of this fucked-up time line, we have another election won by Conservatives (which wasn’t supposed to happen in 2008), the attempt at coalition (which is never supposed to happen because politics is so cut-throat to forgo cooperation), and the shut-down of Parliament ahead of schedule last December. That whole ‘crisis’ was a series of avoiding should-have-beens.
Which is to say: had Ignatieff become leader in 2006, I doubt Harper would have ‘won’ another election. But Harper did so in October 2008, and then played the scene wrong and brought down the wrath of Parliamentary procedure. Dion is disgraced, and Ignatieff (who should have been just another candidate this weekend, a replay of the Montreal game) is appointed by the party hierarchy. Dion was supposed to remain leader during this time. Bob Rae and Dominic LeBlanc were supposed to be candidates for the leadership. All this is swept aside. The scripts of a year ago are now trivia in light of the extensive rewrites.
And so, one evening last January while I walked down Yonge St, on my way to catch the streetcar after work, my phone rang with an unrecognized number. It was the Ignateiff campaign calling asking if I’d like to stand as a delegate in Vancouver. By this time I’d already ignored three messages left by them, calling to see if I would be interested (messages which had begun in late December). So, on this call, I told them no. When asked why, I said, because I can’t afford it, I can’t make the time, and it’s just going to be a coronation anyway, so I didn’t see the point.
[Cross posted on Goodreads 09w18:3]
On Saturday I wrote:
Monday December 8th 2008
Anticipated: The Fall of the Harper Government
Actual: Nothing
… well, as I’m writing this on Saturday the 6th, it may be too soon to tell.
It was too soon. Dion resigned today. Mr. Leblanc quits. On Don Newman’s Politics he says, “I concluded that I shouldn’t allow my personal ambition to stand in the way of the party coming together around a new leader as quickly as possible”. (9:52; below)
[audio:http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/politics-dec8.mp3]
For that, he probably deserves to become leader the next time. I’d like to hear more politicians putting ambition aside for greater goods.
The comment thread on the Globe and Mail’s story about a recording of Trudeau and Nixon contains this funny eye popper:
Salem Shaworski from Ottawa, Canada writes: In 30 years a tape will be released of Harper’s first meeting with Bush.
A brief few minutes of Harper’s sycophantic praise will be heard followed by the sound of a belt being unbuckled, trousers being doffed and eager slurping sounds as Harper expends a few quarts of saliva.
Mentioned amidst some of the commentary was that the House was meant to be closed six days later anyway. Checking Parliament’s website, we see that the sitting days were to continue to December 12th, before breaking for the holidays. So the heavy-handed tactic of shutting down the House rather than face a vote he knew he would lose had the effect of teaching Canadians a new word and giving the politicians some new propaganda to play with for Christmas.
Let us imagine the scenario, had things happened the way they could have.
All comment seems to agree that the Conservative party is being run as a Harper dictatorship. Party members dare not speak out against policy, for fear of the wrath of the dear leader. To say that the maligned Economic Update was ‘Harper’s economic update’ may not be inaccurate. Harper’s Economic Update was delivered on Thursday November 27th. It was to be voted on Monday December 1st. Already by Friday afternoon of the 28th, the talk of Coalition was underway, so that on the evening of that Friday, Harper said he’d push the vote back a week, ‘to give Canadians time to contact their MPs’ and to give everyone a cooling off period. Presumably, Harper was hoping that the extra time was all that was needed to diffuse the growing threat of a Coalition.
Monday December 1st 2008
Anticipated: The Fall of the Harper Government
Actual: The news conference presided over by the Liberals, NDP, and the Bloc.
The Coalition talk began to pick up steam. Conservatives had posted a website dictating talking-points to their supporters for call-in radio shows (a Macleans post on this). The week then is marked by mediocre commentary in the national press, and the dim witted web-comments by Conservative supporters who are typing ’separatists!!!’ and ‘the three stooges’, and other variations of belittlement. Up until the previous week, I used to enjoy checking out Bourque.com for a round-up of Canadian news. This past week, that site devolved into the worst of yellow journalism as it denigrated into an essentially Conservative position.
