Historicist: Life in Wartime
Elsewhere in the Ist-a-Verse
Photo by Michael Chrisman from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.
How the tides have changed in Canadian federal politics. Much like the right-wing votes the Reform Party and the Progressive Conservatives split in the mid- to late-1990s, the Canadian left now faces fractured support split across multiple parties. With an election just two weeks away and polls showing that the Conservatives are on the brink of a majority government, the concept of uniting the left is starting to receive the media’s attention. To the dismay of some Canadians, the left-of-centre party leaders haven’t taken the bait just yet: announcing their support for unity could result in political suicide only fifteen days away from the election.
Faced with this political gridlock, Avaaz Canada, a group of 300,000 individuals working to fight poverty, advance human rights and democracy, and stop climate change, has taken the matter into its own hands. On Thursday of last week, the group launched its "Save the Planet: Stop Harper!" campaign, which seeks to ensure that "Harper pays the price at the polls for his reckless and un-Canadian climate policy." Echoing the media's attention on uniting the left, Avaaz Canada is urging Canadians "to come together across party lines for the sake of our planet." Their plan is simple: target three electoral ridings in which Harper's top MPs are running, and support the candidate who has the best chance of beating the Conservative. The campaign currently supports Green Party leader Elizabeth May in Central Nova, New Democrat Mike Bocking in B.C.’s Pitt Meadows-Maple Ridge-Mission riding, and Liberal David Pratt (running against Environment Minister John Baird) in Ottawa West-Nepean.
Photo by ayndroid from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.
The tri-party campaign is raising money to distribute ads that will inform the targeted ridings of just how environmentally irresponsible Avaaz Canada believes the Conservatives have been. To date, the response has been overwhelming. Upon launching the initiative, the group hoped to raise $50,000 in total; that goal was met in less than 24 hours. Without missing a beat, Avaaz Canada has continued to fundraise and has decided to spread its campaign to more ridings across Canada. This approach just might affect some GTA ridings, considering Minister of International Cooperation Bev Oda is the MP for Durham (Ontario) and Minister of Finance Jim Flaherty represents Whitby-Oshawa. In line with Avaaz Canada's intentions, both of these ridings could have new MPs if the Greens, the NDP, and the Liberals work together on October 14. Based on last election's results, a combination of just the Liberal and NDP votes in Durham would have beaten Bev Oda, while Jim Flaherty is at an even greater risk of losing his riding. In 2006, Flaherty won his seat by 5% of the total vote and it would have taken only half of his riding's NDP votes to give the Liberals the win.
With two ads ready for distribution in the ridings that were initially targeted, the group is moving quickly and asking for all the support it can get. A new fundraising goal has been set at $100,000, and as of Tuesday afternoon, over $96,000 had been raised. If you happen to live near these ridings, or you just generally believe in putting party pride aside because the environment is more important to you, donations can be made online. Although the campaign is being run without the explicit approval of Jack Layton, Elizabeth May, or Stéphane Dion, the operation demonstrates that an online community's directives may just trump the top-down instructions from political parties. Power to the people.
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Unite the (centre and) left and we're one step away (the Bloc) from a two party system as seen south of the border.
Good point rek. I myself would never consider a fractured left-wing to be a problem. For both the point you made and because of my own political inclinations.
But don't you think that if the Canadian left was to unify it would ultimately just become dominated by former elements of the "moderate" Liberals?
This means deciding who to vote for using local polls in each riding. I haven't seen them, and wouldn't trust them either since they depend on the work of annoying telephoners to get their data from a handful of shut-ins.
I only see the national polls that our media slavishly print for their "news".
This merge attempt will fail if they do it all at the last minute with the election around the corner. It requires too much planning, coordination and compromise which all three parties won't agree to, but such a thing would be enough to rival the boost the useful idiots of the Canadian Reform Alliance Party are giving the Conservatives. Have to wait for next election to happen, and I highly doubt the Liberal, NPD and Greens are capable of such an agreement. Too much work and not enough narcissism.
"Unite the left" is code for "Vote for the Liberals across the board".
This is not the point of a representative parliamentary democracy, in which you vote for your local candidate because he or she has a mandate to look after your constituency.
Voting for "anyone but the Conservative candidate" is counter to the whole "think globally, act locally" mantra that progressives so frequently tout.
A party comprising a united left seems counterproductive.
I wonder why a coalition government is so out of the question here, despite working well in many other countries.
This is a short term issue. The Liberals aren't really a 'left' party, they're a big-tent centrist party.
They've made the unfortunate (and disastrous) choice of electing an idealogue as their leader (thanks gerard kennedy!!!) and have been pushed to the left and outside of the Canadian mainstream, leaving moderates to move to the Conservatives. After Dion is replaced with a centrist pick (in the mold of Martin or Chretien) the Liberals can move back and reclaim those lost votes from the Conservatives.
