This month in democracy

All things being equal, I should probably be feeling a lot more deflated and cynical vis à vis democracy and its discontents these days than I am. Three big blows to the democratic process have been landed, two in the U.S. and one here: (1) Stephen Harper’s prorogation of parliament, (2) the U.S. Senate’s stagnation and obstructionism, and finally (3) the recent decision by SCOTUS to reverse a century of legislation restricting corporate political contributions, effectively opening the floodgates for corporate money to influence and/or buy elections and elected officials.

I have watched the special Massachusetts election of Scott Brown, which took away the Democrats’ supermajority, and the ensuing commentary with bemusement. The Village Voice captured the absurdity most succinctly with their headline, “Scott Brown Wins Mass. Race, Giving GOP 41-59 Majority in the Senate.” If ever there was a moment in which the American electoral system was showing its flaws, surely this is it—the pros and cons of the current health care reform bills notwithstanding, surely an eighteen vote advantage should be enough to pass legislation? Apparently not with the threat of the filibuster hanging over it.

The U.S. Senate, it should be pointed out, is a pretty undemocratic body to begin with. It was originally designed to be the “sober second thought” in the crafting of legislation, with senators having six year terms as opposed to congressmen’s two ostensibly leading to a more stable, mature consideration of proposed bills. The senators were also fewer in number, and—most importantly—not determined by the populations they represented. Rather, each state gets two senators, regardless of size. This was less of a problem back in the late eighteenth century when there were only thirteen states, which did not have vast discrepancies in population; however, when the people of California (population thirty-six million) have the same representation in the Senate as Vermont (population six hundred thousand), the influence small states wield is wildly asymmetrical.

But that’s neither here or there—the filibuster has become an increasingly common tool for blocking legislation, to the point where, in practice, an obstructionist minority only interested in preventing votes (such as we now see in action) can grind the wheels of the legislative branch to a halt. Employment of the filibuster has increased more than fivefold—between 1951 and 1960, it was used an average of 3.2 times a year, whereas between 1981 and 2004 the yearly average was 16.5. (For a good breakdown of the procedural issues, read here and here).

The filibuster has a quasi-romantic quality in the popular imagination—from its very name, which means “freebooter” or “pirate,” to Jimmy Stewart’s Mr. Smith, to the West Wing episode “The Stackhouse Filibuster”—connoting a lone heroic individual standing up against the system. And indeed, certain instances of individuals filibustering do conform to that idea (though not always on the side of the angels, as with Strom Thurmond’s attempt to block the Civil Rights Act). More and more however it has become standard operating procedure for the minority party to thwart the majority agenda. While its use has traditionally been that of last resort, it has become business as usual.

I can’t help but see a parallel to Stephen Harper’s use of prorogation, insofar as it too is an arcane parliamentary procedure of last resort. The argument could be made that last year’s invocation of it was just that, a desperate manoeuvre to circumvent an undemocratic power grab by the opposition (not an argument I agree with, but it could be made nevertheless); no such claim could me made however about the decision to prorogue parliament this past December 30. This time, it was so blatantly and baldly a move to avoid having to address the Afghani detainee scandal until after the Winter Olympics, by which time (Harper would hope) the public’s attention would be elsewhere.

The use of prorogation twice in the space of a year is worrisome, not least because it would seem to set a new precedent for the PM’s autocratic powers, and redefine the relationship between the PM and parliament. For me, Stephen Harper’s most troubling quality has always been his obvious desire to arrogate presidential power to the PMO and overturn the Westminster standard of “first among equals.” The high-handed use of prorogation—both times—bespeaks both arrogance and a disdain for the checks on prime ministerial power that are a cornerstone of parliamentary democracy (to say nothing of the disrespect to the Governor General, and of all the bills before the House of Commons that now die).

What keeps me buoyed in the face of these events however is that it puts these governmental flaws on people’s radar. Prorogation Part Two would certainly seem, at this point, to have backfired for Harper. If he banked on Canadians’ apathy to see him through, the early signs aren’t good for him: his poll numbers have dropped, and people across the country are speaking up angrily. Nor have I heard anything in the way of support for Harper’s actions—the right seems more or less mum on the subject, which is a tacit admission that the PM was way out of line on this one. I have reason to hope that this may have been one bridge too far for Harper.

Similarly, there is also some real discourse in the U.S. happening about the filibuster, and the Senate’s arcane procedures more generally. I have less hope that anything will happen on that front than I am about prorogation being Harper’s Waterloo, but it is heartening. One way or another, Obama seems to be fired up: he’s taking a more oppositional and populist tone than he has since the election, and he has re-hired his campaign director David Plouffe to chart a new course. Hopefully, after a year of being conciliatory, he’s pissed off. The State of the Union should be a barn-burner.

