The Politician as Clown

For some reason, I feel warm feelings about a fair number of Canadian politicians, despite the general sense that they are rascals. It is hard for me, and I think for Americans, Brits, Germans, or French, to have the same fondness for any of their politicians, perhaps because the stakes are higher.

But the lovable scoundrel seems to be the default image of the politician in Canada. Starting with the legendary alcoholism, and political wheeling and dealing, of our founder, Sir John A. Macdonald. A stark contrast with the imagined moral perfection of George Washington. We Canadians love Sir John A., but do not particularly respect him. Or tradition is of the politician as clown, as comic entertainment. We have a comic culture.

Other lovable scoundrels or humourous types: Rene Levesque, generally thought of affectionately even by the most determined federalists. Bryce Mackasey, of whom Brian Mulroney once said, “there’s no whore like an old whore.” Also a heavy drinker, reputedly. Ralph Klein. Jean Chretien. John Diefenbaker. Eugene Whelan. Pierre Trudeau, at least for his reputed sexual escapades. Joey Smallwood. John Crosby. Bill VanderZalm. Phil Gagliardi.

That's what the federal Liberals need if they hope to get back into the fight. They need someone we can all laugh at.

This Justin--Trudeau to Seek Liberal Leadership

Canada's Obama

There’s a lot of excitement about Justin Trudeau becoming a candidate for the Canadian Liberal leadership. A recent poll suggests that, as leader, he would boost Liberal support by 14 points, and lift them from third party to power.

In general, it is not hard to predict what will happen in Canadian politics.

Nearly-New Deal: Canada's FDR

Just look at what is happening in the US, and wait five to seven years.

Canadians are overwhelmingly influenced by the US, whether we admit it or not. If something exciting is going on down there, we want a part of it too. But it tends to take a few years to find a comparable Canadian version, and we are by nature a cautious, conservative people.

I Like John: Canada's Eisenhower.

So: FDR and the New Deal produced the second coming of Mackenzie King as his Canadian counterpart, R.B. Bennett being too reminiscent of Herbert Hoover. FDR hung on and on, so King hung on and on. FDR died, so King had to pass the torch. Diefenbaker was the closest we could manage to Eisenhower—a change, at least, to the more conservative party, and to an old hand. It took us a while to find someone suitable, but Pierre Trudeau’s charisma was our version of JFK’s. Nothing else looked worthy of emulating in the US until we came to Reagan; Canada responded a few years later with Mulroney—a move to the right, and a rather smooth candidate.

Chretien was Clinton; both on the left, both folksy in their appeal. Harper was George W. Bush.

Canada's JFK: PET.

And now, of course, we are looking for our Obama. We want someone youthful and charismatic who seems to represent a dramatic change.

Jack Layton stepped up as the person to fill that bill; hence his great success for the NDP in the last election. He did not win outright, again, because we are a cautious people, and it was not altogether clear that Obama was a success. We’d feel left out if we elected his equivalent in Canada just before the US moved in another direction. We left him in position to take the next election if Obama still looked like the fashion of the day.

But then he died; accordingly, there is an opening for someone else to take up the Obama mantle. It doesn’t fit Tom Mulcair quite so well. He is not as charismatic, and he is a bit sharp, a bit heated, too hot-tempered, and this contrasts too much with Obama’s signature coolness. He may still do, but Trudeau is significantly more Obama-like. Very cool, very charismatic, very youthful.

So here’s what to look for: if Obama loses the election in November, the bloom will immediately be off the rose in Trudeau’s lapel. He may still get the Liberal leadership, but they will go nowhere with him. Harper will then, if he stays on, win the next election. He is a reasonable Romney replica. If, on the other hand, Obama wins, Trudeau has every chance of victory the next election, assuming he does not make some serious mistake or mess up his current image. His real rival then, on which he should focus, is Mulcair.

That and, given his ties to Canada's JFK, the risk of turning out instead to look like Canada's Teddy Kennedy.

Would you carpool with this man?

Farewell to the World as We Know It

I smell death. I think the modern left, at least, is going down. Of course, there will still be a left and a right, but the centre is about to shift. I see the current attempt to attack the pope; I see the recent passage of “Obamacare”; I see the recent attempt by the Liberal party in Canada to defeat the government on the issue of abortion; and they look to me a bit like desperation. They seem unrealistically ambitious.

I think this happens when a persistent bluff is just about to fold. Before we abandon it, we are inclined instead to up ante, by doing something fairly extravagant, a big final play with all the chips down. Maybe, what the hell, the other side will cave in. One last chance.

