New-ish Beginnings
my Powerbook crashed on me so this will be the digest version of my original musings on post-Election thoughts.
I predicted on a bet on Sunday (without looking at any final polls) the following results for yesterday's election:
132- Conservatives
90- Liberals
58- Bloc Quebecois
27- NDP
1- Independent
The actual results are as follows:
124- Conservatives
103- Liberals
51- Bloc Quebecois
29- NDP
1- Independent
I'm surprised that the Bloc were unable to grab more seats than they did. The Federalist in me is pleased. It's good to see both the Liberals and Conservatives with some sort of representation in Quebec.
Regionally, nothing's changed, with the West still more or less Conservative (particularly, Alberta's Blue Sweep) while all of Southern Ontario went Blue except for the GTA (which has become a Liberal/NDP bastion). The fact that few urban areas were willing to consider the Conservatives as an alternative distresses me as to whether or not there will be a new divide among Canada between the urban and rural populations vis a vis the 'East-West' clash (which actually baffles me a little, in that we've been unable to solve the problem before). While the pundits hope that a western Canada PM will change that (i.e. voice Western Canada issues), the problem remains that the attitude of Us vs. Them is still with us, that we're not trying to reconcile ourselves into one nation but that the other kids have the power now.
However, that is not to say that I don't believe Harper will just focus on Western Canada issues. His party's put out a very articulate vision of what they want Canada to be (even if you disagree with it) and have gained support throughout Canada. For that, they deserve credit and kudos. I dislike the knee-jerk pessimism of him being in office that is prevalent with my peers. Martin's disappointing run at the office shows that even with people we thought had the vision of Canada that we thought was good, they don't necessary turn out to achieve anything. For that, PM Harper should be given at minimum, the benefit of the doubt, if not a fair chance for him to show what he can do for all of Canada.
I don't believe that Harper has a hidden agenda, and with the configuration of our future Parliament, it seems like there will be much consensus building that he'll have to preside over. How he'll reconcile the social conservative wing of his party with the rest of Canada will be interesting. Another question will be whether the consensus needed will result in actual compromise in the bills that are passed (since it'll require 3 of 4 parties to vote in favour) or whether they'll be diluted to mean nothing. How his cabinet will fair will also play a factor, since none of them will have any experience handling a Federal Portfolio (even if they do have provincial experience). It's been said before. It's easy to criticize and be the opposition. It's much more difficult once you're in power, how to actually run the machine that is the federal government.
With that, I wish PM Harper luck and fortitude. Maybe we can finally leave the doldrums and restart the national conversation about what it means to be Canadian and how we should treat each other.
12 comments:
I was waiting for this post.
I think the knee-jerk pessimism isn't so strange; after all, we've had front-row seats to what I think is a fairly shocking run of events in the States. I think everyone's still afraid that Harper will be just like Bush: presenting himself and his party as moderates, and then ruling like radicals. Remember that Harper's never been a head of state, and so has no real record to run on.
Harper's government may turn out to be a real test of the parliamentary system in terms of holding a party accountable to its promises. Despite the Conservative win, I'm still convinced that the majority of the country isn't yet willing to give Harper a mandate. Should the Liberals manage to keep infighting to a minimum during the leadership selection process and present a united opposition, they'll be a tough opponent in the next election.
Make no mistake: the only reason Canadians as a whole are comfortable with a Harper government is because they feel able to revoke their approval at the drop of the hat. If it turns out we're wrong and the Conservatives pull a Republican-esque coup in Ottawa, we may be in for a long couple of years.
no, he doesn't have a hidden agenda because he's been pretty up front about the fact that he wants to revisit same sex marriage and abortion rights.
i (for once) am not being a complete alarmist, in that i'm not running around like chickenlittle screaming that the sky is falling. but i am sure as hell don't wish him luck or fortitude, nor do i feel at all comfortable with him as "our leader".
i often wonder if those people who say "ah, it won't be that bad" are any of those people who actually stand to lose something. those who can't afford private health care and those who are queer or pro-choice females.
my biggest worry is that during his minority reign he won't do anything too crazy and will actually cooperate with the other parties and maybe introduce some positive electoral reform and cut the GST and next time around he'll win a sweeping majority. than i'm going to run around screaming the sky is falling. i HOPE he tries to revisit queer marriage and abortion during this minority government... in fact, i dare him to do that. i think that will be the ticket "we" need to swing the pendulum back around.
not that i think a liberal minority or majority would have been better, but i'm sure as hell a lot more nervouse with a conservative in power than a liberal and that's because i truly do feel that some of my rights are in jepoardy with a conservative in power in a way that they aren't with liberals in power.