Finally, the Supreme Court’s ruling last week taking the restrictions of corporate political donations doesn’t have me as outraged as I might have imagined. A large part of my calm was summed up nicely by Glenn Greenwald, who observes that any lament about the certain corporate interference in American government necessarily suggests that this is not already the case:

The reality is that our political institutions are already completely beholden to and controlled by large corporate interests (Dick Durbin: "banks own" the Congress). Corporations find endless ways to circumvent current restrictions—their armies of PACs, lobbyists, media control, and revolving-door rewards flood Washington and currently ensure their stranglehold—and while this decision will make things marginally worse, I can't imagine how it could worsen fundamentally. (Salon.com)

Sadly, I can’t disagree with Greenwald’s argument. Furthermore, in looking closely at the case and the decision, one finds that there are in fact some significant First Amendment issues that would have made the reverse ruling problematic from a free speech perspective. That the court decided to overturn a century of precedent on the funding of elections strikes me as something of a baby/bathwater situation, but it is fairly clear that there was no easy extrication from this case one way or another.

On the other hand, the ruling has evoked a storm of condemnation on both sides of the political coin, and may ironically do more to draw attention to the need to reform the way election campaigns are funded than any previous endeavours.

So, to recap: the U.S. Senate is broken, but so visibly so it has excited serious discussion about how to fix it. Stephen Harper has prorogued parliament in autocratic and arrogant fashion, and in the process ignited a grassroots protest and sent his numbers into a tailspin. And America’s Supreme Court has formalized corporate ownership of elected officials, which may well lead to a bipartisan effort to scale back the excesses of soft money. Of course, none of these eventualities may pan out—I sit here with fingers crossed. But if one or more of them do, it would be a vindication of the principle that sometimes things have to get worse before they can get better.

In praise of minority

Call me a sentimental fool, but I think the wisest observation ever made about democracy was Winston Churchill’s famous declaration that it is the worst form of government there is, except for all the others.

None of the political wisdom and scholarship I have encountered in my life has managed to sum up so neatly the constant frustration with the venality, posturing, graft, waste, and partisan hackery of liberal democracy and the inescapable fact that the vast majority of us wouldn’t trade it for anything. Is democracy messy? Yes. Inefficient? Yes. These two elements alone make frustration with government and contempt for politicians the third and fourth constants in life after death and taxes. Which is why I’m generally willing to cut politicians a little slack for their failings, if for no other reason than those very failings are more or less inevitable on some level, unavoidable by-products of a political system based on horse-trading and compromise. Max Weber wasn’t exaggerating when he observed that one attempts to effect political solutions to social problems at nothing less than the cost of one’s own soul.

All this is apropos of our current shifting political landscape, or what we more commonly call a minority government. Rick Salutin had a column in the Globe last weekend in which he gently chided those complaining about the possibility of a fall election: “In a vital democracy, like ancient Athens or the Iroquois confederacy, people were involved in politics continually. Under our system, politics more or less equals elections, so you could call frequent elections our form of participatory democracy. It keeps citizens engaged and parties on their toes.” He then asks whether we’d have seen even the “minimal action” Harper has made on the economy or Afghanistan if the Tories had a majority.

Would I be happier with the Conservatives out of power? Absolutely. But a Harper minority is in a variety of ways preferable to a Liberal supermajority, for the simple reason that it tends to prevent complacency and the insufferable arrogance and tone-deafness that finally brought down the Liberals and would be worse (I believe) by a magnitude under a Harper majority. To keep his party in power, Harper has been forced to make all sorts of progressive concessions that would be unthinkable with a majority, and in response to Ignatieff’s saber-rattling he is floating concessions on EI spending in an attempt to garner NDP and Bloc support.

I love this for two reasons, one petty and one idealistic. The petty reason is that it puts egg on Harper’s face, who around this time last year was condemning the Liberals’ willingness to work with “socialists and separatists.” My, how the wheel turns.

The other reason is that I believe this is how it’s supposed to work. The whole point of having ideologically opposed political parties is to have them act as checks and balances on the other and mitigate their excesses. Would I prefer to have Prime Minister Ignatieff? Probably. But a Stephen Harper forced to reach to Iggy’s left will do nicely for the time being, thank you very much.

Stephen Harper, political judo master

Well, you’ve got to hand it to Stephen Harper. He may be petty and vindictive, but no one plays the game of political chess in this country like him. He blundered in December, but was back in true form with the Federal Budget that didn’t give anyone anything to complain about … except for conservatives and Newfoundland.

So you’re Stephen Harper, having just squeaked out of the confrontation with the coalition, and looking at the shiny new Liberal leader who seems set to rejuvenate his party and build momentum that could seriously hurt you in a year or two. What is the best way to sabotage this prospect? Why, to make Ignatieff look weak, of course. And what better way to do that than to stick some of his MPs with an impossible choice of loyalties? And while we’re at it, why not stick it to Danny Williams?

