Posted on 06/27/2004 12:47:53 AM PDT by goldstategop
Whatever the precise result on Monday, and whoever forms a government, one thing should by now be clear: The political landscape of Canada is on the verge of historic change -- radical, permanent, and mostly for the better. Eight decades of Liberal dominance, punctuated by occasional Tory interludes, are about to come crashing to an end. This isn't 1984. It isn't 1979. It isn't even 1957. It's something completely new.
It's new, in part, because this Tory party is something we haven't seen before. Previous Conservative uprisings have been rooted almost entirely in popular disgust with Liberal excess, and though that is partly true as well here, it isn't the whole story. Previous Conservative leaders had no higher ambition than to govern in the Liberal mould, either out of sincere ideological conviction (Clark) or because they wanted to run the Liberal machine for themselves (Mulroney). This one wants to break the mould.
I don't mean that only in a policy sense, though it is true that Stephen Harper has a very different philosophy of government than any previous Tory leader. But Mr. Harper, as people are learning, is also a supremely political animal, and his truer ambitions are to destroy the one-party system, forever: to set Canada permanently on a two-party track. He will push as far as he can in policy terms, and indeed will know the value of sharp policy distinctions as instruments of political gain. But if it comes to a conflict between the two -- between advancing his own policy agenda and entrenching the Conservatives as permanent contenders for power -- he will unhesitatingly choose the latter.
I have always believed he had a two-election strategy in mind -- one to put them in contention, a second to vault them into power -- even before the possibility of a minority government emerged. But he has been given a large assist by the sudden disintegration of the Liberal coalition, under the dual stress of the Adscam revelations and the long civil war within the party. Consider what has befallen the Liberals:
They have lost Quebec. The arrival of the Bloc Quebecois in 1993 removed any possibility of the near-sweeps the party enjoyed in the Trudeau era. But in this election the Liberals have lost not only the nationalist vote -- they've lost the federalists. This is an event of historic significance, not only because the majority of Quebecers are federalists, but because they are a more stable political element: the foundation stone, indeed, of 80-odd years of Liberal hegemony.
For now they are parking their votes with the Bloc. But in the next election the Conservatives will come knocking.
Readers may want to familiarize themselves with a speech Mr. Harper gave in 2002 while campaigning for leader of the Canadian Alliance. The great mistake of previous conservative leaders, he said, was to align themselves with Quebec nationalists, in coalition with the traditional base of Western populists. This occasionally yielded great results -- the Diefenbaker and Mulroney sweeps -- but was inherently combustible, as subsequent events were to prove in either case.
Rather, Mr. Harper argued, Conservatives should aim for the federalist vote. "The broad lesson of history," he noted, "is that Canada's natural governing coalition always includes the federalist option in Quebec, not the nationalist one" -- as was true of the Liberals for much of the 20th century, and of the Conservatives in the 19th. At the time, it seemed a long shot. But the federalist vote is in play now. The Liberals no longer own it. Indeed, under Mr. Harper's leadership, the Conservatives, who tore themselves apart over Quebec for most of the past 40 years, are now both more united and more unambiguously federalist than the Liberals. The virus of special status -- distinct society, deux nations, call it what you will -- has been expunged from the party.
They have lost Ontario. Well, "lost" is perhaps overdoing it. But the province-wide sweeps of the Chretien years are a thing of the past. In part, this is simply a return to form: Rural Ontario was always decidedly strange turf for the Liberals. But something else is at work. Or rather two things. One, the immigrant vote is no longer reliably Liberal. Newer generations of immigrants are strongly entrepreneurial; many hold staunchly conservative views on social issues, such as the definition of marriage, as well.
And two, the province as a whole is shifting, if not exactly to the right, then to the West. This has been apparent at the provincial level for some years: The Harris Conservatives were indistinguishable from the Reform party federally, or the Klein Conservatives in Alberta. Ontario, once the placid home of Red Toryism and blinkered Upper Canadian supremacy, has increasingly absorbed the democratic values and free-market outlook of Western Canada. We are perhaps not there yet, but the day is not far off when the line dividing East from West will no longer be drawn at the lakehead, but at the Rideau. Which makes it all the more unfortunate for the Liberals that ...
They have lost the West. They never had it, of course. But the Martin people were intensely interested in establishing a beachhead for the party in the West, knowing that the country's political and economic centre of gravity is moving steadily westward. That dream is now over and, if it weren't before, the anti-Alberta campaign of the past two weeks killed any hope of its revival.
All of this may seem too strong, coming three days before the election. But it is what comes after that may seal the Liberals' fate. We can take it as a given that they will not win a majority. But it is not even clear that they can form a minority: The NDP will likely not be able to deliver enough seats to put them over the top, and the Bloc won't play (and may not, depending on the numbers, be in a position to: e.g. 95 Liberals, 55 Bloquistes). And if it is a Tory minority, it is clear what their legislative agenda will be: to enact, with the enthusiastic support of the other opposition parties, a series of sweeping democratic reforms -- that is to say, to dismantle the apparatus of Liberal hegemony.
Free votes in the Commons; an elected Senate; fixed election dates; a campaign finance law that not only bans corporate contributions (on which the Liberals have historically relied far more heavily than any other party) but also public subsidy (on which the Liberals were counting to replace the corporate cash); a transparent public appointments process, with parliamentary oversight; regulations to prevent the sale of instant memberships and other abuses in party nomination races: Each of these on its own would knock out a piece of the Natural Governing Party's machinery of perpetual rule. Together, they would cripple it, perhaps irreparably.