This is a great result for Canada, and once again Canadians showed they can use their democratic process to create a Parliament that is, on aggregate, a very accurate reflection of the national mood.
The Liberals absolutely HAD to loose this election. The country has been stuck in neutral and mired in a mediocre leadership defecit for the last four years with the combination of Chretien's long good-bye and Martin's wasted two years.
Not since the family compact of the 1830s has there been a government so willing to use the power of the state for their own ends and so disdainful of the opinions of anyone not in their circle as the Liberals.
The Liberal party, particularly under Paul Martin, was directionless, vapid, and totally without any philisophical grounding or principles.
Hopefully, in this Parliament the Conservatives and the NDP and the few intelligent Liberals (Dion, Cotler, Dryden) will be able to find some compromise and accomodation to make this Parliament work.
As for the rural/urban divide that is being discussed, the Toronto Star deserves a lot of blame for blowing this out of proportion.
While it is true that Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver voted solidly Liberal, most other cities in Canada (yes there are other cities) voted a healthy mix of all parties.
In Ontario the Conservatives won in half of the downtown Ottawa ridings as well as Windsor, Oshawa and St. Catherines.
In other provinces they won in Quebec City(!), St. John's, Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Regina, Edmonton and Calgary.
While I disagree with most Conservative policies I can at least respect them for having ideas and principles and running on them (with the obvious exception of their position on queer marriage.)
Meanwhile Wesley writes:
"I think the knee-jerk pessimism isn't so strange; after all, we've had front-row seats to what I think is a fairly shocking run of events in the States. I think everyone's still afraid that Harper will be just like Bush: presenting himself and his party as moderates, and then ruling like radicals."
People may be afraid of this, but one should perhaps ask the question, why?
This line of argument, only works if one equates the CPC and the U.S republicans as synonamous, and if one were to actually compare the policies of the two one would see that this is largely innacurate.
It seems far more likely that to believe that Stephan Harper is a Canadian George Bush is to be persuaded by Liberal fear mongering. And how does it reflect on the country if people are more willing to vote for a party that runs a campaign of fear than for ones that ran campaings of principle (which both the Cons. and the NDP did, along with the Greens and the Bloc, in their own traitorous way.)
This election was all about making the Liberals lose. Canada desperately needed a return to responsible government. Hopefully now we will have it.
Hopefully the Liberals can cast off their directionless, principless, vapid, feckless, corrupt, stagnant leadership and re-discover their true selves in the principles of Laurier and Trudeau.
With three strong parties, articulating a nation vision, Canadian democracy will again be well served.
I don't think you have to believe the Bush administration and the Conservatives are exactly the same to worry about the same chain of events happening in Canada, and that worry was around long before the Liberals ran with it in their negative campaign ads.
Remember that a lot of people after the first Bush victory were willing to give that administration a chance to prove itself. Maybe it was the month-long decision process, or maybe—just like this election—the Clinton administration had given Americans relatively little to worry about economically, and so no one thought Bush could do that much damage before 2004. (This, interestingly, is why the Liberals probably didn't run a campaign of principle: who's going to vote for a party that says "don't change horses in midstream"?)
In any case, when the dust settled it seemed like a lot of people in the States felt the same way Canadians do now: cautiously hopeful. And look where the Democrats are now. I, for one, don't want to see the left wing in this country marginalized, isolated and utterly devastated like it has in the United States. I don't want to see "liberal" become a swear word, a hateful epithet for conservatives to throw in our direction whenever we make the slightest noise of dissent. I don't want Canada to become the partisan battlefield the States has become, where no one agrees on anything and half the country wishes the other half would just drop dead. (Though I do wonder sometimes if the entire country wishes Toronto would just drop dead, a sentiment I obviously don't appreciate.)
I'm shocked, shocked to see a healthy thread on this blog since I didn't actually expect anyone to be reading this. In any case, I thank you all, as your three opinions are probably the ones I most respect. Onto the actual response.
I'm not surpised of the knee-jerk pessimism. Just disappointed. I would agree that they didn't give Harper a true mandate. This feels like a test run for everybody, to see what it's like to have a conservative government again. People's attention span is short, I've been told, so many, especially our generation, don't know what it was like to be ruled by Mulroney.
Obviously, as you stated, Angela, some people have more at stake than others. However, revisiting gay marriage wasn't his priority, at least, not for the moment, despite reports to the contrary. Even if he intends to, as more countries around the world legalize gay marriage, it'd be interesting to see if he's willing to fight for a side that one, is about equality and two, is slowly losing globally.
It's funny how we're already talking about the next election. Whether the Conservatives will win a majority will highly depend on how cohesive the Liberals become. Though, as much as Manley, Cauchon, McKenna and the rest are reasonable candidates, not one of them stand out right now. But maybe that'll change as the party starts visioning again on what it means to be a Liberal.