So, by Wednesday December 3rd, we’re going to be addressed by the Prime Minister. I don’t have a television and was out at the scheduled time at 7pm, so I watched it when I got home from a website. Harper came across as an abusive husband looking to be let back into the house. His see-through charm and television makeup did nothing to convince me that he’s trustworthy. Further, he blatantly tried to exploit the ignorance of the Canadian people, by implying that the Coalition did not have the right to take power, when in fact they do. The response by Dion I have not yet seen. I clicked on it and the video never launched. This was probably because it was late in being delivered. Further, I heard that it’s quality was awful, evident from the screencaps posted on accompanying stories.
All of this only to set the stage for the dramatic visit to the Governor General’s house, where she would either let Harper’s government fall, or suspend Parliament. By noon, the news had come that Parliament was being prorogued.
Monday December 8th 2008
Anticipated: The Fall of the Harper Government
Actual: Nothing
… well, as I’m writing this on Saturday the 6th, it may be too soon to tell. But Dec 8th was to be the day of the vote. So let us imagine it had gone ahead. The Harper government falls. Hipsters party on Monday night. But then what? The Coalition would take power only after Harper’s formal visit to the Governor General. He would have had to say to the Speaker that the loss of the vote demonstrates the loss of confidence in the government and he’s therefore be visiting her to ask her to dissolve Parliament and call an election. So, what happened on Thursday the 4th would have happened on the 9th. And then again, the question would have been, does the GG call for new elections, or does she allows the Coalition a chance?
The Coalition attempted to show through its documents and press conferences that it was positioned to lead the government for at least 18 months. This was in order to influence the GG into deciding to give them the chance. So, let’s imagine that she did. Somewhere around Tues December 9th or Wednesday the 10th, the breaking news is the establishment of a Coalition government. Because the hipsters had already partied on Monday, they don’t see the need to do it again.
And so … Parliament shuts down two days later, on Friday the 12th, as was scheduled. Christmastime is now all mixed up with the reality that the Conservatives are mighty pissed off to have been subject to ‘a coup’ and promise to make this special time of year toxic with their blue-branded hatred. Tidings of comfort and joy. Meanwhile, Dion is smiling everywhere and Layton is probably giving good speeches about how great things will be when they get back to Ottawa in January and deliver their throne speech.
All of this speculation is merely to say that the prorogation has probably kept the worst of this process from coming to pass before its time. But that’s not to say I wasn’t angry about it on Thursday.
I’m on record as supporting the attempts at a Coalition. I read somewhere yesterday that the prorogation allows us to test the validity of the coalition. If it falls apart by the end of January, than it was never meant to be in the first place. The events of the past week however suggest that given time, this strength of this grows rather then diffuses. I take comfort in the fact that regardless, Harper’s days as leader of the Conservative party are probably numbered.
Harper must go
My position as a citizen is this: I understand how our democracy usually works, and therefore am as prepared now as I was a month ago to live with a Minority Conservative Government. The only reason this is usually the case is because the Opposition parties always rule out working together. Even on Election night, it was clear that the NDP and the Liberals do not have enough seats by themselves to form a Coalition, and thus need the support of the Bloc.
As for the threat of the Bloc, this remains ridiculous. The Bloc do not scare me at all, I do not think of them as treasonous, and I find all call-outs to National Unity and the subsequent concept of the nation-state to be merely romantic delusion. Especially when they are promoted in web-comments by Conservative idiots quoting their dear leaders, apparently too ignorant not only to think for themselves, but to understand how our system functions.
This country is interesting because of its varied regional interests, not in spite of them. For that matter, the Bloc isn’t like other parties because Quebec isn’t like other provinces. As adults we should be able to live with that. And I think we have for the most part over the past fifteen years.
Let’s review the politics of the past decade and a half shall we? Throughout the 1990s, the Reform/Alliance party essentially was the Bloc’s Anglo equivelant, answering Western interests to the Bloc’s Eastern ones. This Western chauvinism swallowed the Progressive Conservative party ruined by the politics of Mulroney, bought new suits at Moore’s and called itself Conservative. It should be noted here that whatever genuine concerns and progressive ideas were to be found in the Reform/Alliance or the Progressive Conservatives were suddenly negated merely through the use of the Conservative label, as if to say that everyone west of Winnipeg who votes Conservative Party is incapable of believing in a progressive Canada and are born being against gay-marriage.