And two other master strokes would finish the job. One, which would have to wait upon a Conservative majority, would be the abolition of the pork barrel: the winding down of the various regional development agencies and other institutions for dispensing funds and favours to friends of the government. And the other, looming suddenly on the horizon, is proportional representation.
The NDP, it is well known, has made a referendum on PR the pre-eminent condition of its support for any minority government. What is perhaps a less well-known part of the public record is a paper jointly authored for the Next City magazine in 1997 by Mr. Harper and Tom Flanagan, his chief advisor. Its title: Our Benign Dictatorship. Its solution: Proportional representation.
I hope so. I really do. It'd be nice to start thinking of Canada as our 'ally to the North' again and not a country that despises us since it's trendy for the rest of the world to do so.
But what would a fragmented Canada mean? A very hostile nation of Quebec, a fairly hostile Ontario, and a friendly independent Western Canada, which has very few people?
Might work for Canada, but would it be of much help to the U.S?
The Liberals have won elections with a measly 38% of the vote. They were able to form governments even when 62% of Canadians voted for someone else. Under the first past the post plurality system, Canada got Liberal Party governments in perpetuity - more like the unchallenged rule of a single party accountable to no one. With PR, there will have to be give and take on the part of a government that takes into account the views of the majority of Canadians, not just a plurality that happened to give the ruling party a lopsided majority in Parliament. Canadians want a government that ensures all their votes count and that they have a say in its affairs. A real democracy instead of a benign Liberal dictatorship.
A Canada with a real two party system is one that would be able to hold the more Leftist lunatics at bay and trim back the wretched excesses of Canada's welfare state. It would be a Canada with a strong military that makes its contribution to the Western Alliance and North American security. It would be a Canada that ceased quarelling over languages and that was at peace with itself and which enjoyed greater individual freedom at home. Canada would cease being a Trudeaupian artifice that happened to be a government with a country and become instead a real nation with a government. Canada would change for the better and that is the meaning of the end of the country's Liberal Era.
At most 20% of the population truly hold even a moderate conservative position.
Canadians are by nature state dependent and servile.
(They are much like the Swedes in this respect,
though Sweden, at least, makes socialism work with a little efficiency)
There is no future for a true conservative party in Canada.
Western Canada's not as unpopulated as it used to be. It is home to roughly 30% of the Canadian population these days (4 million in B.C., 3 million in Alberta and 1 million each in Saskatchewan & Manitoba = 9 Million out of approximately 30 million). In fact, about as many people live in B.C. and Alberta combined as Quebec.
Quebec would indeed be little France on the Saint Lawrence. But there's no reason to believe Ontario or Western or Atlantic Canada would be hostile to the U.S.
Thanks. That's informative. But isn't British Columbia fairly left-wing and anti-U.S.? And hasn't the leftist NDP done quite well in Saskatchewan and Manitoba at times?
Appreciate this info. Canada is a wonderful country and deserves better than to be run by the left year after year. I'll follow the results with great interest now.
I think the tremendous population in Vancouver is the reason for your thought. However, the businessmen and women along the Alaska highway do not share the big city mentality.
They are the most friendly and pro-conservative people I have met in my ventures in Canada. I would compare them to up-state New Yorkers. They just don't have the numbers to counter the metropolis.
If the polls are right and the election is too close to call Monday, there will be one dramatic change in Canada's elections: in every election before this one, it was all over when the polls closed in the east. On Monday, it may finally be the West's turn to decide who Canada's next Prime Minister will be. Either Alberta or British Columbia could decide the outcome of the election. After decades of being ignored, Western Canada could well end up playing the kingmaker role in tomorrow's election.
Thanks for the information in post 5. I'm wondering how the liberals have so much control with so few numbers...just don't understand the system.
Pretend the party that won the most seats in our House of Representatives selected the President. And, like today, the Congressional candidate who wins the most votes (but not necessarily a majority) in a particular Congressional district becomes Congressman.
Now, pretend the Green Party actually had substantial support in parts of the United States, and almost always ended up with 10-20% of the vote.
That's basically the Canadian system.
Got it. Thank you. That's the clearest explanation I've ever heard.
It's a great day for Canada.
It's a little more complicated --- the party that wins the most seats must actually win a majority of the seats or work with other parties to form a permanent or temporary majority to remain Prime Minister. When they no longer have a majority, the government falls and new elections are held.
And there's the whole Quebec sovereignty issue, that ends up creating another fourth party.
But I think you get the point.
The one thing I'm struck by this election is that the Conservatives are on the verge of becoming a competitive national party. They still have yet to make a breakthrough in Quebec so they're not where they want to be yet. But for a party that was just born last winter, from where they've come since then is nothing short of impressive. The Liberals used to be Canada's national party, have in succession lost the West, Quebec, and now Ontario. They will have a lot of rebuilding to do to remain viable, regardless of the results Monday. As for the Bloc, if its serious about taking Quebec out of Canada, its slitting its own political throat. Its hard to imagine a party putting itself out of a job so I wouldn't be surprised if Quebeckers settle for a looser and less centralized federation. When all is said and done, the more I agree with Coyne the Liberals will never have the same kind of claim on national power that used to be their sort of Canadian birth-right. And while Canadian politics will remain to the Left of that in the States, there will at least be a moderating presence that didn't exist before. Given the presence of three Leftist parties in Canadian politics, it seems odd to imagine a conservative could win at all in such a country. Yet, that may in the end be Stephen Harper's one contribution to the birth of the New Canada: to make Canadians feel they can be non-Leftist AND still be proud Canadians.
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