James McNish and I wrote a response to an article (Four Things We Learned From The 2008 Federal Election) in the SFU student paper “The Peak.” We hope it gets published (it was a response to the opinions editor), but just in case it doesn’t, it is here for your viewing pleasure.
JJ: 1. The Canadian parliamentary system is broken
We have just concluded an election that served absolutely no purpose whatsoever. The ruling party has not changed, nor have the parliamentary standings of the other four. There were no issues of substance debated, no pressing national issues resolved. The only reason that we had an election was because the prime minister wanted one, and in our deranged system of government that is considered reason enough.
Elections should be among the most neutral elements of the political regime, a regularly-scheduled event outside of the control or manipulation by any partisan faction. Yet the Canadian system, in allowing the PM to dissolve parliament whenever he pleases, enshrines precisely the opposite principle. The alternative is to have an election by non-confidence vote, which is not much better, since it simply means calling an election when Jack Layton and Gilles Duceppe determine it most convenient, rather than just Stephen Harper.
Who knows when the next election will be? Two years? Three years? Less? It is not normal for a mature democracy to live in this kind of uncertainty, and it is not right for the politicians to gleefully conceal the answer to this question from the voters themselves.
If the farcical nature of the 2008 election has proven anything, it’s that Canada desperately needs fixed election dates (and not half-assed “suggestive” ones like the Conservatives introduced, either).
Us: As regular readers of The Peak, we read Mr McCullough’s articles week in, and week out. Whilst we appreciate his enthusiasm, we are starting to be concerned about his cavalier attitude to the occasional inclusion of verifiable facts. Obviously, we are aware that this is the “Opinions” column, however, logic and fact should not be left too far to the side.
In response to last weeks feature, “Four Things We Learned From the 2008 Federal Election,” we would like to agree, in general, with his first point. Yes, the Canadian parliamentary system is broken. We can agree on that. Even if fixed-term elections are not in fact “normal for a mature democracy,” we understand his point and think that is one of many problems with the electoral system. However, from thereon his actual understanding of Canadian politics falls short…and this is coming from one Australian.
In trying to understand the claim that Canada has almost never functioned as a coherent whole (as if any western democracy has) we had trouble with the claim that it is entirely Conservative. This claim may appear to be true when looking through simplistic 2008 tunnel-vision. However, if you add a few teaspoons of election statistics and a cup of historical context it becomes obvious that the Conservative party is clearly nothing special and Canada remains, by international standards, liberal (lower and uppercase ‘L’).
JJ: 2. The Conservatives are Canada’s only national party
Politically, Canada has almost never functioned as a coherent whole. When they were in power, the Liberals ruled mostly because they were able to solidify a strong enough eastern base to outnumber everywhere else, and now, in their darkest hour, that status has evolved into a cruel caricature. A full 50 per cent of Liberal seats are now held exclusively by Ontario, with the rest mostly coming from the tiny Maritimes, Canada’s most over-represented region in the House of Commons. The NDP is only slightly better, with 45 per cent of their seats coming from Ontario, and most of the rest in Vancouver.
In contrast, despite being their largest parliamentary delegation, the Conservative’s Ontario caucus only represents 35 per cent of their total seat count, with B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Quebec all sending over 10 seats as well — the only party that can boast such even distributions.
I’m not one who generally cares about this sort of thing, but the fact that the Conservatives are as well-represented as they are in all the provinces that matter does have consequences. We may be witnessing the rise of the CPC into some sort of new political establishment, formally concluding Stephen Harper’s long career as a figure of protest. Yet conservatism may still have an uphill battle before it actually becomes the ruling ideology of the country, which leads me to point number three.
Us: The Conservatives can hardly be called the only national party if almost twice as many eligible voters would rather not to vote than to vote Conservative (41% to 22%). The majority of Canadians chose not to vote for a Conservative government.
Liberals had a disappointing election under the leadership of Dion and still have inherited negative sentiments from the sponsorship scandals of the 90s. However, Liberals are historically more of a national party, championing an even distribution of votes and representation, across the whole country. In contrasted, their former conservative counterparts were largely regional based (western-Alliance and eastern-Progressive Conservative).
JJ: 3. Quebec needs to go
As it stands, Quebec holds an effective veto over what party forms the national government of Canada. If the province was not part of Canada, and the federal parliament was correspondingly smaller, we’d have a Conservative majority right now, and we would have had one in 2006 as well. Quebec is, in short, openly denying English Canada the ability to have the government it wants.
We don’t appreciate the full weirdness of this situation nearly enough, but just consider the following: We have a largely autonomous, culturally-sovereign, French-speaking province, which the federal government now officially recognizes as a distinct “nation” unto itself, and whose largest parliamentary delegation consists of secessionists whose sole political raison d.être is securing their province’s departure from Canada. Yet according to the political elites of this country, it is perfectly reasonable for this rebel province hold final say over the federal government’s policies on the sentencing of young offenders, or arts funding, or abortion laws, or foreign policy, or pretty much anything else of importance.