If the Catholic Church caved, yup, big. But the odds are profoundly against. And yup, it was big to pull off Obamacare. But will it really change American society in time for the next election. And yup, it would have been big if the Conservative caucus, instead of the Liberal one, had split over abortion. But the odds were always the other way.

I think the leadership on the left knows more than the average sod among us knows. They may not be smarter than we are, but they are paying closer attention, and have access to some privileged information. Reputedly, at the recent think-tank meeting of the Canadian Liberal Party, Frank McKenna turned to Paul Martin, and said, “We're ****ed”; and Paul Martin replied, “The whole world's ****ed.” That may sum up the mood on the left.

The problems coming down are:

1.Immigration/depopulation. The left's insistence on smaller families, women in the workforce, and removing the traditional rights and protections of the family, has led to a demographic crisis with horrifying ramifications; and quite possibly to the current recession. The reckoning has been postponed by the left's promotion of immigration and multiculturalism, but this too is now creating a huge backlash, partly thanks to 9/11. One important consequence is that any form of “welfare state” is going to soon be unaffordable.

2.Information technology. The left's power base has been the clerical class: the professions and the bureaucracy. The premise has been that, being better educated and supposedly smarter, they had the right and the duty to run things for everyone else. Quite similar to the premise behind the old aristocracies, in fact. Unfortunately for the left, with the vastly greater availability of information thanks to the Internet, this premise is crumbling. Repeatedly, professional groups of cogniscenti are being shown up with relative ease by eager amateurs as either foolish, or corrupt, or both. The journalism “profession” has been taking an obvious, severe beating for a while. The heart of the academy in the “hard” sciences has now been hit by “Climategate.” Politicians are getting their worst flubs posted on YouTube; and this is what Ezra Levant was able to do to the bureaucrats behind the Canadian Human Rights Commission.

I am not as pessimistic about “the world” as Martin and McKenna; but that is probably because I see the interests of the world as distinct from those of the Liberal party or the left.

On Politics and Religion: A Dialogue

Dear Abbot:

Is it fair game for a reporter to ask a politician about his religious beliefs?

Presbyter


Dear Presbyter:

No. It is not relevant, and it is not proper.

If a candidate chooses to run on his faith, as Jimmy Carter did, setting a modern trend in US politics, then it is a legitimate issue. Otherwise, it is a private matter, and encouraging people to vote on this basis is simply encouraging religious prejudice.

Of course, candidates have every right to run on their faith. And, of course, their faith will influence what they do in public life, and ought to. But we know enough if we know their public platform and their public record. We should not presume to know what they "really" think, because they are a Baptist or a Mormon or a Catholic. If this is not quite prejudice in itself, it at least gives free rein to any prejudices we might have.

This includes, to my mind, voting for a candidate because he nominally shares our religion. If this is not bigotry, it is at least naive.

Abbot


Dear Abbot:

Well, thank God at least that this has not been a problem in Canada yet. We alternate between Roman Catholic and Protestant prime ministers.

Presbyter


Dear Presbyter:

I wish that were still true. It has, sadly, become a problem in Canada, though you are right that it never used to be. It began with attacks on Stockwell Day, when he was leader of the Alliance, because he was an Evangelical. Remember Warren Kinsella pulling out a Barney doll on TV and declaring "The Flintstones is not a documentary!"?

Now Stephen Harper is getting the same treatment. I quote a recent correspondent:

“If you believe that Jesus is coming (as opposed to the belief that Jesus is here, and comes again and again in every challenge and opportunity); if you believe the end of the world as 'predicted' in improperly interpreted Scriptures is nigh; if you yourself, and those you love are 'saved' and will end up in heaven, and everyone else has been warned over and over to say the formula of words and join the club; if you believe there are dire problems in the world, but want only to accept the wisdom in your own group - then it is easy to be apathetic about real change. The [only] important thing is getting people 'saved'. If you're the Prime Minister, you can't say that officially, but it leaks out...'"

This is the sort of thing found in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion; and it has recently become common political discourse in Canada. It is more than sad; it is shocking.

As to her claim that believing that Jesus is coming [again] is reason to vote against a candidate, note that this would disqualify all Christians from holding office-for that claim is in both the Apostles' and the Nicene creeds.

As to believing that the end of the world is nigh, believing that the world will come to an end is a logical necessity. I presume her problem is specifically with those who think it is immanent and predictable.

If so, her strongest case is not against Christians, who generally believe that "no one knows the day or the hour," but with advocates of the doctrines of global warming, nuclear winter, environmentalism, or human overpopulation. As one recent environmentalist correspondent claimed, "we are spitting ourselves out... of existence."