I've talked with Matt about this and I do agree with more or less his points. Like Rick Mercer satirizes in his fake Liberal ad: "Let's see how badly we can lose this thing"...and it turns out, not too badly.
As for the word 'liberal' becoming an epithet vis a vis the States, it's already happened. It's just been called 'the East' or 'Ottawa' up here. Which is why even the talk of reconciliation bothers me. It sets the context as if the Federal government were purposefully ignoring the issues of Western Canadians, like softwood lumber and farming. the fact that I'm even using the term 'both sides' shows how entrenched those positions are. Does it mean that Western Canadians are unwilling to trust an Eastern Canadian Liberal ever again? Will we always distrust Western Canadian politicians? I don't know. The fact that I'm asking these questions worry me.
Wesley:
You wrote:
"In any case, when the dust settled it seemed like a lot of people in the States felt the same way Canadians do now: cautiously hopeful. And look where the Democrats are now. I, for one, don't want to see the left wing in this country marginalized, isolated and utterly devastated like it has in the United States.
What possible evidence, other than your own bias (not used pejoritively here) suggests to you that this is going to happen, other than the fact that in the U.S a government more Conservative than the last was elected and now in Canada a government more Conservative than the last has been elected?
Then you write:
"I don't want to see "liberal" become a swear word, a hateful epithet for conservatives to throw in our direction whenever we make the slightest noise of dissent. I don't want Canada to become the partisan battlefield the States has become, where no one agrees on anything and half the country wishes the other half would just drop dead. (Though I do wonder sometimes if the entire country wishes Toronto would just drop dead, a sentiment I obviously don't appreciate.)
I don't want this to happen either. But is the solution to immediately jump out of the gate, before Stephen Harper is even sworn in, to attack the Conservatives as if they are about to destroy the country? You might find you reap what you sow.
Wouldn't the more responsible stance be to give the new government a chance to... you know... govern. And perhaps put a little bit of faith in the democratic decision of one's fellow citizens?
Not to speak for Calvin, but I think that this is along the lines of what he meant by being dissapointed by "knee-jerk pessimism." What has Stephen Harper even done to you yet? By attacking him and his party even before they take office, are you not the one who is unnecessarily polarizing the debate? Please tell me that you have not heard "Conservative" or "Tory" or "Stephen Harper" uttered almost as an epithet amongst liberal circles in Toronto. Again, who is polarizing the country?
One last note. On election night during Jack Layton's speech, his NDP supporters (the party I voted for incidentally) booed loudly when Layton mentioned Stephen Harper's name. There was no such reaction by Conservative supports in Calgary either this election or last election when the Conservatives lost.
Once again, too me it seems like it is often the 'liberal' 'progressive' end of the Canadian political spectrum that polarizes debate and prevents compromise.
Alright, let's back up.
What has Stephen Harper even done to you yet? By attacking him and his party even before they take office, are you not the one who is unnecessarily polarizing the debate?
I should've been clear: what I was stating was the irrational, emotional basis for the knee-jerk pessimism. Which is to say that I understand it, even if I don't necessarily believe it. I'm personally willing to give Harper a shot, and almost wish there'd been one or two Conservative MPs in Toronto so as to better represent the urban agenda in the next government.
But fear is a powerful motivator, and unfortunately I don't think it's all misplaced. Even if you don't think Harper will be Bush-lite, I'm still worried that Harper will pretend every city is as awash in capital as Calgary is. Many of his MPs have stated their opposition to abortion rights and same-sex marriage—not just their approval of a free vote, mind you, but actual opposition to those rights—and it's still questionable whether Harper will listen to those voices or not. His platform on the environment was an afterthought, with the exception of "pull out of Kyoto" (incidentally, a position I'm still on the fence about). There are still a lot of question marks to be filled in, and you can either look at that with an optimistic stance or a pessimistic one. Considering that I'm not a big fan of the Conservative party's origins, would it be so unfair for me to state that I'm pessimistic?
Once again, too me it seems like it is often the 'liberal' 'progressive' end of the Canadian political spectrum that polarizes debate and prevents compromise.
The major area it seems the scare-quoted liberal progressive wing of the country refuses to compromise on is social issues like same-sex marriage. And may I remind you that many supporters of same-sex marriage weren't exactly big fans of the Liberals either, because they seemed to only come out in full support of the court decisions when it was politically expedient of them to do so? By no means are we painting the Conservatives as the only bad guys. As for compromise, I don't see how you can compromise on basic human rights and freedoms. Fiscal policy? Sure. Social welfare programs? Perhaps. Foreign policy and military? Absolutely.
