Posted on 11/28/2005 9:51:53 AM PST by .cnI redruM
Toronto — For the second time in 18 months, Canadians are about to head to the ballot box. After weeks of desperate political maneuvering, the governing Liberals lost control of parliament, lost a key vote of confidence, and now may well lose the coming election. A dozen years of uninterrupted Liberal governance could end — with major implications for the party and the welfare state it so strongly supports.
There’s an old joke that Toronto is like New York, if the Swiss ran the Big Apple. Americans view Toronto and the rest of the country as clean, unexciting, and a bit boring. Canadian politics, too, seems uninspired. The Liberal party of Canada has been like the Yankees of old: winning again and again. Around the time the Babe helped lift his team to its first World Series, the Liberals began consistently winning national elections — and didn’t really stop. In the past eight decades, the Liberals spent just 16 years on the opposition benches.
And yet, today, their support is stuck at about 33 percent — the lowest polling in nearly two decades. Why the slip in popularity? Start with a good old-fashioned scandal. In 2004, the auditor general caused a political earthquake, reporting that a federal government program intended to promote Canadian unity in separation-minded Quebec was, in fact, rife with corruption. Liberal-friendly advertising firms received millions of dollars from the federal government and then funneled some of the money back to the Liberals. Trying to contain the damage, the governing party ordered an immediate judicial inquiry, headed by Mr. Justice John Gomery. But — aware of just how damaging revelations would be — they called an election in June of that year before any of the facts were established. The Liberals managed to win, but only a minority government.
This spring, the nation was captivated by the televised hearings of the Gomery Commission. No wonder — witness after witness painted a picture of scandal befitting any banana republic: bribes, intimidation, kickbacks, phony invoices, and money laundering. The details are breathtaking. Key players went by code names like “Choo Choo Man” and “White Head.” Mysterious suitcases filled with cash were distributed to Liberal candidates, for instance at a campaign rally attended by the entire Cabinet. When the executive director of the Quebec wing discovered that his party was effectively run by an organized crime boss, he objected — and was threatened, he testified, with death. And there were direct ties to the former prime minister: One of his friends is alleged to have received roughly $5 million for work that was never done; Jean Chretien’s brother, it is alleged, got a brown envelope with cash; and his son and niece, jobs.
Liberal fortunes have not been helped by the anemic performance of Prime Minister Paul Martin, Jr. To stay in office, he has promised everything to everyone. During a particularly frantic three-week period this fall, his government’s spending announcements exceeded $20 billion (the whole federal budget is $160 billion). Finally, with an eye on wooing Canada’s middle class, he announced massive tax cuts this month — but most of the relief will not be realized until 2010.
The Liberals’ woes, however, run deeper than this scandal and Martin’s handling of it. For years, Canadians have had an unwritten compact with the party: We’d pay high taxes and keep reelecting them and, in exchange, the Liberals would run the country competently. Obviously, the scandal has tarnished their image as astute managers. But even before, the deal was falling apart. With taxes rising steadily over the past decade, after-tax income has essentially stagnated. Yet Canada’s welfare state is rotten to the core.
Take Canada’s much vaunted health-care system. In a recent poll, more than 80 percent of Canadians rate the system “in crisis.” People wait for practically any diagnostic test, surgical procedure, or specialist consult. The doctors’ shortage is so severe that, in Norwood, Ont., winning the town lottery isn’t a ticket to material wealth. With just one family doctor to service the entire town, the physician takes only 50 new patients a year. As a result, the town holds an annual lottery with the 50 winners getting an appointment with him.
The plight of Norwood is not unusual. According to Statistics Canada, approximately 1.2 million Canadians don’t have a family doctor and are looking for one. American companies now routinely advertise in major Canadian dailies, offering timely health care — in the United States. And north of the 49th parallel, private health services are a booming business despite the fact that many operate in violation of federal law. The prime minister’s own family doctor, incidentally, runs the most successful chain of private clinics in the country.