Indeed. Perhaps, then, only serious Christians should be allowed to hold public office?

Abbot


Dear Abbot:

But still... in the U.S., presidents have typically come from a more limited spectrum of religious possibilities -- almost always white, Protestant, and moderately evangelical.

I'm old enough to remember that when John F. Kennedy ran for president, large numbers feared he would take his marching orders from the Vatican, not from the American people.

A particular brand of religion is so taken for granted in U.S. politics that hardly anyone expressed fears that George W. Bush might take his marching orders from Oral Roberts, Billy Sunday, or John of Patmos.

Presbyter


Dear Presbyter:

That's not so. A lot of people very openly expressed fear that George W. Bush was secretly "taking his marching orders from St. John of Patmos," in terms very much like those used by our correspondent regarding Stephen Harper.

The living religious prejudices in the US are also not quite what you say. Yes, there is probably a continuing prejudice against Catholics: although they are the single largest religious denomination in the USA, there has still not been a second Catholic president. And, though little noted, Joe Biden has the distinction of being the first Catholic US Vice-President.

But, next to Catholics, guess what religious group is most under-represented among US presidents?Baptists (http://www.adherents.com/adh_presidents.html). The largest Protestant denomination; yet it seems other Americans still do not find them socially acceptable. They wear their religiousity too much on their sleeve. Americans clearly do not prefer their presidents to be even "moderately evangelical," as the Baptists are. They prefer their presidents to have a religiosity that is emotionally lukewarm and light on dogma. Episcopalian, Methodist, Unitarian, Presbyterian.

This prejudice actually seems to be growing, not fading. When George Romney ran for the Presidency in 1968, his Mormonism was barely noticed, or mentioned. When his son Mitt ran last year, it was a central issue used openly against his candidacy.

Abbot


Dear Abbot:

At least, I am quite sure that Americans are not yet ready to elect an openly Muslim president. Or an avowed atheist, for that matter.

Presbyter


Dear Presbyter:

Probably right about Muslims. Since there are so few Muslims in the US anyway, this does not seem to be a major concern.

There are historically respectable arguments for not extending religious tolerance to atheists: Locke and Rousseau made them. But I'm not sure an atheist would have much of a problem these days, so long as he stayed low-key about it. When Ed Broadbent was once asked for his religious affiliation, he said, "non-practicing Druid." Did that ever become an issue with anyone? We can all think of politicians who faced public opposition because they were Catholic, or Fundamentalist, or Mormon. Can you name anyone at all in recent times who actually ran into electoral trouble because he was atheist-not "godless communist," but just atheist?

Britain, at least, has had two publicly atheist prime ministers: Clement Attlee, James Callaghan. Did anyone care? But we're still waiting for a Catholic one...

Abbot

The New Priesthood

Harrison Ayre, letter writer in today's National Post, has issued what amounts to a challenge to the Catholic press, and Catholic bloggers. He writes, of the current case of Bishop Lahey, stopped at the border and accused of having child pornography on his laptop:

“It is strange that there is silence among the Catholic bloggers,and stranger still that there is silence from big Catholic newspapers.”

A friend has also written me, “What do you think?”

I am indeed guilty, as a Catholic blogger, of thus far saying nothing. My excuse is that I have already said it all; there is nothing this case raises that I have not said already about previous cases. There is nothing new about this case.

But I hear a call here for some kind of guidance—if that is not too presumptuous. Some are perhaps crying out for some kind of explanation, of any of the rest of us who might have one.

In fact, Bishop Mancini of Halifax is crying out for some kind of explanation. In his pastoral letter on the matter, he wrote:

"I have cried and I have silently screamed, and perhaps that was my prayer to God:Why Lord? What does this all mean? What are you asking of me and my priests? What do you want to see happen among your people? Is this a time of purification or is it nothing more than devastation? Are people going to stop believing, will faithful people stop being people of faith? Lord, what are you asking of us and how can we make it happen?"

These are good questions. Yes, there is nothing new in the revelation that priests too can sin, and yes, there is nothing in this that calls into question one jot or tittle of traditional Catholic teaching. But it is a matter causing suffering to a lot of innocent people: firstly, all the innocent priests; secondly, the innnocent Catholics and non-Catholics alike who might have their faith shaken, or their coming to faith delayed.

Shouldn't God prevent this from happening?

Nah—that's the good old problem of evil. God decided, long ago, when he made Adam, that he was going to allow us free will. That means, inevitably, we will sin: bishop, layman, atheist, priest, or pope—or saint. Nothing new here.