Talk about two birds with one stone.

You almost have to admire the elegance of it. In choking off $1.5B over three years to Newfoundland and Labrador, Harper gets his revenge for Williams’ ABC campaign and presents Ignatieff with a handful of Liberal MPs who really have no choice but to vote against the budget. It’s lose-lose for Ignatieff: if he lets them vote their conscience, he’s a weak leader; if he punishes them for dissenting, he’s petty, and still weak in the bargain for not having brought his party into line to begin with. Either way, in the first major political drama of 2009, Ignatieff loses much of that shiny newness. And Harper comes out of it with nary a scratch: his ruthlessness is now such a commonplace that it doesn’t bear remarking; what’s more, political retribution for Newfoundland and Labrador’s rejection of the Conservatives was more or less to be expected. And Danny Williams’ rants about Harper’s petty vindictiveness tend to elicit more eye-rolls here in Newfoundland than emphatic nods of agreement (for those unfamiliar with Danny Williams’ political style, he is the king of petty vindictiveness when it comes to those who cross him here on the Rock—his accusations of the same against Harper are seen very much as throwing black kettles in a glass house).

It’s a political judo hold, and deftly done. That doesn’t change the fact however that it was petty and vindictive, politically cynical, and an act of partisan maneuvering at a time when the country really needs a leader who can, if not rise above this sort of adolescent squabbling, then at least put it aside in a time of crisis. Even as the country looks to the Prime Minister for solutions to intractable problems, Stephen Harper is using the very Budget designed to help Canadians to give his political opponents the shaft.

Does this put Ignatieff in a difficult position? Yes. But I think the best response at this point is to call it what it is: to call out Stephen Harper for his political scheming and outline explicitly the way in which he’s playing Liberals against each other, province against province for his own cynical ends; and if I were Michael Ignatieff, after saying all that, I would continue: “I will be voting for this budget, because I need to think federally. This country does not want another election now; it has made it clear it is at best ambivalent about a coalition government, and so for the time being those options are off the table. I need to consider the good of Canadians as a whole. That is the job of a party leader. But the job of MPs is to speak for their ridings, and for that reason I will not be either forcing the Liberal members of Newfoundland and Labrador to vote my way, nor will I punish them when they don’t. In fact, on this issue, I will be freeing all Liberals to vote their conscience, to vote the way their constituents wish for them to vote. Stephen Harper has included this measure in the budget to punish Newfoundland and Labrador for rejecting his party and to weaken the Opposition. It is a cynical and petty move at a time when this country needs leadership. And I think the Canadian people are not nearly as stupid as Mr. Harper believes them to be. I think the Canadian people recognize a con job when they see it. And I think the Canadian people are going to remember that, at a time when they looked to their Prime Minister to rise above political expediency, he failed spectacularly.”

Answers delivered to an empty kitchen

My habit on Sunday evenings these days is to take my time making dinner and listen to Cross-Country Checkup. I can’t figure Rex Murphy: his columns and opinion pieces tend to irritate me a great deal (even as they sometimes amuse me), more for their style than their substance much of the time … but as an interviewer and discussion moderator he’s top-notch. I really enjoy the conversations on the Checkup, and find myself often answering questions out loud to myself, or arguing with the various callers (this is what living alone does to you).

This week’s topic was, predictably, the inauguration of Barack Obama, and what this will imply for Canada. Perhaps unsurprisingly, my responses to the questions and comments were, um, a lot more spirited than usual—to the point where I was seriously considering calling the show, but didn’t feel like hitting redial umpteen times before getting through, and then probably not making it into the queue. So I thought I might air my thoughts here because, well, that is what blogs are for (i.e. the textual equivalent of speaking animatedly to your empty kitchen).

There were three basic questions that Rex kept returning to:

1. What did you think of the inauguration?
2. President Obama is making his first state visit to us; what kind of relationship do you think he and Stephen Harper will develop? Will they get along, or will there be friction?
3. Obama has made it clear that he wants to exit Iraq, but re-dedicate forces to the mission in Afghanistan—just as the Canadian forces have set a timetable for withdrawal. Does this mean we will be out of sync with the U.S. in coming years?

Given that I answered the first question at length two blog posts ago, I’ll skip it.

On number two, there was a lot of back-and-forth with Rex and his guests and callers about the history of amity and tension between our Prime Ministers and America’s presidents—the general standard being that Conservative PMs got along with Republican presidents, and Liberals with Democrats, while there has tended to be tension when our governments are ideologically out of step. Examples such as Diefenbaker’s loathing of Kennedy, Nixon’s dislike of Trudeau, and the frostiness between Chretien and Bush were cited; conversely, Mulroney and Reagan were peas in a pod and Clinton and Chretien seemed to bear each other no overt aversion. A lot was made, vis a vis Harper and Obama, of the fact that policy-wise, these two leaders are not actually too far apart—that “Democrat” in the U.S. tends to fall into the red tory category here.