We should remember that this transformation was facilitated by Belinda Stronach who subsequently ran for them, was elected, but jumped ship when the pie of a Ministership was held under her nose by Paul Martin’s Liberal government. The Liberals then went on to lose an election, and Ms. Stronach found herself offering commentary at the Liberal convention in the fall of 2006. As we have seen, Canadian politics regularly delivers such WTF? moments. She subsequently quit politics, having been exposed as a power hungry go-getter who didn’t really care who was in charge as long as she had a place at the table. That’s not something I blame her for since why play the game just to be a back-bencher?
But it is to say that this game has been insidious, nepotistic, and opportunistic for a while now. Whatever Harper’s saying this week to demonize his opponents, they all understand the sport and their integrity as individuals and as a party is always subject to the hierarchy. If this country was being properly run, Dion wouldn’t be around. Someone would have had the balls by now to put him out to pasture so-to-speak, rather than let him linger on to discredit their position. Hurt feelings on Mr. Dion’s part aren’t supposed to a factor in the equation. That’s how power is exercised. The fact that Bob Rae is now stepping up to talk over Dion shows not only his ambition to lead the party, but also his qualification. Ignatieff’s fence-sitting is casting doubts on his measure as Prime Minister material.
The reason the Conservatives are currently dominant despite the weakness of their official numbers is because they don’t give a fuck about anyone’s feelings, and one can hope that this works out to our collective advantage when they draw the knives for Harper’s back. If not, as Adam Radwanski pointed out, we’re in even bigger trouble than we thought, writing: “If Conservatives are not at least seriously discussing the replacement of Stephen Harper before Parliament returns on Jan 26, he truly has succeeded in creating a cult of personality’. The last thing we need is a Maurice Duplessis holding this country back from the wonder of the 21st Century, as that dictator of Quebec did in the 1950s. However once he died the resulting Quiet Revolution rushed the province from the 19th into the 20th Century within a decade, and tried to follow-through by upgrading itself into a nation-state.
If Harper manages to enforce a nightmare of feel-good 20C Reagan-Thatcher bullshit on us while the US resurrects itself from its social catastrophe, and Europe continues to set an example for what a mostly enlightened society could be, the end result will probably be a dramatic national révolution tranquille in twenty years, by which time the rest of the world will be used to thinking of us as just another one of those third world countries of squandered potential ruled by an idiot. The talent of this country will continue to apply for US-work visas to escape the ignorance of this place. Eventually, Canada could come to resemble the southern United States, too ignorant and stupid to understand the hell we exemplify to others.
In the past I’ve said in conversations that I respected Harper as someone who didn’t seem all that bad. Sure, he’s always come across as a bit of dick, but that was personal rather than professional. After the borderline buffoonery of Chretien and the stammering incompetence of Paul Martin, he brought dignity back to the office on his election in 2006. He seemed genuinely humble and honored by the position. He had respect for the office and it was through that respect that he dignified it. Now, it could be said, the power has gone to his head, and he’s lost perspective. He now feels entitled to be Prime Minister, and fuck all of us who don’t see things his way. I’ll be no longer saying in conversations that he’s not all that bad. To that point, I want to state that I don’t regret defending him against the hyperbole of hipsters, and may continue to downplay their predictably alarmist rhetoric. This country is run best through sobriety, John A’s example notwithstanding.
Harper thoroughly failed at being a Prime Minister this past week. Yes, he failed politically by provoking the opposition parties to rebel. But even more importantly, he failed by exploiting the ignorance of the citizens. This is simply unforgivable. Harper is on record as saying that Canadians know nothing of their country, which isn’t something I’m that inclined to disagree with. The fact that he’s used this to suggest that the Coalition lacked validity, to play up the idea that his government ‘won’ the October election makes him despicable. It’s not scandalous to say that the Canadian population is largely ignorant of their history and of how their democracy functions. It is scandalous that the Prime Minister would seek to use that to his advantage rather than attempt to correct it.