Political pundits love to bray about how Canada is an irreversibly liberal country, but really, we’re not. We’re a conservative country, or at best an ideologically polarized one, that gets pushed to the left by Quebec, a sovereign state within our borders. On every major issue of importance Quebec popular opinion clings to the far-left, which in turn pushes all political parties to the left as they pander to the French vote. The non-French majority is expected to just shut up and tolerate this, because really, what else can they do?
In the wake of the depressing outcome of this election, one hopes that the English Canadian majority will finally wake up and realize just what a bad deal they are getting from their country’s pointless marriage to a French province that wants very little to do with them, but still enjoys hijacking their government’s agenda.
Us: Probably the most disturbing section of last weeks article was the claim that “Quebec needs to go.” Why, because they have an effective veto over the entire country? Have a look at Ontario, they decide a third of all federal seats. By your reasoning, the Liberals and NDP also have veto power; it is the result of a minority government.
Apparently, Quebec is “openly denying English Canada the ability to have the government it wants,” as we established earlier, Canada does not want a Conservative government. In fact, 63% voted against Conservatives and if you take away Quebec that only reduces it to 58%. Furthermore, Quebec was Canada’s most Conservative province prior to the creation of the Bloc (63/75 seats). So how does Quebec pull Canada to the political left?
Putting aside the fact that urban cultural and linguistic differences are internationally commonplace, the Bloc is playing an active role in Canadian politics. Duceppe was most effective in the English debate in asking Harper the hard questions about the lack of party platform; just wonder how he did in the French debate?
Unity with Quebec is a fantastic display of our appreciation of democracy. Quebec was given the option and they democratically decided to stay. Therefore, it’s no surprise that the Bloc had the lowest percent of popular and total vote since its inception as the issue of sovereignty is clearly fading. Sovereignty wasn’t even an issue in the election.
JJ: 4. We should go back to ignoring the Greens
There has never been a party that has been more lavishly rewarded for doing absolutely nothing than the Greens. Worse than nothing, in fact, the Greens have routinely failed every meagre benchmark that has been placed in front of them, only to receive ever more praise and goodies in response.
For years we have been treated to fawning stories in all levels of the Canadian media about the Green Party’s supposed “imminent breakthrough” in this or that election, yet every time — in every election, be it provincial, municipal, or federal — the party fails to uphold its end of the bargain, and actually get someone, anyone, elected to something.
In this election especially, the media’s fawning bias towards the Greens hit new levels of absurdity. Their idiot leader was put in the federal debate, and her grinning face constantly appeared on the cover of every national newspaper alongside Harper, Dion, and Layton, as if she held some sort of plausible chance of being the country’s next prime minister. In response, her party managed to earn less than seven per cent of the national vote and zero seats, officially making it less electorally successful than such historic superpowers as the Social Credit Party and the Canadian Reconstruction Party, to say nothing of the Labour Party, the Progressive Party, the United Farmers of Alberta party, and all the various other kooky Depression-era parties that could at least concentrate enough support somewhere in the friggin’ country to get one person elected.
There’s a famous anecdote you often hear in marketing class about a bunch of dog food executives sitting around a table, trying to brainstorm why their latest ad campaign has failed. “Maybe the dogs just don’t like the food” someone eventually pipes up, and all are silenced.
People don’t like the Green Party. Let’s stop pretending otherwise.
Us: Now, about ignoring the Greens. Did you know 10% of BC votes were Green? The Green party has increased its vote every election since the year 2000, from .8% to 6.8%. In this election it was the only party to increase in total number of votes. In fact, they had almost as many votes as the Bloc. So, I guess that ignoring the Greens is okay, only if you choose to ignore the facts.
While we’re on the topic of facts, did you know that Elizabeth May is an Officer of the Order of Canada with three Doctorate degrees? If that is what Mr McCullough calls an “idiot,” what do you suppose we should call him? Or what about Harper? I don’t believe he’s ever earned anything near that level of academic recognition. But hey, he wears those sweaters, oh so well.
If this is the factual information we can gather within hours before submission is due, we hope that Mr McCullough, as an employed editor, can learn to find some facts too. Canada is still not conservative (lowercase ‘c’), even the Conservative party is as liberal as the US Democrats or UK Conservatives. Furthermore, negative sentiments toward Quebec and the Greens are all but constructive. More concern should be directed to the current electoral system that cannot handle the preferences of its voters.
Lastly, if Mr McCullough is thinking of going into journalism he should watch the breadcrumbs he leaves behind, it can be surprising the trail they will leave.