This, I felt, was missing the point a bit. Which is not to say I disagree with this assessment: whatever Harper’s more conservative tendencies, especially in terms of social conservatism, they get mitigated by being leader of a country that doesn’t like going to extremes (not all of them, alas, but still). What I’m looking forward to seeing is how Harper deals with Obama’s overwhelming popularity among Canadians, and the popularity of his message of change, of a politics of transparency and bipartisanship, and of moving on from the arrogance and cynicism of the Bush Administration. This might well prove a problem for Harper, who has embraced a politics of attack, reduced the transparency of the PMO, and attempted as best he can to turn it into something with the more autocratic powers of the American executive branch. The American election was a resounding “No! in thunder” to that brand of politics, and Obama still only received 53% of the popular vote, whereas he would have been elected by something on the order of 80% here in Canada. Perhaps now that we the power of that example to look to now, Canadians will be less willing to watch our politicians squabble like spoiled teenagers.


For the third question, Rex insistently kept phrasing it in terms of whether we will find ourselves “out of sync” with the U.S. on Afghanistan. My answer to that would be to say that I hope Stephen Harper, or whoever is PM when that specific push comes to that particular shove, will have the cojones to observe that it is not that we’re out of sync; it’s the U.S. who is now getting into sync with us and everyone else. When our projected withdrawal in 2011 comes around, we will have been in Afghanistan for ten years; and unlike many of the other nations that sent troops, Canadians have been there without caveats about not taking on combat roles—indeed, we’ve been the point of the spear, and have the casualties to show for it. If the Obama Administration puts pressure on us to extend our combat presence, the PM needs to observe that for a decade we’ve been helping hold a rapidly deteriorating line while the most powerful military in the world fought an unnecessary war in Iraq and reduced their strength in Afghanistan to do it. I hope that the PM says at that point that, as far as the “war on terror” goes, we’ve done more than our share and don’t owe anyone anything.


So there’s my two cents. Perhaps next Sunday I’ll actually call in.

New branded politics

There’s a great moment in the first season of Mad Men when the men of Sterling Cooper—who have effectively hitched themselves to Richard Nixon’s would-be presidential star—view a JFK television ad, and suddenly realize what they’re up against. The ad is peppy, happy, cartoonish—a montage of image’s of the handsome Kennedy and his wife alongside a series of random Americans of various ages and stations (though not races or ethnicities)—and is utterly substanceless. Don Draper and company are taken aback by the breathtaking shallowness of the ad, but as ad men recognize the ad’s persuasive power ... especially when compared to Nixon’s ponderous and stern catalogue of his qualifications for the presidency.



One of the things I love about Mad Men is the way in which it so frequently subverts our accustomed understanding of certain cultural and historical moments and artefacts. The mythos of John F. Kennedy for us today (the version other than the unremitting lothario) is the eloquent and earnest, brilliant and dedicated leader who surrounded himself with the greatest minds of his generation. Nixon resides in the imagination as the self-obsessed, pathologically dishonest Machiavelli willing to do anything to attain and consolidate power. The first we like to imagine would have been a force for good had he not been cut down; the latter inaugurated a politics of skulduggery and character assassination that has been the norm until the recent election of Barack Obama.

Of course, neither of these portraits is entirely true or fair: Kennedy and his “best and brightest” have to bear much of the blame for Vietnam, and Nixon was (for all his faults) an accomplished administrator and diplomat. But their respective mythologies persist, which is why seeing the JFK ad was somewhat jarring—it has frequently been said that Kennedy was the first television president, that his victory was a product of this new medium that allowed his image of youthfulness, combined with his accomplished oratory, to sway the electorate. But those looking back on Kennedy with rose-coloured glasses tend to associate his televisual appeal not with the vapid TV ad seen above, but with such historic moments as the Berlin speech. It is, hence, a bit of a shock to the system to see said vapid ad and realize that Kennedy’s campaign not only exploited the shallowness of televisual sensibilities, but blazed a trail we’ve been walking since.

I’ve been musing on these questions this morning because of two things. One, I’ve been reading The Assault on Reason by Al Gore (speaking of candidates partially hamstrung by ponderous earnestness); two, there’s a particular turn of phrase that has been increasingly irritating me in the aftermath of our recent parliamentary silliness: the frequent recourse of liberal MPs and political commentators to the discussion of how to recuperate “the Liberal brand.”