But perhaps it also even serves a divine purpose. Something is surely going on here, in historic terms—a decline in vocations to the priesthood, and now also these never-ending scandals involving priests.

Perhaps it is a change in the nature of the priesthood.

I think Catholics in general—not theologians, perhaps not priests, but common Catholics—have often, even usually, tended to overesteem the priest. They have imagined priests really were a kind of superhuman being who did not sin. For were it not so, such revelations would not be news. This has always been quite wrong in Catholic theology. In fact, it is a sort of idolatry—worshipping priests instead of God is not much better than worshipping gilded livestock.

One thing these scandals do is to disabuse those guilty of this heresy. If some lose their faith as a result—well, it has to have been an idolatrous faith, for this to do it. It is better to have no faith at all than to worship an idol. The path to true faith is shorter.

While the priestly scandals are correcting this immediate spiritual ailment, isn't God also suggesting a more permanent solution, for the longer term?

That would be the growing shortage of priests.

What is the simplest thing to do in face of such a shortage? Surely, to lower the entrance requirements for becoming a priest: let more in.

Is this not what God is saying?

What entrance requirements? Not celibacy. After all, the Protestant churches have the same clergy shortage, without it. Besides, celibacy is a test of sincerity; without it, we should expect more scandals, not fewer.

Lower the educational standards. They are useless, and perhaps worse than useless. How much education, after all, did Peter and the first apostles have? Fishermen? They were probably barely literate. Yet they did all right. More: Jesus made a point of choosing them _instead_ of the well educated. Those latter would have been the scribes and Pharisees. You might even say Jesus rather disliked them.

So why do we want to make them our priests, or rather, make our priests them?

In Canada, the US, or the UK, to be ordained, one ordinarily needs a first degree, then a two-year graduate degree, then another year of on-the-job training. It takes longer before you are assigned your own parish.

How much of this training is necessary? The only essential for a priest is to be able to competently perform the sacraments. He need not be an authority on doctrine—that is the bishop's job, and that of religious educators. He need not, any longer, know Latin, if he ever really did. He demonstrably need not be able to give a good sermon—since most priests can't. In any case, in this day and age, great sermons are accessible to any parish prepared to purchase a screen and projector. Why avoid using them?

All he needs is the order of the mass more or less committed to memory—no, all he needs is to be able to competently read it, and make the right gestures. For the mass, and the other six sacraments. He is an actor, but with just one part to repeat indefinitely.

At a pinch, a three-month course ought to do it, for anyone already literate.

Besides probably quickly replenishing the numbers of priests, this approach would have the colossal additional advantage of pulling the priesthood itself down off its lofty pedestal. It would be best if roughly half the congregation would normally look down on the priest socially. That would bring the priesthood closer to the common people, and it would also discourage class prejudices in the wider society. It would begin to draw the priesthood from about the same pool that has already, so successfully, produced our Charismatic prayer leaders, the most vital and fastest-growing part of the church.

Scandals might be no less frequent, but they would be less damaging, without the priestolatry.

But I suspect they would also be less frequent. Priests would then indeed commonly be the salt of the earth, just as Jesus's disciples were. These are the people Jesus himself identified as the most truly moral.

Sure, insist on a good education and a good academic mind for bishops, and for religious educators. Their job is different.

For priests? Just insist on a vocation, and celibacy. Don't put up artificial barriers to it.

Joe McCarthy vs. Jennifer Lynch: The Smackdown

Believers in basic freedoms really owe it to themselves to hear what Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn had to say recwently before a Parilamentary Committee investigating Canada's Human Rights Commissions.

Joe McCarthy never came near the sort of things these commissions have done. Think Star Chamber.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Higgamus, Hoggamus--Woman's Monogamous. Haggamus, Higgamus--Man is Polygamous

I happened upon the website of the Canadian Family Action Coalition recently—actually directed there by a left-wing friend, who cited it as an authority on the right. I had never heard of them before.

But they make an interesting point. They ask why, in the recent actions of the government of BC against the polygamous community of Bountiful, the men have been charged, but not the women?

Is the government trying to claim that the women were in the marriages against their will? That's absurd; if so, the charge should be kidnapping, not polygamy. But how were they held?

Or are they trying to claim that women are not in control of their own actions?

How is that sexual equality; and, if granted, how can women ever be put in positions of responsibility?

You just can't have it both ways.

Indian Takers

According to this story in the National Post, aboriginals are being harmed by the “reparations” payments for the harm done by residential schools.

Should have seen that one coming.

