My Election 41 Rant

A story from my childhood that’s stuck with me is one my dad told me of first moving to Montreal in the 1970s. Fresh out of university, unsure of what to do next, and just settling into a big(ger) city, he took a job working in a factory. He was promoted from the floor about a week later. Many of his co-workers that week had been in the same positions for years, if not decades. The key difference was not my dad’s Bachelor of Sciences degree, it was that he spoke English, and his co-workers didn’t.

A generation later, in the wake of a revived sovereigntist movement, and second referendum, my late grandmother – a resident of the west island suburb of Lachine, told me a story of how a neighbour hoisted a Canadian flag on the veranda, only to see it burned. Linguistic and cultural tensions were already high because Lachine had elected an Anglophone mayor, owing to a vote-split amongst the Francophone candidates.

This is all to say that, while I was raised and live in Alberta, I’m not unaware of – or insensitive to – the politics of Quebec, and the long-time disadvantages most Quebecois faced. I studied political science in university, focusing mostly on contemporary Canadian politics. In my experience – theoretical and practical – I’ve yet to see any indication that another round of constitutional negotiations is what’s going to settle historical grievances or federal imbalances (that, likely, would get worse) or any other tensions between two of our founding peoples.

In a very different context (the assination of Martin Luther King Jr.), Robert F. Kennedy implored an audience simmering on racial tension to “understand. We have to make an effort to understand”. Those words strike me as apt in almost any situation where there’s great tension. We have to understand both sides – not just our own, and attempt to reconcile the two. I’ve never been convinced that increasingly assymetrical federalism, and/or economic concessions, will settle this issue. But an effort to understand our own country, what makes regions and peoples different, and more importantly what binds us as a country – and a nation – is a pretty significant first step.

It’s my opinion that another round of constitutional talks – even just raising the prospect of it – will lead to no good. In the worst case scenario, it becomes another broken promise from English Canada that will make Quebecois nationhood a more enticing concept. I really hope we don’t go down this road.

With that being said, here are some abridged, largely stream-of-consciousness thoughts before the polls start closing in Atlantic Canada.

Le Ciel est Orange
The NDP looks set to make a historic breakthrough in Quebec, giving them the boost to become the official opposition, or – if crazy things happen, and who’s to say they won’t – the government, for the first time in their history, pushing the Liberal Party into third place standing (again, a first). They’re drawing support from all corners – the soft national/sovereigntist one being the concern – but one way or another, they could win anywhere from 25-55 seats, depending on which numbers you believe. Which will be a big jump from their previous record of 1.

Add in their standing as the most prominent alternative to the Conservatives in most places west of Ontario, and their slow growth in Atlantic Canada over the past dozen years, it’s hard to see the NDP failing to supplant the Liberals, and having a pretty good chance of making this a permanent situation.

And while I am more often than not a Liberal voter, this wouldn’t bother me, except for their position and actions on reopening the constitution. Frankly, I think that 1) in government, they’d govern no different than the Liberals (as history at the provincial level shows), and 2) having a unified centre-left option in a true 2 party system would be a positive development for Canada (brokerage parties FTW). An even NDP-Liberal split, where they spend a few cycles beating each other up (like the PCs/Reform Alliance did) will probably bring this merger about. Or the Liberals will implode, and it will happen by attrition regardless. In any case, whatever centre-left alternative emerges in the next couple of election cycles is unlikely to be an affront to moderate voters. My apologies to the few people who still think the NDP are a social democratic party. The fact is you’re miles away from the Regina Manifesto.

What’s Good for the Liberal Party is Good for Canada
The giant of the 20th century in federal politics looks poised to hit a record low in at least 2 of 3 categories – popular vote % and standing in the House of Commons look assured, but they have a good chance of staying above the record low 40 seats they won in 1984 (which was good for second place against the Mulroney landslide).

Nonetheless, few would disagree that this represents a political all-time low for Canada’s Natural Governing Party, one that they will have a difficult time recovering from (unless they default back into second place due to a NDP implosion). Michael Ignatieff hasn’t excelled as leader, but he will take an unfair burden of the blame, as the leader who happens to be at the helm at this point in time.

The Liberal Party has been in decline for 50 years. Electorally, they lost their base in the west to Diefenbaker in the late ’50s. They benefitted for 60 years from a toxic Conservative party in Quebec, but lost that advantage when Mulroney took over as Tory leader, then after his party’s implosion, to the Bloc Quebecois. Their Ontario base is receding, and the polls are showing stagnation and NDP growth in the Atlantic. Save for the historical quirk of the PC/Reform-Alliance vote split in Ontario, this is a party that is incapable of winning a majority, and has been for 30 years now.

More worrisome is the fact that nobody seems clear what the Liberal Party stands for. The progressive strain of Liberalism (not neo-Liberalism) has failed to fashion a response to the changes in our society over the past 40 years, namely declining industrialization, and increasing globalization. Even politically successful centre-left leaders (Chretien in Canada, Clinton in the US, Blair in the UK) achieved their success by following neo-liberal/neo-conservative agendas. Unless you see social issues as wedge (and practically, they’re not in Canada), there’s not much to distinguish a liberal identity from a small-c conservative one.

Specific to the Liberal Party in Canada, beginning with the “nation” vote in 2006, they’ve shied away from their traditional, strong defense of federalism. It was with utter disappointment that I watched them fail to take a strong stand against the NDP’s approach to Quebec and the constitution this election. Another piece of their traditional agenda seemed to have passed on.

Without a clear agenda, it’s hard to say why a political party should exist. History at the provincial level shows that a centre-left government – whether it’s Liberal or NDP – will be fairly similar. Partisans of both the orange and red variety will surely bristle at this notion, but I’d be interested to see them explain how the governments of Romanow or Doer or Dexter fundamentally differ from those of McKenna, Charest, or McGuinty. For most voters in that ideological ballpark, they want to see a coherent centre-left agenda, and they don’t care under whose umbrella they find it.

My advice, then, to Liberals is that if the party is worth saving, it needs a contemporary ideological foundation to be built on. You’re not being punished for bad behaviour, you’re being punished for irrelevance.

An Electoral Majority, Not a Political Majority
Ryan McNutt made a good point yesterday about Prime Minister Harper seeking an electoral majority, not the broad, consensus-based majorities we’re used to. Should the election night results match the polls, it will be well worth asking whether this is a realistic goal. To take nothing away from the NDP – who have run an excellent campaign, and Jack Layton – who has done well connecting with voters and staying on message – an element of their surge has to owe to a frustration voters are feeling with the Conservatives and Liberals. There has to be a point where the Conservatives ask themselves how far this approach can take them.

With that said, I think they’ll move incrementally closer to a majority, and we’ll see the NDP-Liberal flip the polls are indicating. The BQ, who like the Liberals seem to be searching for an identity, will hit a new low as well. Duceppe will lose his seat, May will fall short of winning hers as well.

Prediction: Conservatives 146, NDP 79, Liberals 61, Bloc 22. Voter turnout will tick up, but I think the surge in the advanced polls owed more to them being on a long weekend than renewed interest from the public.

Enjoy the results, go vote if you haven’t and still can, and stay just as involved and active as a citizen after the election ends. Democracy is a regular function, not something that happens for 36 days after a non-confidence vote. We as Canadians will get the parliament we vote for, and the government we deserve.

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