I’ve always been a fan of Al Gore, and have a deep respect for him as a politician, statesman and just generally as a human being. The frequent assaults on him since 2000 by both the conservative and mainstream press have exemplified a particularly pernicious form of American anti-intellectualism that irritates the hell out of me, as well and scaring me a great deal too (plus, I have a certain sympathy for stodgy and pompous know-it-alls, having been justifiably tarred with that brush myself many, many times). The Assault on Reason is an extraordinary book, and one I’m now wishing I’d read when it was first published—though had I done that, it would have filled me with despair at the nadir of the Bush Administration and the uncertain prospect of what was to succeed them. It’s worth reading still however (Obama hasn’t been sworn in yet—forty-one days!), because it offers a trenchant critique of what happens when we allow mendacity and misdirection to rule political discourse in the place of reasoned and measured debate.

While we wait with bated breath to see whether Obama’s election will usher in a new era of pragmatic and transparent leadership based on rational debate, our own political situation in Canada makes me recommend The Assault on Reason as a fine book to be put in your loved ones’ stockings. Or perhaps, in this political climate, the stockings of your unloved-ones. Even as the Bush/Cheney/Rove style of politics is being shown the door by the American electorate, our own PM continues to play zero-sum partisan hardball and consolidate his party’s power by any means necessary. To quote Rick Mercer: “We've seen unheard of cooperation between political rivals all over the industrialized world. But not in Canada. Not with Stephen Harper ... No my friends, he has one goal and one goal only and it has nothing to do with governing: how can he use this crisis to destroy the opposition?”

What is perhaps most galling is the degree to which he continues to succeed. He made a drastic misstep that led to him almost being ousted by the coalition, but somehow convinced our GG to prorogue Parliament. He’ll return in January unrepentant but with a budget with enough gifts for the electorate that the coalition—which already looks dead in the water—won’t have a leg to stand on. And he’ll have managed, through some bizarre bit of political misdirection, to have transformed his blunder into political capital. And to those who say you can’t argue with success, I cry bullshit.

Why? Because it’s not about who wins and loses in Parliament, it’s about who wins and loses in Canada, and at the moment we’re all losing big time: because we have a locked and shuttered House of Commons at a time when we need leadership, because we have a prime minister more interested in holding onto power than genuinely working with the opposition for the greater good, because we have an inept and factious opposition, and because we’re pretty much a laughing stock. When Jon Stewart said the other night on The Daily Show that Canada’s biggest export is jokes about Canadians, I really couldn't do much more than sigh and silently agree.

All of which is why the incessant argument about “the Liberal brand” makes me want to knock people’s heads together. A political party is not a pair of sneakers or a celebrity fragrance, but we’ve arrived at a point where that’s exactly how we treat it. Harper &Co., according to a news report I heard yesterday, already have a series of Michael Ignatieff attack ads ready to roll out. Presumably they also had a series of Bob Rae attack ads in the can, and undoubtedly they’re assembling anti-coalition attack ads in the unlikely eventuality that the coalition is still drawing breath in January. The Conservatives have become masters of branding: they know that this is the strategy by which one comes to value or devalue something based on a set of associations detached from the innate value of a given object. They have been waging a very successful war against the Liberal brand since the waning days of Chretien, and have indeed succeeded in devaluing it dramatically.

Which is why we should remember that we're not talking about a consumer product here but a complex of elected officials, staffers, ideas, policies, and voters that cannot and should not be reduced to a set of simplistic catch-phrases, talking-points, and visual cues.

Which begs the question of why the Liberals allow Harper to control the debate. Every time an MP expresses their confidence in the “Liberal brand,” they’re playing a game they’ve been losing consistently. I can’t say I’m without ambivalence about Michael Ignatieff, but I take comfort in the fact that the Liberals seem to be getting their act together and ending, or at least suspending, their crippling internecine squabbles (the operative phrase here being “seem to be”). But Mr. Ignatieff: please don’t talk about the Liberal brand. Please don’t play Harper’s game. Granted, I’m not entirely sure what the alternative is, but then I’m not the newly appointed party leader presumably surrounded by a lot of smart political operatives. There is one glimmer of hope, however, which happens to lie to our south. Promise me you’ll think about how to change things.

What I imagined our leaders saying as I watched them debate the coalition on the muted TVs at the gym while I ran on the treadmill yesterday

"OK, so remember all that stuff I said last week? You guys know I was joking, right? I mean, come ON … all that stuff about cutting off your funding? We were just hazing you. New government and all, having some fun with the Opposition. It’s a tradition! OK, well, it’s a new tradition, one that myself and my fellow Conservative MPs were hoping to get started. But NOOOOOO … you spoilsports have to go ahead and ruin the joke by taking it all totally seriously. I thought Canadian politicians were supposed to have a sense of humour. I mean, don’t you guys watch This Hour Has 22 Minutes? I mean, we’re hilarious. I was just punkin’ y’all! So let’s just forget this Coalition silliness, and go back to where we were before I said all that stuff. Which, like I said, I toooootally didn’t mean ….