Inevitably, now, having been called upon to pay for free schooling for aboriginals, and then for reparations for paying for free schooling, the rest of us in Canada will be called upon to pay reparations for the reparations for providing free schooling. Then, perhaps, reparations for the reparations for the reparations for providing free schooling.

And so on it goes.

The Burning Times

Cinders are falling everywhere. We are at a time of massive change, in North American society.

What if Obama is implicated in the current Illinois scandals?

True, there is no evidence of this yet; but the flames are lapping closer now than they were a day or two ago. It looks like Rahm Emanuel has some involvement. And, frankly, I personally became suspicious when Obama went on record saying he had had no contact at all with Blagojevich about the appointment of his successor to the Senate. Surely he had; and why wouldn't he? Why lie? It is as Shakespeare had it: “Methinks the lady doth protest too much.”

It's going to be messy for the US if this is so. No honeymoon, and already the handicap of inexperience. Will he be able to govern effectively? With a Democratic majority in Congress, will there be any hope of removing him by impeachment? Not for two years, at least. While the US economy is already in a tailspin; and, as Joe Biden himself pointed out, America's enemies will be waiting to test the new, unknown leader.


Things are scarcely less lively back in Canada. Stephane Dion went in one week from prime-minister-in-waiting to private member. He is an honourable man, has served Canada well with his Clarity Act, and deserves a better legacy. I hope one day he is appointed to the Senate, where we could benefit from his constitutional insights.

I doubt Michael Ignatieff will do any better for the Liberals. Polls already show that the coalition plan hurt the Liberal brand terribly. It made them look like an elite out only for themselves, feeling entitled to power in disregard of the popular vote or even the interests of the country. This is a view of the Liberal Party many have already been nursing for years; so it strikes home. Dumping Dion and appointing Ignatieff without a full leadership vote now only underlines that perception. It will be even worse if Ignatieff, as a leader unelected even by his own party, goes on to assume prime ministership under the coalition agreement. And, with or without the coalition, as an academic, a Harvard prof, an expatriate, and a genuine blue-blooded noble, he is highly vulnerable personally to the charge of being elitist and out of touch.

In any case, the whole ad hoc nature of the past two weeks has made the Liberals look pretty amaterish. It hasn't helped the Conservatives or the NDP either, but the Liberals look worst, and stand to suffer worst, as the traditional party of the Canadian establishment.

These are bad times to be part of either the Canadian or the American establishment.

The Rally for Canada

I have been asked, as a conservative blogger, to publicize this initiative.

Unfortunately, I cannot endorse it. Their claim is that the proposed Liberal-Bloc-NDP coalition would “overturn the results of the last election,” and that it is somehow illegitimate. It would not. It is not. The opposition plans are perfectly legal and constitutional and perfectly democratic, and I have no quarrel with them. I do not want to see the Liberals-NDP-Bloc take power, but that is a different question. I am not prepared to mess around with the Canadian constitution for partisan advantage.

Hot Times on the Hill

Suddenly these are exciting times in Canadian politics.

It looks to me as though the Conservative government really is going to fall, and a coalition government of the Liberals and NDP will take power.

The legalities are perfectly clear. Accept no guff about this. If a government falls so soon after an election, the Governor-General's first choice should never be to dissolve the House; it is to appoint anyone who looks as though they might have the confidence of the House. The leader of the opposition would be an obvious choice, although it could also be another member of the government party. If, however, the leader of the official opposition can present a written coalition agreement, signed by an absolute majority of members, the GG really has no other choice but to appoint him prime minister, and see if he can survive a confidence vote. To do otherwise would be downright illegal. All hell would break loose.

There is also no reason why the parties forming the coalition agreement should feel obliged to put forward the current leader of the official opposition as PM. If they don't like Dion, they are perfectly free, among themselves, to choose any other individual, inside or outside the Commons. It could be Jack Layton, or Michael Ignatieff, or John McCallum, or Jean Chretien, or Rick Mercer, if they like.

Is it going to happen? Negotiating such an agreement is tricky. There is a reason why it has not been attempted since the First World War. But I suspect the opposition parties are so tired of being forced to back Harper against their will to avoid an election, that they really want to do this.

Will they pay for it at the next election? Probably. It looks grasping, and the Conservatives are sure to argue that they subverted the democratic process. In fact, they will have done nothing of the kind—together, the NDP, Liberals, and Bloc represent many more voters than the Conservatives do. But that's the way this sort of thing has tended to play in the past—as in the King-Byng affair of the 1920s.

But perhaps another bit of history must be served. Dion, without this, would be the first Liberal leader since Edward Blake never to have been PM.