And don't tell me that the liberal progressives are the only ones polarizing the country. I made the mistake of bringing Toronto up offhandedly in a conversation with some Vancouver friends. The comment I made, relating to the cities summit a while back, was that perhaps other Canadian cities will find they have some common ground with Toronto. What I heard in response was some of the most vitriolic, dismissive shit I've ever had to take for standing up for my hometown. There was an absolute refusal to even admit that things like public transportation and federal/provincial funding could possibly be issues, just "Toronto thinks it's the centre of the universe" and "you guys will never understand Calgary or Vancouver."
But I guess that the fact that I don't KNOW that those kinds of people will control the Harper government, or the fact that I don't KNOW that Harper will call a free vote on what I consider an exuse to persecute an entire group of people, or the fact that I don't KNOW if Harper will bother to help Toronto out where the Martin Liberals couldn't, means I can't worry about any of these things or tell anyone that I am worried. Guess I should keep it to myself and support the troops—er, I mean...
(yes, that last bit was a little vitriolic itself. I'm just tired of being painted as the bad guy here, both by you and by the rest of the country. What did I or Toronto ever do to any of you?)
Angela...where are you? Did we lose you in the wilderness of the blogosphere?...
I don't think we need to compromise on fundamental values, but who's are we talking here? If it is the case that only half the population supports same-sex marriage, then we really need an open debate about what our national value about this topic is? And then isn't it up to us to show that we can't be exclusive about which rights are doled out?
In any case, I understand your pessimism and I remain guarded about how this party will govern. But there's not much to say when there isn't even a cabinet yet to speak of.
All I can hope is that Harper's government will at the very least, lead us out of the East-West dichotomy, now that 'western Canadians' are technically running the country. Maybe then this'll show that it's easy to be regional and criticize, but harder to make this Federation work. I don't know. Harper's talk of further de-centralization worries me a little.
Calvin, I'm not sure what you mean with this:
If it is the case that only half the population supports same-sex marriage, then we really need an open debate about what our national value about this topic is?
The question isn't what our "national value" is. The question is, "Is not allowing same sex couples the same rights as heterosexual couples a VIOLATION of our rights." Period. Full stop.
Equal rights and protecting minorities are already national values, legislated "values", if you will.
I think it's a fucking sick joke when anyone tries to tell me that popular opinion should dictate MY RIGHTS. And you know what,
You can't let popular opinion drive discussions of "rights". I hate comparing types of discrimination or using more extreme cases to make a point, but I'm going to break that out here regardless... I think we can agree that women deserve the right vote.
Now when women were finally granted the right to vote, more than 50% of the population (even women) were opposed.
I stand by my very strong belief that we can't let popular opinion determine rights. And frankly, I'm shocked at you suggestion above. As if my rights are simply "values" instead of... duh, my rights.
Angela,
Sorry, it's been a bad week and apparently I've been choosing my words poorly left, right and centre, which is still no excuse for bad writing since I should've gotten it right the first time.
I'm not saying that we should have popular opinion dictate which rights are enshrined. That's what I meant when I said, "we can't be exclusive about which rights are doled out" Equal rights are equal rights.
What I'm saying is that if there's still half the population who is against these rights because of differently held values, then we need to talk about this in the open and convince them that equality and equal opportunity cannot be dissected to anyone's pleasure so that at some point, we don't have to revisit this debate because someone's underwear got all twisted in a knot.
My underwear were already twisted in a knot when you said, "hey, he's not so bad those Conservatives win and maybe want to revisit enshrined individual's rights."
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060201.wxsamesex01/BNStory/National/
I don't know how long that link will hold, but I read it and it seems to hint at what I already knew: most Canadians are NOT opposed to same sex marriage rights. They're not all dancing in the streets supporting hte cause, but they're not opposed to it either.
First, most voters did not vote for conservatives (as demonstrated by the popular vote).
Second, in a few ridings where the Conservatives were actually favoured to win, they ended up losing (potentially because of the revelation that they were socially conservative, whether it was queer marriage or something else that was revealed.)
While I understand the need to do outreach about contentious issues, the problem I have at the moment is that this is already legislated. And how long does some group need to go without a right while we wait for public opinion to catch up, anyways?
Angela,
My underwear comment was not directed at you. Rather, it was towards the people who keep wanting to revisit this issue over and over even though we both know that it was the right thing to do. If I was to ever make a comment to you, I would do it directly and not be sly about it.
Of course I'd prefer that issues such as this doesn't have to be revisited, but it's a unique circumstance that the Liberals could not be the governing party (with all their ethical impropriety) and no one else could either, save the Conservatives. And according to the globe article, there'll be enough MPs currently who'll vote to not have this issue revisited again, which would be fine by me.
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