{"id":3598,"date":"2008-09-13T16:30:56","date_gmt":"2008-09-13T20:30:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingtoronto.ca\/2008\/09\/13\/slate-magazine-wonders-how-canada-got-mean\/"},"modified":"2013-01-21T13:36:37","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T18:36:37","slug":"slate-magazine-wonders-how-canada-got-mean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/09\/13\/slate-magazine-wonders-how-canada-got-mean\/","title":{"rendered":"Slate Magazine wonders how Canada got mean"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3155\/2819155779_a282704fdf.jpg?v=0\" height=\"340\" width=\"500\" \/><\/p>\n<p>There is an election underway in Canada and, on the face of it, Canadians don&#8217;t seem particularly enthusiastic about it. Some of our own anecdotal evidence suggests a lot of us might even be mildly depressed because &#8212; without being cynical &#8212; the outcome seems as chaoitic and messy as it has been since Paul Martin &#8220;won&#8221; his minority back in 2004. Unless you&#8217;re a Conservative, no other party or &#8220;side&#8221; appears able to get it together in a cohesive way and in time. Spacing obviously hasn&#8217;t restarted our <a href=\"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/votes\/\">Votes<\/a> blog for this election, mostly because there was no time for us to prepare, but also because it&#8217;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 <em>Spacingish<\/em> issues, but as <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theglobeandmail.com\/servlet\/story\/LAC.20080913.BARBER13\/TPStory\/National\/HYOntario\">John Barber pointed out in his column today<\/a>, urban voices can be awkward right now.<\/p>\n<p>Into this mix is an article posted yesterday on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.slate.com\">Slate<\/a> that has been making its way around Facebook and Twitter updates. It&#8217;s one of those helpful outsider views that let us step back and see what&#8217;s going on in our country.\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.slate.com\/id\/2199929\/\"><em>What&#8217;s the matter with Canada? How the world&#8217;s nicest country turned mean<\/em><\/a> suggests Canada has become a &#8220;political basket case:&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>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&#8217;s leader resigned. The Liberals then embarked on a long, fractious leadership campaign&#8212;leaving the party exhausted and broke, and tempting the governing Conservatives to introduce ever more draconian policies with little fear of the consequences.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>As the Liberals work on rebuilding, Canada&#8217;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 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/canada\/story\/2008\/08\/30\/green-party.html?ref=rss\" target=\"_blank\">first<\/a> member of parliament when an independent MP joined the Greens; and the <a href=\"http:\/\/archives.cbc.ca\/politics\/federal_politics\/clips\/13491\/\" target=\"_blank\">Bloc Qu&eacute;b&eacute;cois<\/a>, which shares many Liberal positions but advocates for Quebec&#8217;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. <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>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.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>We haven&#8217;t had much discussion of this election at all here. General thoughts from our smart readers are welcome, but we wouldn&#8217;t blame you if you don&#8217;t know where to start either.<\/p>\n<p><em>Photo by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/itzafineday\/\">itzafineday<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There is an election underway in Canada and, on the face of it, Canadians don&#8217;t seem particularly enthusiastic about it. Some of our own anecdotal evidence suggests a lot of us might even be mildly depressed because &#8212; without being cynical &#8212; the outcome seems as chaoitic and messy as it has been since Paul<a href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/09\/13\/slate-magazine-wonders-how-canada-got-mean\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"sr-only\">&#8220;Slate Magazine wonders how Canada got mean&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4004,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[457,31,4657,1289,10319,1694,2345,1498,10318,10320,1439,819,10185],"class_list":["post-3598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-canada","tag-election","tag-facebook","tag-green-party","tag-independent-mp","tag-john-barber","tag-leader","tag-liberal-government","tag-member-of-parliament","tag-new-democratic-party","tag-paul-martin","tag-quebec","tag-twitter"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Slate Magazine wonders how Canada got mean - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/09\/13\/slate-magazine-wonders-how-canada-got-mean\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Slate Magazine wonders how Canada got mean - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"There is an election underway in Canada and, on the face of it, Canadians don&#8217;t seem particularly enthusiastic about it. Some of our own anecdotal evidence suggests a lot of us might even be mildly depressed because &#8212; without being cynical &#8212; the outcome seems as chaoitic and messy as it has been since PaulContinue reading &quot;Slate Magazine wonders how Canada got mean&quot;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/09\/13\/slate-magazine-wonders-how-canada-got-mean\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-09-13T20:30:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2013-01-21T18:36:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3155\/2819155779_a282704fdf.jpg?v=0\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Shawn Micallef\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@Spacing\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@Spacing\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Shawn Micallef\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/09\/13\/slate-magazine-wonders-how-canada-got-mean\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/09\/13\/slate-magazine-wonders-how-canada-got-mean\/\",\"name\":\"Slate Magazine wonders how Canada got mean - 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