The Case for Canadian Conservatism

The turnout in the last Canadian election was the lowest ever, under 60%.

I did not bother to vote myself—although I could have, by absentee ballot. Who cares? It seems to matter so little who wins, in Canada—the policies are the same regardless.

This suggests that Stephen Harper's main strategy, as leader of the Conservatives, is wrong.

Harper, following conventional Canadian wisdom, has been tacking to the centre, serene in the knowledge that there is nobody to his right to split the small-c conservative vote.

Mistake. As Karl Rove showed in George Bush's two election victories, and John McCain demonstrated by losing this year, when turnout is a major factor, covering the centre ground is not the best strategy. Often, the better idea is to fire up your own base. If you can get your supporters more motivated to come to the polls that the other side, you win.

This, surely, would have been the case this election year. With such low turnout, and Stephane Dion failing to light fires among his Liberal colleagues, had Harper been significantly better at inspiring small-c conservatives, he probably could have snagged his majority.

It is conventional wisdom that Canada is not a conservative country, that it is instinctively centre-left. If so, by being clear and conservative, Harper might have inspired two liberal voters to come out and vote against him for every one conservative he drew to the polls. But is that really true?

The West, we know, is perfectly amenable to “conservative” doctrines; Reform showed that, even if Diefenbaker didn't. But Ontario, supposedly the Liberal heartland, can also respond to a clear, consistent conservative message. Mike Harris proved that. Ernie Eves and John Tory, trying triangulation instead, have in fact done less well. This is “Tory Blue” Ontario we're talking about: home of the thirty-year provincial Conservative hegemony, not so long ago.

The Maritimes may have become addicted to Liberal equalization payments; but they are at heart deeply socially conservative. They are Canada's “Bible belt.” They ought to be reliably conservative in just the same way as the US South. Like the Atlantic provinces, the South bought the dole for a while, under the New Deal. But they have grown out of it. So could Halifax and St. John's.

This leaves Quebec. In Quebec, in recent history, ideology simply has not mattered—it has been overshadowed by the question of sovereignty. But, once a tipping point is reached, the Conservatives can represent that option just as well as the Liberals. The relative success of the ADQ in the last provincial election suggests there is some real appetite for a straight conservative option. On a full-blooded conservative platform, ADQ took 31% of the vote. Last federal election, in Quebec, the CPC took 21.7%. They are running well behind the conservative ideology per se.

Who does that leave? Nunavut?

All that is required, I suspect, is a leader who is a leader: who does not follow the present opinion polls, but seeks to change them. That's what Margaret Thatcher did, in Britain, that's what Churchill did, and that's what Ronald Reagan did in the US. That's what Mike Harris and Ralph Klein did in Ontario and Alberta. A similar leader really could do the same in Canada as a whole.

I Was Wrong

Okay, I predicted a bare majority Conservative government, and it did not happen.

Let me point out, though, that the actual vote spread was large enough to, in ordinary times, produce a Tory majority. It's just rather unpredictable how the actual seats are going to fall. Newspaper headlines saying “Canadians deny the Conservatives a majority” are really rather fanciful or metaphoric.

It was not enough, I think, because the NDP did not do as well as expected, failing to sufficiently split the leftward vote; because the BQ did better than expected, blocking by a whisker a Tory breakthrough in Quebec; and because the Conservatives are now the only national party, spreading their vote more thinly than the others.

Canada: Not As Cold As You Think

A hypothetical Canadian immigration ad, should the Republicans win the US presidential election.

The Case for Laurentia

The Quebec-Ontario border along the St. Lawrence River is, in the end, artificial. It cuts Montreal off from the English-speaking part of its hinterland, which naturally extends through the St. Lawrence Plain to the Frontenac Axis, just before Kingston, and up the Ottawa River. Similarly, the border along the Ottawa splits in two a region that really developed culturally as one; the Ottawa Valley remains quite different from the rest of Ontario, and the Gatineau Region quite distinct culturally and politically from the rest of Quebec.

Perhaps one day, to resolve these anomalies, it might be worthwhile to carve out three provinces where today there are two, Quebec and Ontario. Ontario would spread from Kingston and Algonquin Park west, a province centred on the Great Lakes. The land east of Kingston and the head of the Ottawa would be joined with Montreal and that part of Quebec south and east of Trois Rivieres, including the Outouais and perhaps the Noranda- Rouyn region.

This would give Canada one province, Laurentia, in which French and English-speaking populations were almost the same; indeed, the boundaries could be set to make this so. It might well become a thoroughly bilingual province, and a bridge for national unity.

