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Slate Magazine wonders how Canada got mean

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There is an election underway in Canada and, on the face of it, Canadians don’t seem particularly enthusiastic about it. Some of our own anecdotal evidence suggests a lot of us might even be mildly depressed because — without being cynical — the outcome seems as chaoitic and messy as it has been since Paul Martin “won” his minority back in 2004. Unless you’re a Conservative, no other party or “side” appears able to get it together in a cohesive way and in time. Spacing obviously hasn’t restarted our Votes blog for this election, mostly because there was no time for us to prepare, but also because it’s difficult to figure out where urban issues fit into this weird election. Is there even time to get people talking about them when just kick-starting political machines seems difficult enough? Municipal and provincial elections are obvious battlegrounds for Spacingish issues, but as John Barber pointed out in his column today, urban voices can be awkward right now.

Into this mix is an article posted yesterday on Slate that has been making its way around Facebook and Twitter updates. It’s one of those helpful outsider views that let us step back and see what’s going on in our country.  What’s the matter with Canada? How the world’s nicest country turned mean suggests Canada has become a “political basket case:”

In the 2004 election, the Liberal government was reduced from a majority to a minority. Nineteen months later, it lost power entirely, and the party’s leader resigned. The Liberals then embarked on a long, fractious leadership campaign—leaving the party exhausted and broke, and tempting the governing Conservatives to introduce ever more draconian policies with little fear of the consequences.

As the Liberals work on rebuilding, Canada’s other left-wing party, the New Democratic Party, has grown at their expense; the Green Party, long a fringe movement in Canada, gained its first member of parliament when an independent MP joined the Greens; and the Bloc Québécois, which shares many Liberal positions but advocates for Quebec’s independence, remains a force in that province. The Conservatives may not represent the views of most Canadians, but with four parties fighting for the left-wing vote, the Conservatives might win simply by sliding up the middle.

Italians and Israelis may have learned how to function under minority governments, but Canadians are still working on it. If the current election ends in a third consecutive minority government, the polarization of Canadian politics will continue, and with it the brutal, zero-sum politicking that has left the country in convulsions.

We haven’t had much discussion of this election at all here. General thoughts from our smart readers are welcome, but we wouldn’t blame you if you don’t know where to start either.

Photo by itzafineday.

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32 comments

  1. The Slate story like many Slate stories has a great title and a weak story. I found this to be somewhat inaccurate especially in terms of the Bloc and the Greens (who are actually small c conservatives so I cant vote for them any more).

    Yes I think that there is an element in Canada that started with Mike Harris to appeal to our more selfish and base sides and has grown into the Harper mean streak but evil grows when there is a void and the Liberals are that void.

    No sweat, I never thought we would survive Mulroney and Reagan but things got better and Mulroney cant show his face in public and Reagan (for those who can look at him critically) turned out to be a big government big spending prez.

    When the nice Canadians are all on the same page, they cannot be beat.

  2. I think the key part of that article was missed in the post above:

    “The Conservatives may not represent the views of most Canadians, but with four parties fighting for the left-wing vote, the Conservatives might win simply by sliding up the middle.”

    Here’s the rub folks:

    As of Sept. 11 the prediction is the following:

    CONSERVATIVES — 146 seats
    LIBERAL — 92 seats
    NDP — 30 seats
    BLOC — 38 seats
    GREEN — 0 seats

    As of July 31st the Swing Ridings with 5% “swing” break down in this fashion, although these numbers may now be a bit off:

    Number of ridings LIBERALS can win (from CPC) — 23
    Number of ridings NDP can win (from CPC) — 4
    Number of ridings GREEN can win (from CPC) — 1
    Number of ridings BLOC cab win (from CPC) — 2

    If we want Harper to lose, and I think that is the only recourse as in a Harper gov’t minority and majority mean the same thing (see Globe and mail Sat. Sept. 13), then we need to help the LIBERALS win those 23 seats and more!

    BUT, the left may be too divided for this to happen in Canada or let’s call a spade a spade, Jack Layton is eager to increase his seats no matter what the long-term cost. And Slate knows that.

    *sigh*

  3. The quote is from the original Slate article. (Scott out-posted me first 🙂

  4. “Jack Layton is eager to increase his seats no matter what the long-term cost”

    This notion of the NDP as the Canadian version of Ralph Nader circa 2000 is both depressing and wrong. It’s the lack of a strong 3rd option (or a 4th, 5th or 6th) that’s put the Americans in the pickle they’re in right now. We absolutely shouldn’t be discouraging anyone from voting for the NDP. Governmental representation of a variety of opinions is at the very heart of a strong democracy.