The zeitgeist makes it impossible not to compare his performance with that President-Elect Obama. In February, his speech on race was described as a ‘teaching moment’, a description that rose from his approach to the situation, and from Obama’s background as a law professor. He saw an opportunity to educate and he seized it.
Harper’s opportunity to educate the population was squandered. It’s probably fair to say that he doesn’t care. The talking-points prepared for the minions to call into radio-stations proves that the Conservatives have a vested interest in keeping us mostly stupid. Yet, I don’t feel particularly alone in the country in my awareness that Harper’s a failure, and the talking points website referenced has mostly been presented with a humour suggesting some people can see it for what it is. (I don’t listen to talk radio anyway, so the propaganda effort is wasted on the like of me). The propagation of ignorance includes:
• This is what bothers me the most. The Conservatives won the election. The Opposition keeps saying that the Conservatives have to respect the will of the voters that this is a minority and so on.
…how about Liberals, NDP and Bloc respecting the will of the voters when they said “YOU LOSE”.
• And what’s this going to do to the economy. I’m sorry, I don’t care how desperate the Liberals are – giving socialists (Jack Layton) and separatists (Gilles Duceppe) a veto over every decision in government – that is a recipe for total economic disaster.
• No – do you know what set this off. When Flaherty said he was going to take taxpayer-funded subsidies away from the opposition. Now there is a reason to try and overturn an election– because the Conservatives the audacity to say “Hey, it’s a recession, maybe you should take your nose out of the trough.”
• I don’t want another election. But what I want even less is a surprise backroom Prime Minister whom I never even had the opportunity to vote for or against. What an insult to democracy
The true insult to our democracy is that such a website even exists.
On November 27th, Jim Flaherty (who should be balancing the books of a corner store in Whitby as far as I’m concerned, not the books of the Federal government) stood up to deliver an ‘economic update’. The Opposition parties were looking for an economic stimulus plan. Instead we were warned that he was removing funding from all parties, and in the weeks leading up to this, there were rumours he was considering selling-off Federal government assets in order to raise short-term cash. Again, Obama gives us some insight on what an economic stimulus package might look like. He’s calling for infrastructure investment and retrofitting of government buildings and schools. Things that would actually provide jobs. Our Minority Government is considering selling the CN Tower and wanting to fuck over their opponents.
There is no question why Harper has lost the confidence of the house. The question remains as to who our Prime Minister will be in February. – Timothy
[from Goodreads 08w49:2]
Reply from FlamingBagOfPoo:
As an American who lives in Canada, I find the whole thing utterly fascinating. Also, I think it’s brilliantly efficient. Look at how much waste is generated by a single political campaign in the US, where there are only two parties, which are really essentially just one party anyway. I love this multi-party system and I love the whole concept of a Parliament. I am watching this spectacle unfold with the same sort of jaw-drop amazement that I felt when I saw Star Wars for the first time in the movie theater a million years ago.
(via Chycho.com)
A Coalition Government
On the weekend I downloaded the results available at Elections Canada and did some number crunching. Thanks to the miracle of the spreadsheet, this was something that only took about a half-hour to do. The numbers remind us that the Conservatives only got 10.4 million votes, while the Liberals, NDP and the Bloc combined got 15 million. Thus Stephen Harper is full of shit, which is pretty much nothing new, as far as many are concerned.
As for talk of an alliance with Separatists, I too think this is bullshit. Since when as the Bloc been a threat? Since 1995, thirteen years ago. Now they are a Quebec chauvinist party who represent Quebec self-interest in the federal government. Given that a lack of representation and fair dealing throughout the 20th Century is what led Quebec to believe they needed to separate, perhaps the Bloc’s place in the House over the past fifteen years has been sufficient to defuse that threat. Yes, on paper, they’re Separatists. Also, on paper, the Pope believes in Jesus. But the Bloc is not a threat, and like the Pope, probably enjoy their political power and influence more than they do their ideology.