Anyway, the Liberals don't need to reclaim votes from the NDP or Green's, they need to reclaim the moderates from the Conservatives, who have successfully (and hopefully temporarily) supplanted them as the catch-all party of the centre.
The only party that needs to worry about the fracturing of the left is the NDP. Their empty, divided rhetoric looks increasingly impotent against the legitimacy of the Green's.
Lands Down: You wouldn't call the Liberals leftist? They sound so leftist to me that I'd even call them socialist.
Unfortunately for the moderates jumping to the Cons, they may inadvertently be giving Harper mandate to unleash his completely un-Canadian social agenda on the country and turn us into a flyover state.
If the Liberals, Greens, NDP and Bloc (or some combination thereof) agreed to work together could they form a coalition government and put the Cons in Opposition?
Dion completely rejected the suggestion of a coalition with the NDP earlier in the campaign and I don't think any party would consider teaming up with the Bloc for fear of being labelled separatists by association. Everyone's so dead set against coalitions, but that's how many governments are formed in multi-party countries. It leads to a more cooperative legislative process.
As for the "Liberals are left" argument. They are definitely a centre party. Most certainly not socialist. And I had no idea that Dion was a leftist ideologue
rek: I don't buy those transparent attempts to scare people away from voting Conservative. I know its a far from perfect party but Harper and his ilk have had a de facto majority for months before the election. I don't remember seeing any particularly extreme changes made during that time.
Two other things in your comment made me uneasy. Firstly, why does the left have a monopoly on the so-called "Canadian" social agenda? Isn't that a tad presumptuous? Also, what's with the rather blatant insult lobbed against the US? I never quite could understand why anything American in Canada seems to be immediately classified as bad or evil. Talk about attack politics.
Mark: I know the Liberals may not always govern from the left, but I'm sure you can at least agree that their rhetoric is socialist.
Far from perfect? That’s an understatement of the year. Try one too many screws loose. If a leader of a country has to take advice from an imaginary friend who's name starts with "J" and doesn’t look at the big picture of whats involved, he loses my vote. I can't stand any of the assholes so the only option I have is to vote for the person who has their head stuck up their ass the least. I have yet to still decide on who will have my vote though.
Leftists can stop panicking: Chester Brown is aiming to split the right wing voters.
I called him a leftist idealogue because he was elected as a one-trick pony - he was the guy who was supposed to bring environment to the fore. By electing him they became sort of an 'issue' party, appealling to a certain (albeit supposedly growing) segment of voters. Dion has zero appeal beyond that issue and he has little ability as a communicator. Possibly the worst thing to happen to the party at the worst possible time.
All thanks to Gerrard Kennedy! Vote Peggy Nash!
Pickletoes: I find that the Liberals' refusal to reverse corporate tax cuts is quite un-socialist. What other examples of socialist rhetoric have they brought out recently?
Lands Down: While I wish the environment wasn't a partisan issue, I hadn't realized that was Dion's purpose (I didn't really pay too much attention to the Liberal leadership race).
Kennedy was actually going door-to-door in my neighbourhood Monday night. Of course, he's a nice guy when you talk to him, but I've been a Peggy supporter for a long time and think she's a great representative of the riding.
Harper has kept a tight lid on all of his 'ilk' over the last two years, directing them to defer to the PMO wherever possible, acting as his sock puppets when required to speak, and basically ignoring the media as it suits him. If one accidentally attracted national attention they were promptly cabinet-shuffled into the corner.
Without an official majority status they couldn't risk bringing out their real platform — look how the attempt to reopen gay marriage debate went*, imagine the reaction when presenting abortion rights and privatized healthcare similarly. Don't think he would? Read between the lines and see they will do nothing to prevent abortion from being reopened in a private member's bill. Harper also alternately ignored and praised the illegal private healthcare attempts in Quebec.
How about supporting the Iraq war? Harper has said since the invasion we should be there with the US and he doesn't care what Canadians think, he even invoked the "silent majority" ("outside Quebec" and its "pacifist tradition", he insisted) supporting the illegal invasion. Support for the war in Iraq has never been greater than 48% (and that was right at the start when the Whitehouse was inventing evidence of WMDs), while opposition surpassed 80%.
Harper is out of touch with the majority of Canadians and seems bent on building his policies around currying favour from Washington and the extreme right.