    Futhermore, we need to accept that the Conservatives were always going to end up with a majority at some point. The ugly battle between Chretien and Martin assured us of that. Their shallow in-fighting weakened the Liberal party to the point where it wasn’t capable of forming a government. Stephane Dion is the embodiment of that weakness; an abysmal choice for leader, regardless of his supposed expertise on environmental issues. When you pick the most obviously francophone guy in the room, you’re telling the West that you’ve given up any hope of winning a seat out there.

    So instead of trying to prop up a dead Liberal Party with a joke of a leader that needs to lose this election badly so they’ll get their heads out of their asses and remember what it’s like to fight, let’s back a party that actually has some stability going for it. That’s the NDP.

  5. It may be published in an American magazine, but since the author is Stephane Dion’s former speechwriter, I wouldn’t call it an “outsider view”.

  6. I don’t think Layton has a choice but to try to win seats. That’s his job. My issue is really about whether or not we can afford to have another Harper government simply because people think “a dead Liberal Party with a joke of a leader needs to lose this election badly so they’ll get their heads out of their asses.” I’m not sure I’m prepared to pay that price, even though yes, I agree that the Liberals do need to get their house in order.

  7. It’s simple: vote strategically. Don’t think about who you want as an MP, just think about who you don’t want and do your best to block him or her.

    The battleground for this election is NOT in cities at all. It is to be decided in Quebec, BC, and rural Ontario. The Urban and Albertan votes are already locked, and nobody will bother to appease.

  9. I’m a supporter of progressive politics.

    On any given issue, (from my own viewpoint) that could mean any of the Liberal, NDP, Green (or traditional PC) were that still an option

    The difficulty is my politics aren’t partisan, they are about outcomes not methods.

    I want less poverty, and a cleaner environment, show me the clearest fastest way there, understanding no one’s do-able solutions will fix it all in 4 years, I’m looking for the best, yet most realistic options.

    But, I’m also faced with Canada’s inane voting system.

    First-past-the-post, in the best of all worlds (where each riding were identical in size, and all provinces and regions fairly represented)….

    Still can create perverse outcomes. Where one party (for argument’s sake) the Tories could win 26% of the vote in a 4-way split and come out with 100% of the seats).

    It wouldn’t matter if the above applied to the Greens or NDP or Liberals, it would by any measure be grossly unjust and undemocratic.

    But it is the system we have to deal with. So I very much agree with Luke, pick the party you don’t want to win most (which ever that is) and vote for the one of the remaining 3 who is mostly likely to win your riding.

    That way you have a hope of preserving a more democratic….and arguably less ‘mean’ outcome.

  10. If politically engaged people put more energy into electoral reform instead of investing so much energy into partisan battles that are guaranteed to disappoint, maybe we could actually change the system.

    Let’s forget the parties for a decade and focus 100% on getting an electoral system that actually works. Imagine no vote splitting, no strategic voting, no false majorities, etc. It’s within reach, but dudes: we have to reach for it.

    Every four years (or two, or one) we all complain about First-Past-the-Post and then millions cast votes that don’t count, and then we get quiet until the next election and complain again.

    How about a boycott? Refusing to vote until we have PR?… ok, maybe not. I’ll try to think of something else….

    With the Greens gaining momentum, this election could be the most unfair to date, with distorted results like we’ve never seen before.

    I pray that 30 years from now, when I’m 64, I don’t find myself reading a thread on the spacing wire (hologram-wire that is) about strategic voting and our outdated voting system. Let’s do it folks! There’s a another referendum in BC next spring. It’s an incredible opportunity to put this back on the agenda:
    http://www.stv.ca Let’s head out there and help out? Anyone up for a trip in the spring?

  12. Ana: the basis of my argument is that the Conservatives were always going to win big in either this election or one in the very near future. Therefore, we needn’t worry about “the price” we’ll pay for handing the Liberals their walking papers. They had 50 or 60 years (- 8 Mulroney years) on top and are apparently in need of a breather.