"OK. OK. OK. Please don’t take the PMO away from me. Please!! You guys don’t understand what it’s like … I NEED to be Prime Minister! It’s like a drug. I can’t give it up. PLEASE! Look, it’s my campaign guys’ fault … after we did all those ads, they took the sweater vest away, and happy fun cuddly Stephen went away too, and hardass wants-to-be-President Stephen came roaring back. Let me put the sweater vest on again! I can do this, I swear! Don’t you understand? THEY TOOK AWAY THE SWEATER VEST!!"

(For some reason sounding an awful lot like Ian McShane) "Listen, you oil-sands worshipping shitheel cocksucker. You, my friend, just bought your cocksucker Conservative fucking party one long-term ass-fucking. You call this a fucking power grab, you with your wanna-be fucking executive branch? You fucking George W. fucking Bush clone? What you see before you, my monumentally arrogant friend, is a parlifuckingmentary solution to your pale imitation of those American Karl Rove cocksuckers. You want to be president, emigrate to the United fucking States of America. You want to be Canadian, you just bend over there and take our Westminster procedure like a polite little fucknut."


"I would like to correct Mr. Flaherty’s characterization of our agreement as the “New Socialist, New Separatist Coalition” and remind the honourable member that four years ago his party’s leader sought an identical agreement with the NDP and Bloc Quebecois. And I would like to further chastise the honourable member for speaking not only hypocritically, but for employing such incendiary and divisive language. We are not the “New Socialist, New Separatist Coalition,” Mr. Speaker. We are the Communist-Centrist Coalition of Partitionists, or CCCP. HA! That’s right, you bourgeois pigs, you running dogs! WE GOT YOU! At long last, the glorious revolution may commence! Добро пожаловать к соединению канадских советских социалистических республик!!"

Coalition concerns

I read this funny comment today by Matthew Yglesias, who writes one of my favourite political blogs:

“One happy result of recent election outcomes is that now liberal Americans get to tease our liberal Canadian friends about the role reversal — they’re the ones saddled with government by rightwingers, and they’re the ones who’ll need to flee ‘cross the border to enter the bountiful Land of Obama.”

Except, as he points out, possibly not for much longer. I obviously have had my head in the sand for the last few days, because it wasn’t until last night, listening to Cross-Country Checkup on CBC as I made dinner, that I first heard of the Conservatives’ massively controversial budget and the response of the opposition parties. I’m still a little hazy on the details of what made this budget such a “F*ck You!,” but the consensus I heard last night, from both sides of the political spectrum, was that Harper’s arrogance finally got the better of him—promising a conciliatory approach after the election, and then explicitly poking the opposition in the eye with a stick.

Which brings us to the two possible routes from here (or three, if we take into account the oh-so-Canadian strategy of doing nothing) being the opposition getting together to bring about another election, or the opposition literally getting together and forming a coalition government. The former prospect makes me want to jab the aforementioned stick in my own eye, but the latter is kind of exciting. Not necessarily because I think a coalition government would be the answer to our prayers or the solution to our problems, but because it would have the effect of driving federal Canadian politics out of its rut, and make three of our four major parties actually work together.

Also, it makes federal Canadian politics more interesting. The last election was such a dour affair because its outcomes, and indeed the process of the campaigns, were so predictable as to be practically foregone conclusions. I can’t remember the last time Canadian politics ever actually inspired me … actually, it’s entirely possible that my country’s politics have never inspired me, which is extremely sad. In fact, one of the last times I heard any of our leaders say something that moved me was when Rick Mercer interviewed Paul Martin on the October 28 episode of his show; Martin said “My father understood that government has a really positive role to play in the lives of people. You start with individual freedom, and then the question becomes, ‘Well, how the heck do make sure that people have that individual freedom?’ Well, if you’re not born to privilege, then you don’t have the same freedoms as people who are, and government has a responsibility to put you in that position with the best education, the best health care. That was my father’s belief, and it’s certainly mine.”

It says something about our current state of affairs that I really miss Paul Martin.

So I’m profoundly interested to see what happens should the opposition give this coalition idea the old college try. I suspect if it goes forward we’ll see Bob Rae as its nominal leader, because Stephane Dion would be a non-starter with the Bloc, and Ignatieff a non-starter with the NDP; Bob Rae, given his history with the New Democrats and massive amount of experience to boot, will likely rise to the top. The big question is the composition of the cabinet: the Bloc can’t possibly expect that a separatist would be an acceptable prime minister to the rest of the country, but they’ll have to be given something. Some key portfolios, at the very least, would be dropped in their laps.