Health care is just one example of Canada’s welfare state gone awry. Ottawa transfers billions of dollars annually from richer provinces to poorer ones — yet, after decades, the funding hasn’t resolved poverty in Atlantic Canada and the prairies. In fact, these programs have institutionalized the poverty. In an effort to bolster some ailing industries, the federal government has ended up subsidizing the largest corporations in the country. Cultural grants, meant to strengthen the arts, have become a parody — funding, for example, Quebec’s burgeoning soft-porn industry. Canadians have noticed: asked in a poll recently if they trusted the federal government to do what was right, 27 percent of Canadians responded in the affirmative; in the late 1960s, 58 percent agreed with the statement.
For his part, Stephen Harper, who leads the Conservative party, offers a cautious alternative. An economist by training, Harper doesn’t propose turning Canada into a libertarian nation — but he does promise to reverse the nation’s slow Europeanization. He supports modest tax cuts, an end to corporate welfare, and the betterment of strained Canada-U.S. relations. With regard to the proverbial third rail of Canadian politics, he favors greater use of private services within government-run health care — a modest, if important, first step for a system so beleaguered that a family doctor is now considered a luxury item.
If he wins, Stephen Harper will not be a Margaret Thatcher. However, he may prove to be a Tony Blair — and that would be a refreshing change from “Choo Choo Man” and his friends.
...well if it's anything like down here, the illegal immigrant vote, the dead and broken voting machines will sweep the left up there to yet another landslide victory...
I'm kind of thinking the same. There has to be a plausible alternative, like in 1994, before the tide of an election will radically turn.
The first thing that he should have done is kill the crime boss. And any minions in the way. They're animals, not human. I hate organized crime and I hate liberals.
I asked this question on another thread but some thought this was my view. So, I’m wondering if the electorate is holding the Iraq war against the Conservatives, because they supported Canada’s involvement? The public seems unanimous in regarding Iraq as a mess. (Note: This is NOT my opinion, but what I observe to be the opinion of Canadians). Maybe it is dumb to hold a hypothetical against the Conservatives, as it is now a mute point. Canada is not about to join the Iraq war now that Americans are winding down their troop engagement. But the Canadian public seems to be overwhelmingly pacifistic and leery of what they would call a “warmonger”.
The reason I ask this question is that I have heard it expressed as a concern by those who are fed up with the Liberals but are not willing to throw their vote too easily towards Harper.
More likely, it's because the "national" Canadian media (all based in Toronto) have constantly & consistently painted Harper and the Conservatives as just so many unsphisticated Western rednecks and racists - the bias in the coverage up here is just unbelievable.
With the exception of small town conservative papers and the Calgary Sun, it is an uphill battle against the media, I agree. Americans perhaps are much smarter than us, as they somehow waded through the media bull fed to them and elected George Bush anyways.
The key for the Conservatives: swing some of the narrow losses in southern Ontario outside the GTA our way, and hold our own in British Columbia. We probably need 35-40 seats in Ontario to take over 24 Sussex, which is very reachable, despite the fact Toronto will go Liberal en masse again.
The Bloc Quebecois will take care of about 12 Liberals in Quebec.
I suppose you are right. It seems Bush is ignoring the need to secure the southern border despite screams from Americans to stop the invasion. (an example of "what do the little people know?) The "little people" attitude is not new to Canada, that's for sure.
The same is here in New Zealand just before the September election. Any slightest allegation that the centre-right National Party is sympathetic to the American conservative position on the WOT is brushed as "American lapdog" by the country's MSM and pundit class, and braced with paranoid suspicion among middle New Zealand (which no doubt would view Hillary Clinton's WOT position as right-wing). The pacifism transcends normal left-right divide in NZ society.
The reason National and therefore conservatives came within an inch of coming in power was because any issues related to the Americans were of peripheral importance in the election (WOT and relations with the US were never mentioned in the campaigns, although some rumblings were heard after the 7/7 London attacks).
It is a pathetic situation. The only way a conservative can win in such leftist-leaning country is that the Left shows its colours on domestic policies that has roused the "Too far!" reaction from the populance, and praying that any issues about the United States were not on the prominent international headlines or that any issue surrounding the country's relations with the US don't come up as a key election issue.
Maybe this time around being too pro-American won't be an easy sell on the Canadian populace? There will always be the foaming at the mouth anti-Americans - but they usually vote NDP or Liberal anyways. Just maybe.
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