Imagine how this might change the equation for Canadian federalism. How could Quebec separate without Laurentia and leave behind so many French speakers? Conversely, how could Laurentia separate and take with it so many English speakers? It would be a forced marriage, perhaps, but it would be a marriage that much less likely to ever end in divorce.

Less importantly, it would also help with the equailty of provinces. It has always been awkward, for such matters as Senate reform, that two provinces, Ontario and Quebec, were so much bigger than the rest.

This region has always produced much of what is most interesting and most distinctive in Canadian culture—and for good reason. It is the mixing of cultures that makes for great art, and it is, historically, the mixing of the English and French-speaking cultures that has made Canada. With the artificial barriers removed, Laurentia might become that much more productive, and go much farther in developing a solid, enduring, glorious, and distinct Canadian culture.

It would help Montreal financially. Geographically, Montreal ought to be the business capital of Canada, and was until relatively recently. All transportation funnels through here. It has been in slow decline for decades because of Quebec separatism, Quebec cultural protectionism, and Quebec economic policies. Freed of this and made capital of its own, perfectly bilingual region, it should quickly rise again as Canada's great metropolis, the preferred site for any Canadian head office.

Laurentia, as I call it, would, not least, be to the advantage of French-speaking Canadians. They would have a proper choice: those who believe in cultural isolation and fear for the decline of their traditions, can remain in Quebec. Those who believe the future is brightest with bilingualism and an openness to other cultures can choose Laurentia. If the economy or politics of either spot becomes unpalatable, the average Francophone would now have the option of the other, without having to surrender his French culture.

My Canada already includes Laurentia, and I imagine this is true of many Canadians. I grew up there. Because of this, I often feel I have no province now. Irish Eastern Ontario is a very different place frome that Ontario centred on Toronto; and West Island, Anglophone Montreal is a very different culture from that commenly meant when one says "Quebecois."

It's time we were maitres chez nous, n'est pas?

The Election Tomorrow

The Canadian election is tomorrow.

The polls are all over the place.

In the last few elections, the Nanos-CPAC-SES polling has been most accurate.

Its final poll shows Conservatives 33%, Liberals 27%, NDP 22%.

That's a six-point spread.

Traditionally, 6.5% to 8% is needed to pull off a majority.

But the final trend is to the Conservatives--and with the NDP close behind the Liberals, the left-wing vote may be split more than usual. In a first-past-the-post system, that may allow a few extra Tory candidates to come up the middle.

I predict a bare Conservative majority.

Dion's "Meltdown"

This video is supposed to show a Dion "meltdown," according to the CPC and many in the press.

Sorry, I would prefer Harper to win personally, but I do not see how this is true. At worst, it implies that Dion's English is not up to handling very complex English grammar. In what way is that a qualification to be prime minister?

But I think I would have raised the same objection Dion did: the question is itself nonsensical. It matters very much at what point Dion's hypothetical premiership begins.

In airing the missed starts, CTV also violated an agreement with Dion, which we actually hear on the tape. Had they not made this agreement, Dion presumably would have acted differently, and we would have no tape. So airing the tape is likely to--ought to--earn Dion some sympathy, among fair-minded voters. In addition, he sounds quite reasonable, likable, and sincere in the tape as released.

It is suicidal for the Conservatives to draw attention to it. What they should do is condemn CTV for airing it. It's not as if the arrogant media are their natural constituency.

The Canadian Leaders' Debate

Through the magic of the Internet, I have been able to view the English-language Canadian leaders' debate.

By conventional measures, Liz May won: she made her points most effectively. She's a good lawyer; the others are not lawyers by training.

This does not matter; she cannot win the election. May's strong showing, instead, should help Stephen Harper, by further splitting the left-wing vote. In electoral terms, it was Harper who won.

He was, to my ear, second only to May in selling his viewpoint. When he said, repeatedly, of the demands of others, “we'd like to, but we can't afford it,” that sounded very much like common sense. He seemed to be the only one truly aware that we are currently facing serious economic uncertainty. That alone should win him the election hands down. And his calm demeanor, I think, hit just the right note in such times: a steady voice implies a steady hand.

The debate also helped Harper in another way. Last post or so, I mentioned the value to American politicians of conforming to the American lietmotif of the frontier. It is similarly valuable, although less so, for Canadian politicians to embody the national myth of the survivor: an ordinary person meeting and overcoming adversity through calm, dogged determination. Showing him holding his cool while four others attacked him was a good way to cast Stephen Harper in that role in the public mind, just before an election.

