The Canadian Election Results Knowing, as I do, t…
admin January 24th, 2006
Knowing, as I do, that listening to election results (particularly when one cares about the outcome) is a nervewracking experience, I wisely resolved to wait until the results were more or less final before I tuned in to CBC to learn the fate of my good neighbors (sorry, neighbours) to the north. (Well, south from Detroit, but apart from that geographic anomaly…)
I was not surprised to hear that Stephen Harper and his Conservatives won their plurality to form a minority government. Nor was I horrified (though I wasn’t thrilled either). I’m not a big fan of Harper, nor of his Canadian Alliance-type colleagues. But I really have trouble believing that (a) he is the wild-eyed right-wing nutjob that the Left would like me to think, and (b) that even if he is, that he’s stupid enough to try to steamroll a neo-fascist agenda onto a hapless Canadian public.
First, he’s got a minority government. For any of my fellow Americans reading this, my understanding is that it’s a bit like having a majority in the House but not the Senate, or vice versa. It’s not easy to accomplish a lot of extremist legislation. (Now, if you have the Presidency, the House, and the Senate all of one party, and the Supreme Court is sympathetic to your agenda, that’s a different story…)
Second, and I must credit my dear seester with this point, the man is a politician. Keeping his job depends on not alienating too much of the country. Sure, as long as he pleases his riding (we call it a district, fellow Americans) he can keep his seat. That’s true in the U.S. too. But in a system like Canada’s, where party discipline is much more the norm than in the U.S., if you really goof things up badly, most of the country lines up to vote your whole party out of power. OK, Alberta isn’t likely to run the Tories out on a rail and sing the praises of the NDP, sort of like Mississippi isn’t likely to name Gavin Newsom (the San Francisco mayor who tried to unilaterally legalize gay marriage) Man of the Year. But really, most of Canada is pretty moderate. I just don’t think the majority of Canadians are going to accept a really extreme-right (or extreme-left, for that matter) agenda.
Side note: when I was listening to CBC this morning, they aired the comments of a man who had emigrated to Canada from the U.S. and had just received his citizenship. He was dismayed because, and I am slightly paraphrasing because I wasn’t taking notes, he was “…a gay immigrant [who]…didn’t come to Canada just to have it become like the U.S.”
1) As with the United States, Canada is big enough to house more than one set of opinions. I sincerely hope that this man did not take so dramatic a step as emigration without duly considering that political climates change, or that while a majority of Canadians may well favor or be indifferent to legalizing gay marriage (though I don’t know statistics on that), it is unlikely to be the defining issue on which most Canadians base their vote. (Other things, like “economy”, “integrity” and “foreign policy”, leap to mind.)
2) Harper and the Conservatives forming a minority government is not necessarily “becoming like the U.S.” (see earlier explanation of minority government); Harper may not even bother to touch gay marriage. Remember all the fuss during the U.S. 2004 Presidential campaign about a Constitutional amendment defining marriage? Me too. Has it surfaced since the election ended? Why…no. I wonder why not? I mean, after all, it’s not like it was a transparent-but-effective effort to put a hot-button issue onto the agenda so more practical things like the economy and foreign policy could be deflected…
While we’re on the subject, I’d like to briefly address the fuss that Liberal and NDP folks made, suggesting that Harper would shove women back into the kitchen (barefoot and pregnant to boot), gays back into the closet, and ethnic minorities into varying degrees of danger:
Riiiiiight. Uh-huh. OK. So it was a Conservative Party executive who embarrassed himself and his party by comparing a Chinese-Canadian NDP candidate to a Chinese breed of dog because her surname is Chow? (Ragingly offensive, and perpetrated by a high-ranking person in the federal Liberal Party.)
Really, North American politics have gotten ridiculous. Everyone relies on sound bites and scare tactics: the right, the left, even what little remains of the center. I don’t know a lot about Samuel Alito (for example), but it’s unfair to assume that if someone has a personal opinion about an issue (for example, abortion), he or she cannot make a fair decision that follows the law. And it’s unrealistic: name me someone who doesn’t have a personal opinion about abortion!
Note to self: get onto legal databases and read some of Alito’s opinions. And note to others: Alito is patently a much better nomination than Harriet Miers was. At least he has judicial experience!!! Anyway, back to the Canadians, and leaving Judge Alito and the unfortunate Ms. Miers for another post…
I for one am willing to give Harper and the Conservatives a fair shot. Of course, not being Canadian, my opinion really doesn’t count for much; but considering that I spend half of my weekends in London, I think the stakes are higher for me than the average Yank.
Of course, if they really muck up the economy, my dollar will go a lot farther there… 