Which is exactly where Harper as gone so wrong – trying to mix his power with his noxious ideology. Seventeen million people did not vote for the Conservatives. Seventeen million Canadians rejected their ideals. Yet, with ten million votes, we found them in power. And what a Chomskyian fall – by that meaning their undoing followed Chomsky’s usual analysis that governments get into trouble when they fuck with powerful interests. All through the pre-election Parliament, the Liberals refused to challenge Harper’s regime. This is what earned my disgust with Stephen Dion, not the Carbon Tax. Now that they’ve finally stood up for themselves and for their representatives, I look forward to Dion as a Prime Minister. And yet, it was the threat to remove their public funding which became the straw that broke this camel’s back. Well, whatever. Lets bygones be bygones – the Separatists are not a threat, nor are they treasonous etc. Dion is no longer being pusillanimous. Harper is no longer appearing reasonable and respectable. Bring on the future.
One constitutional lawyer (also a University of Toronto professor), was on Don Newman’s Politics last evening (Mon Dec 1; begins at 11:19). The talk was a lack of historical precedence, in terms of giving this legitimacy. So what? Why does that even need to be a concern? Can’t this Parliament set a precedent? Indeed, this whole scenario is a heartwarming reminder that there are stop-gaps in place to prevent dictatorships and tyrannies. Mind you, that take on it might not be valid if the governing party was in the Majority. Nevertheless, what I saw when watching Layton, Dion and Duceppe’s news conference last evening was history, an historic handshake like similar foundational handshakes in national histories. John Ralston Saul likes to talk about the agreement between Robert Baldwin and Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine, and how this arrangement laid the foundations for Confederation. A coalition government at this time could be the foundation of collaborative government which would be appropriate to the networked 21st Century. For all we know, this type of thing could lead to a revised Constitution in fifty years.
Repeated accusations of the parties playing partisan politics, and using the Bloc as a denigration, is entirely missing this point. Big picture, long term, we should have a government where the parties work together, where they represent a multitude of voices and different ideas, and this could free us from rule by one-party ideologues the likes of Harper, or for that matter, the likes of Chretien. Further, the Reform party (from which Harper sprang) found its first members among those who were angry with the Trudeau-era Liberals (who, granted, worked with the NDP during one of their terms). The point here being that breaking one-party majority rules who just piss off a lot of people off is probably a good thing for all. Historians may look at this as an evolution of politics which began with the return to Minority Parliaments after the Chretien years. Minorities which lead to Coalitions which lead to fairer representation at the Federal level. If anything, (and if they can get this right), this may enable future under-represented voices to be heard. And one can hope that amidst the economic stimuli, they find the time to bring in Proportional Representation, since it’s now to their mutual advantage.
In my excitement last night, I posted on as my Facebook status: ‘I am so proud of my parliament right now. This is Canada’s Obama moment. Wow.’ What I meant was that a bold, change-oriented, imaginative thing was underway, which put into contrast the status-quo we are used to. The election of Barack Obama was a result of a majority of Americans consciously choosing a different path, one that lead them into the 21st Century. Obama promises a government of transparency and of networked sophistication.
As Canadians, we aren’t there yet. But a majority of Canadians consciously chose to vote for parties other than the Conservatives, who would never lead us there to begin with. The five million more who voted past the Conservatives ten million will now feel like they’ve gotten the government they were asking for. They (and we, as I was one of them) deserve to be represented, and for our common desire to see a better country given a chance to be implemented.
[cross posted from Goodreads]
People who voted for the Conservatives: 10,493,047
People who voted for the Liberals: 7,349,977
People who voted for the NDP: 5,065,144
People who voted for the Liberals & NDP combined: 12,415,121
People who voted for the Bloc Quebecois: 2,778,758
Combined, the Liberals, NDP, and Bloc represent 15,193,879.
Total votes for the smaller parties (Christian Heritage, Communist, Greens, Independents etc):
2,213,995
Total votes that weren’t for the Conservatives:
17,407,874
A Coalition Government therefore would be democratically representative, despite what Stephen Harper has said.
Note: An earlier posting that you may have seen had methodological errors which I’ve since corrected.
Source: Elections Canada results. Some numbers are still listed as preliminary. My downloaded spreadsheet from Elections Canada; and my modified spreadsheet listing only the parties and the votes.