*The first and last free vote allowed, IIRC, despite his campaign promise and 2006 party policy: "A Conservative government will make all votes free, except for the budget and main estimates. On issues of moral conscience, such as abortion, the definition of marriage and euthanasia, the party acknowledges the diversity of deeply held personal convictions among individual party members and the right of Members of Parliament to adopt positions in consultation with their constituents and to vote freely." Perhaps free votes are only useful when they support Con agendas?
"Harper is out of touch with the majority of Canadians and seems bent on building his policies around currying favour from Washington and the extreme right."
Spot on.
Re the last two comments, the thing I have never understood about the "curry favour" type comments is what the quid pro quo is to a leader for implementing another party's/country's/ideological base's policies are? I know Mulroney got to go fishing with GHWB, but is that enough? Why is Harper's spoken intention - to make the Conservative party an elecoral force in Canada and not a once-every-decade-or-so option when the Liberal party needs to towel off - unbelievable?
In other words, how is this more than silly rhetoric made to intimidate Canadians who are not fans of the policies of the Republican party (approx. 80%, if you believe the occasional polls)?
"...seems bent on building his policies around currying favour from Washington and the extreme right"
If this is true, then how are the Conservatives winning the centre? Sounds like more baseless fear mongering to me.
two words: pastel sweaters.
there won't be a sharp right turn if/when they win a majority, but he will pull us further right than most of us are comfortable with, and if he overplays his hand, he'll be turfed at the next election, and maybe the left will be forced to coalesce at that time.
X: It's about getting to a stage where we could influence their decisions to our benefit.
"The world is now unipolar and contains only one superpower. Canada shares a continent with that superpower. In this context, given our common values and the political, economic and security interests that we share with the United States, there is now no more important foreign policy interest for Canada than maintaining the ability to exercise effective influence in Washington so as to advance unique Canadian policy objectives." —Stephen Harper, Canadian Alliance Defence Policy Paper: The New North Strong and Free, May 5, 2003
"The Reform party is very much a modern manifestation of the Republican movement in Western Canada; the U.S. Republicans started in the western United States." —Stephen Harper, speech to the Council for National Policy (a conservative American lobby group) June 1997
Then there's the neo-con compulsion for money to be free even if people have to pay for it. Is there any doubt of Harper's opinion of (non-Western Canada) Canadian culture or the relatively lax copyright freedoms we enjoy?
Harper would very much like our relationship with the US to be one of philosophical brothers from different mothers.
PT: The Cons aren't winning the centre, the Liberals are losing it and have been since mush-mouth Dion won the leadership race. If you consider yourself a moderate or centrist, who do you have left to vote for if you think the Liberals won't do? It's not the NDP or the Greens and outside Quebec it's not the Bloc. And don't forget the Progressive Conservative legacy. A lot of their supporters moved to the centre when McKay lied to Orchard and got in bed with Stockwell Day. If their faith in the Liberals is blown, they'll move to the Cons because they really have no other voting option.
Addendum: Harper's other strategy for getting on the US's good side (in his mind) is to fail to take them to task when they break treaties and international law. Canada will serve US corporate interests under a Harper majority.
Lands Down - Not if he sticks to the Republican playbook he's been using.
rek: Whether the Conservatives are gaining support form the centre because the Liberals are unappealing, or because they genuinely appeal to the electorate is irrelevant. If they truly were governing from the right to appease the base, then they'd be hemorrhaging the centrists they've wooed so far. The left has done a great job of painting the picture of the evil conservative (including you); I'm sure the sheeples would jump ship if the Conservatives behaved anything like the Republicans.
Which brings me back to my original question: Why is America demonized so much in this country? What's so bad about the place? Is it that their welfare apparatus is a little less developed then ours? Or is it that they have the audacity to say their being over taxed when the Government runs a surplus (not that has happened in years, hah!)? Seriously, this borders on hate speech.
PickleToes,
>Why is America demonized so much in this country? What's so bad about the place?
If you truly have to ask that question. You truly need to get out more. Better yet, pick up a history book.
torontothegreat: I find picking up a history book is a thin substitute for actually going to the US on a regular basis.
The more I do the latter, the less I feel like pointing fingers.
To rek's point: if Harper's idea was to make us "philosophical brothers from different mothers" with the US, he'd be widening the gap, not closing it. As it is we are brothers from the same mother, whether you mean the continent we share or the British Empire from which we both were born.
Apparently Jack Layton is seen as most likable to go out and have a bear with.
As far as superpowers as neighbours go, the US certainly isn't the worst. Actually good luck finding someone better.
Hey now! You can't go wrong with Tuvalu. Well, maybe the fact that it's sinking... minor detail. :/
^what about Superman? His superpowers are pretty badass.
And I'd take on a bear with Layton any day. He seems like the fiestiest leader, always ready for a fight.