    The NDP on the other hand have spent that amount of time being a wonderful “party of opposition”. I’m not arguing that they’re ready to govern, but if they’re ever going to be, they need to spend more time in a bigger job. I think “Her Majesty’s Official Opposition” fits the bill.

    dave: I think your boycott is a great idea. Unfortunately, the middle-class westerners (who vote in greater numbers than we clever city-folk) wouldn’t participate and we’d be more in the shit than ever.

  13. Complaints by Liberals that a vote for the NDP enables the Tories is just too much to take.

    The unprincipled and weak fecklessness of the Liberals over the last couple years has essentially enabled the Tories to rule as if they *had* a majority. I mean, honestly, it was bad enough when the Liberals claimed to be against things (eg. the budget), but allowed it to pass by abstaining. But then they went about proclaiming bills to be terrible, and bad for the country (c.f. immigration), and then voted *for* them. (see also Afghanistan for a monumental unprincipled cave by Dion’s Liberals). I can’t think of a single piece of legislation where Harper had to back down or compromise – which is exactly the way a majority Parliament operates.

    And this fearmongering about NDP votes bringing about a Harper majority is both nonsense and counterproductive. Take Toronto, for instance: there isn’t a single seat in the 416 where the Tories stand to win a 3 (or 4) way race due to vote splitting between the NDP and Libs – there’s simply no way Toronto will vote for a Conservative. And scaring people into voting Liberal (where people wouldn’t otherwise) *can* lead to vote splits elsewhere. Take Saskatchewan, and parts of BC. The NDP has lost seats that were traditionally theirs because people switched from NDP to Lib (from Lib scaremongering), but where the Liberal had no hope of winning, so that the Lib candidate went from a traditional 10% to say 20%, allowing the Tories to take a seat that would have been NDP – and in the process moved them closer to forming a government.

  14. Is it fearmongering or are less of the NDP’s traditional voting block simply not so into them anymore?

    http://remarkk.com/2008/09/02/must-read-progressivism%E2%80%99s-end-and-renewal/

    My own anecdotal evidence suggests there are lots of people turning away from the NDP after life-long support. Where they go, Lib, Green, is unclear (wrt my anecdotal observations).

    Also, there were occasions in the past parliament when the NDP could have cooperated to stop Harper in some way, but didn’t. Cadman affair, etc.

  15. “turmoil” – really?
    “a succession of unstable minority governments” – gosh, sounds bad; what next, a coup?
    “brutalizing Canada’s once-broad political consensus” – the next step, thugs with sticks, no doubt, I’ve read about this sort of thing happening in Zimbabwe.
    “political basket case” – geez, I’m really alarmed now.

    What’s been the result of this Mugabe-like decent into hell? Let’s see, a possible deficit, cuts to arts funding, and some sort of abortion bill. Guess I can go back to sleep then.

    Shawn, thanks for posting the funniest, dumbest article I’ve read about the election this week. But why not mix it up a little and make your next one a link to a sane, reasoned take on the election. There must be one somewhere on the ‘net.

  18. Well, sorry for not seeming sane and reasoned. Just trying (poorly, evidently) to contrast Flavelle’s hilariously over the top language with the relatively picayune examples he provides of how Canada has changed under the tories. Even if you really, really believe that the tories were wrong to cut funding to films, it still doesn’t add up to “turmoil”, “brutality”, “instability”, or any of the rest of it. Americans really can safely sleep through this one, much as Flavelle may want to persuade them otherwise.

    Flavelle’s real problem appears to be simply that Canada is having elections where the Liberals don’t win a majority. A problem for Liberals, certainly, but most others would probably view this as the pretty ordinary give and take in a fortunate, stable democracy.

    Cheers

  19. Josh – aha, I knew there had to be one out there somewhere, thanks.

  21. I can’t believe people are still talking about strategic voting after a series of elections where it achieved nothing positive. Strategic voting is little more than a scam to trick people into voting Liberal even when they really don’t want to.

    Given the vapid media coverage of the issues, and most people’s general apathy towards politics, the idea that the average voter has enough information to make a “strategic” vote is laughable.

    The only way to feel good about your vote is to cast it for the person and/or the party that you want to win. They may not win, but at least you’ll have a clear conscience.

  23. Here Here pb!

    The idea of strategic voting in a system where the overall popular vote is irrelevant is ludicrous.

    And shame on the media for failing to find even one decent issue past puffin poop.

  24. In 2006, left-wing strategic voting elected Conservatives because there are more close Conservative-NDP ridings than Conservative-Liberal ones.