A few notes on details: when Elizabeth May insisted, “families need jobs in the communities where they live,” my immediate response was, “like hell they do.”

Anyone who is not prepared to move for the sake of a job does not deserve to be a Canadian. We are a nation of immigrants. What would Canada be had our ancestors been so helpless and so unmotivated?

Similarly, Layton's concern about conditions on the reserves overlooked an obvious solution available to all native people: leave them.

Gilles Duceppe seemed to think he had a winning issue in demanding that Harper agree to a “reimbursable tax credit” for failing corporations, on the grounds that, if they were not making a profit, an ordinary tax credit was no use to them. But why, I wonder, is it a good thing to take money from ordinary taxpayers and give it to corporations in the first place? Surely only for the opportunity to create jobs, and more tax revenue in future. But this proposal would be a lousy way to do that. Failing businesses tend to be failing for a reason; a sudden government grant is not going to change the economic fundamentals. It is just a matter of throwing taxpayers' money away.

Harper did not say this; perhaps the idea plays well in Quebec.

Like Duceppe, Jack Layton showed that the NDP's instinct too is always to take from the poor and give to the rich. He wants to forgive the student loans of graduating MDs—a handout to anyone entering Canada's wealthiest profession. Liz May quickly agreed. She'd probably extend it to lawyers too.

Layton insists that wood should be used in Canadian manufacture rather than being shipped overseas, saying “they can't make anything with that wood in Asia that we can't make here.”

That's pure jingoism, and obviously untrue. The lefties love to play the nationalism card, to criticise anything foreign (and especially anything from the US). Are we, say, going to build Buddhist temples in Canada and then ship them overseas? How about printing Japanese daily papers in Canada? How's the distribution going to work on that?

In general, Layton strikes me as the least sincere of the leaders. Liz May has an excuse—she seems honourably deranged. Dion is sincere. Layton seems more calculating about his views. You see in his eyes he doesn't believe a word of it. He also kept interrupting Stephane Dion; which may have grated on others as much as it did on me. The same style hurt Al Gore in the US, and politeness is supposed to matter more to Canadians.

On the arts, Layton managed to accuse Stephen Harper of censorship for not funding dissenting voices with taxpayers' money. It is all very well to say that governments should fund the arts; but it is only too obvious that government funding in the past has hopelessly politicised the arts in Canada, so that now to be an artist—or more precisely, to succeed as an artist—requires a political view in conformity with the Liberal party or the NDP.

We are not funding many real artists; we are funding poseurs and party hacks, and calling them artists. And the bad is driving out the good. The arts matter far less to the average Canadian, I think, than they did fifty years ago.

Canada's Conservative Future

A sea-change is taking place in Quebec, which may secure power for the Conservatives for a generation.

Since the 1970s, politics in Quebec have been distorted by the separatism issue. Whereas elsewhere in Canada, and the world, the primary political choice was between left and right, in Quebec, since the delcine of the Union Nationale and rise of the PQ, it has been between sovereignty and federalism. This, and the importance of the question, generally left room for only one separatist party, and one federalist party. No one dared split their vote.

But the situation was anomalous, because both the federalist and the separatist party were essentially left-wing. The Conservatives were usually the odd man out.

Now, however, the separatist option seems to be receding in the popular mind, and the opposite phenomenon is occurring. Provincially, Action Democratique has emerged as an important conservative player. Federally, as ideology begins to trump sovereignty, Conservatives hold the best hand: they become the only party representing the right, while the left is split between two factions, Liberals and PQ.

This should almost ensure a Quebec Conservative majority for the foreseeable future, until and unless one of the other two parties manages to bury the other—and even then, only if it is the Liberals who bury the BQ.

Adding that to Tory strength in Western Canada, a region growing in population, wealth, and representation in parliament, the Conservatives should be hard to beat for the next generation or so.

Sarah Palin for Prime Minister?

Okay, so it isn't Romney, it's Palin.

Many are complaining that she is as inexperienced as Obama. But there is a difference. Palin, in her short time in public life, already has an impressive record of accomplishment. Obama does not.

Whether she helps McCain remains to be seen. Conservatives love her; she seems the model woman. But I bet she helps Stephen Harper. Canadians follow American elections intimately, and the fortunes of Canadian conservative parties usually depend on Canadian perceptions of the Republicans in the US.

Sarah Palin is likely to make Republicanism chic. Coming from Alaska, she's practically Canadian. She's a self-described hockey mom. Her favourite food is moose stew. Her husband is one-quarter Inuit.

It's perfect. She'll be all over the newspapers, Internet, and TV, just as Harper was planning to call an election.