I must admit, I am slightly gleeful at the fact that this prospective coalition will necessarily give the party of separatism a hand in government, largely because it’s exactly the kind of surreal logic that surfaces in Canadian political life from time to time that makes me love my country that much more. The very first comment on Matthew Yglesias’s post read “A separatist party joining a coalition government? Man, Canada can be weird sometimes.” Yup, we certainly can—and we’re not even mentioning the Trudeau years, or Mackenzie King’s séances, or Sir John A’s drunken whistle-stop campaign speeches.

But it also, I think, speaks to something in the Canadian character, in finding strength and consensus in accommodating difference. And to those calling in to Rex Murphy’s show last night with apocalyptic predictions of Canada’s demise should the Bloc get ANY power, I ask you this: have you not been paying attention to Quebec all this time? Separatism gains steam when Quebec feels disenfranchised, and withers on the vine when Quebec wields genuine political clout in Ottawa. Paradoxically, giving the Bloc a seat at the table in a coalition government would, I honestly believe, do more to marginalize extreme separatists than aid them.

On the other hand, the enfranchisement of Quebec at the expense of the Harper government, while denuding Quebec separatist sentiments, is more than likely to foster them out west, especially in Alberta. One caller last night hit the nail on the head when he observed that such an unlikely coalition would be read by Albertans as representative of the lengths Quebec and Ontario will go to claw back power from the western provinces and deny them a voice in the governance of the country.

So we’ll see. It’s all a great reminder that democracy is an intractably messy thing. I think it’s moments like this that Winston Churchill said that democracy is the worst form of government in the world … except for all the others.

Thoughts on voting and why Jack Layton should have let me run his campaign

Another election come and gone, and the shift in the political landscape is both so slight and so expected that one might feel that not voting was forgivable. And indeed it would have been, except for one small problem: not voting is unforgivable.

I polled my second-year class last Thursday, and about half of my students admitted to not voting. (To be fair, only one person in my fourth-year class didn’t vote, so either my senior students are more politically conscientious or more dishonest. I choose to believe the former). This pathetic turnout does not, alas, come as a surprise, as the apathy of voters in the 18-25 range is an oft-repeated statistic around election time. And as Rick Mercer pointed out in a recent rant, it is exactly this apathy that gives government carte blanche to ignore the concerns of young Canadians—and that if they should ever get their shit together and represent at the ballot box, they’d be a force to be reckoned with.

Of course, many see this seeming antipathy to voting as evidence of a more pervasive apathy and narcissism on the part of the Facebook generation. This perception is not however borne out in reality: 15-24 year olds, according to Statistics Canada, are the most likely of all age groups to be volunteering their time; fifty-five percent volunteer an average of 139 hours a year, and four out of five in that age group follow the news on a regular basis. Indeed, as Patrick White notes in last weekend’s Globe and Mail, the very digital culture often decried as the source of apathy in fact facilitates and aids this activism.

This energy does not however translate into voting, apparently. Why? The most obvious answer lies in a comparison between our recent election and the upcoming American one. Barack Obama has mobilized the youth vote in a way many (and I grudgingly include myself with this cynical lot) once thought unlikely, if not actually impossible. Young voters in the U.S. have responded with extraordinary enthusiasm to a charismatic and eloquent candidate, and to an exceptionally deft use of internet and wireless technology—their lingua franca—as a key campaign tool. The Obama campaign has consistently caught his opponents flat-footed in this specific area, and have changed the nature of campaigning as a result.

In terms of having a candidate who energizes the electorate, this can and has happened here. Drop a Trudeau into the mix and see what happens (figuratively speaking—as likeable and attractive as Justin is, I have yet to see evidence of his father’s intellect, charisma and audacity).

It would also, of course, help to speak to the youth vote to get those voters interested—which is why I would have liked to have been Jack Layton’s campaign manager in either of our last two elections.

Jack (I’d say to him), listen here: you can talk all you want about running for prime minister, but honestly, no one takes that seriously. You’re not going to be PM. But as the saying goes, you’re not going to win, so you can’t lose. And seriously: repeating the same-old NDP talking points isn’t going to win over anyone not already inside your camp.

What you can do is mobilize the most traditionally apathetic group of voters in a way that will have Harper and Dion running scared. And you can do that by making the central plank of your campaign platform about post-secondary education and the funding for it. To wit, a three-point plan:

1. Amnesty on all extant student loans.
2. Nation-wide tuition freezes, and tuition rollbacks on the most expensive universities and colleges.
3. The re-introduction of national grants for exceptional and low-income students.

Unveil this three-point plan—hell, just unveil the first point!—and you will see young Canadians respond like never before.

Of course, the other parties will attack this plan as a stunt ... which, admittedly, it sort of is. HOWEVER—and this is a big however—there are very real reasons why this plan is a good idea. I’m no economist, but it strikes me that there are tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of twenty- and thirty-somethings paying hundreds of dollars a month in student loans. Pop quiz: what would be a better economic stimulus, relieving young people of a proportionally massive financial burden that prevents them from investing or buying houses, or a tax break for higher-income Canadians?