    So, please, if you are not going to vote your conscience, do some research first. Or, even better, stop trying to outsmart the system and vote for your first choice.

  25. Hey pb:

    “Strategic voting is little more than a scam to trick people into voting Liberal even when they really don’t want to.”

    I’m not sure that’s really the case. I agree with Leo that you need to do your research first, but as Alice Klein in Now suggests make sure whomever you vote for (Green, Liberal, NDP) can win against the incumbent CPC MP.

    Yes, we have a shitty system. Yes, the Liberals fucked up. BUT I do not wish a Harper majority on anyone. And if I can try to make sure that does not happen I will.

    I guess I just haven’t given up quite yet.

  26. Ana, most people *are* quite sure that strategic voting is a Liberal scaremongering scam. (Name one single seat in Toronto that is at risk of going Tory because of a NDP-Liberal split vote). The single biggest factor in the Tories success last election was winning 10 (from 0) seats in Quebec. I’m reasonably sure that had a lot more to do with the Conservative vote increasing from 8% to 25% than it did from the NDP going from 5 to 7%.

    Here’s another hint: the last time strategic voting was in vogue was 1999 in Ontario, and Mike Harris did just fine that election (although, because of strategic voting, the NDP didn’t).

  27. If you want to find the ridings that were very close in the last election, check here:
    http://www.voteforclimate.ca/

    An example from the riding of Vancouver Quadra:

    “Liberal MP Joyce Murray won Vancouver Quadra by only 150 votes (less than a 1 percent majority) over her Conservative rival in a March 2008 by-election, and it is very likely the Conservatives will work hard to try and take the riding in this general election. The Green Party achieved an impressive 13.5 percent of the vote — almost as much as the NDP.”

    So this would be a case where Liberal voters switching to NDP or Green could cause a Conservative to win the seat.

  28. Bob, nobody is suggesting there aren’t ridings where the margin is close enough that changing votes between the Liberals and NDP would make the difference. And for every such riding where a Liberal seat is at stake, I can show you one where the Tories stand to benefit at the expense of the NDP. The point is that this is not what is going to give Stephen Harper a majority.

    The point is that when people talk about strategic voting, they really mean vote Liberal – hell, Ana isn’t even calling for strategic voting, she just wants people to vote Liberal.

    The idea that the NDP is some nefarious force that will lead to a Harper majority at the expense of the deserving Liberals is also a disservice to Canadians. Without a third (or fourth) party competing for ideas and votes, the Liberals and Tories become mirror images of one another. Look at how far right the Liberals moved through the 1990s with a weakened NDP. Moreover, it is an insult to voters to tell them they had to keep voting Liberal despite the corruption that became so deeply embedded by the time of the last election. A lot of voters didn’t want to vote Liberal – meaning they wanted Liberals to lose last election because they figured it was the only way to clean house. To think that in the absence of the NDP in 2006, they would have mindlessly voted Liberal again doesn’t give them enough credit.

  29. Thanks for the clarification but I don’t think I said anything about strategic voting in my comment. I was just passing on a resource that might be of interest.

    [Though for the record, in my circles, “strategic voting” is not meant as ‘vote for liberal no matter what’ it’s more ‘vote so that the conservative doesn’t get in’ but that may not be the case everywhere.]

    I’m a big fan of having lots of parties to choose from – but our first-past-the-post electoral system means that liberal (small L) votes get divied up between 3 parties while the conservatives are all voting together for 1 party. This will always result in conservatives running things despite the fact that the majority of Canadians cast votes for liberal-leaning parties. That’s whack. The answer to that is not strategic voting, you’re right – it’s electoral reform.

  30. Kind of makes you wish for the halcyon days of the PC/Reform split.

    Will the liberal-leaners get another big tent one day? Maybe no, based on comments here. The old Red Tories could be absorbed into the Harper camp (well, enough of them) and somehow live with it, but it doesn’t seem like enough on the other side would move into a Liberal (big L) tent and be so — quiet about it.

  31. The mistake of the Now Magazine author is stating that the Liberals are progressives. Slate’s author makes the same mistake implying the Liberal Party a left-wing party.

    Some members may be, but I would have thought that the Chretien and Martin years would have put that to rest. That’s why all this talk of strategic voting and uniting the left is bunk. The Liberals may veer and sometimes even swerve left, but they also do it on the right. The Liberal Party is still mainly a centrist (or if you don’t like them opportunistic) party.