I don't know, there's probably a lot of fierceness behind Duceppe's steely-blue eyes. That guy has a haunting face. In a fight I'm putting my money on him.
rek, we are already at a stage where we can influence decisions to our benefit. Successive Canadian prime ministers pursuing various policy goals have had good relationships with Washington. I don't know why you think that in order for a Canadian government to have influence they need to ape the policies advanced by a fringe of the GOP, when even a Republican president has paid them short shrift in office for 8 years.
re: there is now no more important foreign policy interest for Canada than maintaining the ability to exercise effective influence in Washington
This is totally benign. Bolding it does not make that any less true. If not this, what is (or should be) our top foreign policy objective?
There are good and persuasive reasons for prefering another candidate for Prime Minister. I don't think this warmed-over Hurtig/McQuaig/council of Canadians-type unsubstantiated and groundless rhetoric helps that case at all.
>torontothegreat: I find picking up a history book is a thin substitute for actually going to the US on a regular basis.
The more I do the latter, the less I feel like pointing fingers.
Sorry I don't call a spade a shovel. The comment (in context) wasn't about the average American citizen but rather the body that runs the government.
IMO, it's pretty easy to see why the U.S. has and is being demonized by not only this country but by most of the world.
Pickle Toes: He hasn't scared them off yet because he hasn't had free reign (majority gov't) to push his social agenda.
Your 'hate speech' nonsense isn't worth addressing.
David Newland: You omitted the one critical word - philosophical.
x_the_x: Stephen Harper is the one who thinks aping the Republicans will put us in Washington's good books, not me. And for 6 of the last 8 years it was the Liberal party dealing with Washington, not Harper; the strained relationship between Bush and Chretien is public record.
In my mind Canada's most important foreign policy objective should not be kowtowing to whatever Washington wants in hopes they'll listen when we point out they're violating softwood trade agreements or breaking international law or what have you. Our top foreign policy objective should continue to be peacekeeping and developmental aid initiatives via the UN and NATO and individually where appropriate. We don't need praise from Washington to have a voice or influence in the global forum.
If you think all of this is unsubstantiated or out in conspiracy theory territory that's up to you, but I'm not alone in noticing Harper's affinity for how the Republican party works (from how it campaigns to how it frames its policies), or the parallels between his rightwing social values and those of "red states", or the way he dodges the media and keeps his party on a very tight leash.
rek, no conspiracy, just wondering how you equate the benign comment of, essentially, "our relationship with the United States is important" with "currying favour with ... the extreme right" (your words) and "kowtowing to whatever Washington wants". As your comment betrays, the Liberal party had a good relationship with Washington - and a substantial amount of influence, without doing either, and despite a sometimes strained relationship between leaders, which you note (although focusing ties/influence in Washington on the personal relationship between the titular heads of government misses most of the picture).
I'm no fan of Harper, but I am somewhat bemused about the hysterical rhetoric his opponents resort to, and why his stated intentions (as I stated in my first point, to centralize the Tories and make them a strong electoral force) is ignored for the old NDP/CoC playbook of suggesting an affinity with political demons and government by foreign interests. One surmises that the spoken intention is incompatible with the one that is attributed to him, and certainly his record suggests the former more than the latter (whatever magic you attribute to a majority).
x_the_x: "Our relationship with the US is important" is a far cry from "nothing is more urgent and important than our relationship with the US".
Personal relationships of heads of state go far in representing the overall relationship of the countries and how new agreements will be hammered out. Canada under the Liberals had a good relationship with Washington when Chretien and Clinton were in office, both centrists. Chretien and Bush? Hardly; snubs in Ottawa and at APEC, division over Iraq weapons inspections being ignored for war, etc. With Martin it was very much in repair.
I'm not sure why you're feeling bewildered (or why you need to talk about the "hysterical rhetoric his opponents resort to" if you're talking to me and expect me to reply); what political party leader wouldn't want to make his or her party and electoral force? Has any party leader ever set out to intentionally undermine their ability to lead? Why would I focus on that when there is so much left underreported and ignored about how Harper has governed and where he so obviously intends to lead us if and when majority is achieved? Majority isn't magic, but in our system it means there's virtually nothing to stop you until the next election, but maybe 5 years of minority government has made some forgetful.
Is it possible that Harper intends to ease the country into his rightwing agenda? Sure. Is it possible he'd launch into a radical shift to the right on the first day? Of course. More importantly, could his confidence that the "silent majority" shares his values be completely misplaced and blow up in his face? Yes.
OH NO! Don't look now but a "right wing" agenda is coming! More scare tactics? I think so. The left has been so lackluster during this campaign. Instead of describing their platform they simply compare Harper to Bush in order to get votes. rek seems to be carrying on the practice.