Furthermore, you can frame this plan not as a handout but as investment in the knowledge economy. Remind Messrs. Harper and Dion that the greatest period of economic expansion and prosperity in North America exactly coincided with the greatest expansion of and enrolment in post-secondary institutions. Say as well that greater funding for universities and colleges will allow them to raise academic standards because they won’t be as obsessed with student retention. Speaking as an English professor, I can attest to the fine line we walk between maintaining academic rigor and not scaring off students by being too rigorous. Our funding is tied to enrolment: we are thus, both implicitly and explicitly, enjoined from flunking out too many students or driving them into other programs by being too demanding. By giving universities and colleges more breathing room to reduce class sizes, hire new faculty and raise academic standards, we improve the quality of our graduates—which only benefits the country and the economy.

Keep in mind here that I am no neutral observer, but an academic and thus deeply invested in the health and vigour of this country’s universities and colleges. That being said however, I’d stake a lot on the bet that this strategy would result in the best NDP showing at the federal level ever. You might even become the official Opposition. Meanwhile, however much the other parties might honk about gimmicks and stunts, they would have no choice but to respond—and then they’re playing by your script, forced to court the voters you’ve energized.

Of course, I’m not Jack Layton’s campaign manager, and am unlikely ever to be. But to anyone in the 18-25 age range reading this—both those who voted and those who did not—I challenge you all to make this a critical issue in the next election. Because, hey ... it’s a minority government again. An election could happen any day now.

Deja vu all over again ... and again and again ...

Let's take stock: we have a minority Conservative government, a hobbled Liberal party with a weak leader likely on his way out, and a populace disaffected by small-minded, nasty campaigning.

What was it Marx said about history repeating itself first as tragedy and then as farce? Obviously, he was never very familiar with Canadian politics, or he'd have said something to the effect of farce being all around us. I feel it in my fingers, I feel it in my bones ...

Nothing like election results to spoil the idealistic high of election day.

Twelve things I want out of this election

1. I want a government that features those with an interest in and talent for governing in control, with the ideologues relegated to the opposition or back-benches. Don't get me wrong: ideologues have their place in government. They are invaluable in presenting the minority or unpopular opinion, in acting as government's conscience and in keeping government honest; but they also tend to be the ones who, when in power, rule with the arrogance that says they know better than everyone else. We saw this with two catastrophic Ontario governments in a row from opposite ends of the political spectrum -- Bob Rae's NDP and Mike Harris' Conservatives -- and we see it in so many of Stephen Harper's statements. I want a government, in other words, that governs by thoughtful consensus and not by fiat.
   
   
2. I want a government that will stop thinking in terms of "taxpayers" and reintroduce the concept of "citizens."
   
   
3. I want a government that recognizes who is in charge. In her first Massey lecture this past Sunday in St. John's, Margaret Atwood reminded us that that government are public servants, and they are there to work for us. I want a government that will not only remember this, or deign to acknowledge it on occasion, but will make it their most basic philosophical principle.
   
   
4. I want a government that recognizes that a society's health and vibrancy is directly reflected in the health and vibrancy of its art and culture.
   
   
5. I want a government and an opposition that will talk to each other and the Canadian people as adults with fully functioning intellects, whose fears and concerns deserve careful and meaningful consideration and discussion rather than petulant grousing, partisan blinders and ad hominem attacks.
   
   
6. I want a government and an opposition that knows the difference between genuine issues on one hand, and trivia, gossip, gaffes and blunders on the other -- and which treats them accordingly.
   
   
7. I want a government that raises the bar for Canadians, and challenges us to rise to the occasion.
   
   
8. I want a government that listens to the words and voices of Canadians instead of polling numbers.
   
   
9. I want a government whose social agenda is in inverse proportion to individuals' and groups' wealth and influence -- a government whose first task is to help the least of us.
   
   
10. I want a government that will offer creative solutions to our most intractable problems. As someone left of center, I am in principle in favour of larger government, but I must acknowledge that too often the expedient solution, from welfare to education to corporate collapse, is to simply throw money at a problem ... which inevitably leads to graft, to waste, and to the justifiable rage on the part of Canadians at such profligacy. I want to see, in other words, solutions to problems that involve more that writing a cheque. I want to see, in other words, brains at work in my goverment.
    
    
11. I want a government with a vision of government that is more than an ad hoc series of loosely related and opportunistic policies. I want political discourse to be about more than taxes and partisanship.
    
    
12. I want a government whose leaders will sit down and remember what optimism and hope and desire to help the nation got them into public service to begin with -- and if none of those elements were there to begin with, to get the hell out of politics.

Because, seriously -- why on earth would be we willing to accept anything less from those we entrust with the leadership of our country?