From: Biniam Haile \(SWE\) (eritrea.lave@comhem.se)
Date: Sat Sep 13 2008 - 21:48:52 EDT
[Ed. note: The playbook in Canada is the same as the right-wingers in
the US. Slash taxes and run up deficts to force cuts in social programs
-- aka "starve the beast"; attack dissenters; focus on crime and
punishment; and cover their agenda with a smokescreen of divisive social
issues. But at least Canada has organized opposition parties.]
What's the Matter With Canada? How the world's nicest country turned
mean.
Posted Friday, Sept. 12, 2008, at 11:17 AM ET
By Christopher Flavelle, Slate Magazine
Last Sunday, news came that Canada—sensible, quiet, some would even say
boring Canada—will hold an election on Oct. 14, its third in four years.
Those outside the country may wonder what the problem is; in Canada,
after all, health care is free, the dollar is strong, same-sex marriage
is legal, and the government had the good sense to stay out of Iraq. You
might think of Canada as the un-America, where the only debate ought to
be whether to spend the country's growing oil wealth on faster
snowmobiles, bigger hockey rinks, or Anne Murray box sets.
But beneath the calm exterior, Canada's political system is in turmoil.
Since 2004, a succession of unstable minority governments has led to a
constant campaign frenzy, brutalizing Canada's once-broad political
consensus and producing a series of policies at odds with the country's
socially liberal, fiscally conservative identity. Canada is quietly
becoming a political basket case, and this latest election may make
things even worse.
Just scan the headlines. In June, the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development warned that Canada—for years the only G8
country to post regular budget surpluses—was likely to fall into deficit
this year, thanks to a reckless cut to the national sales tax. In
February, the government proposed denying funding to films and TV shows
whose content it deemed "not in the public interest," sparking cries of
censorship from a sector that has historically received public support.
In 2007, a member of the governing Conservative Party proposed a bill
that would reopen the debate over abortion, a topic that governments
both liberal and conservative have avoided for decades.
The country is projecting its uncharacteristic behavior abroad as well.
After decades of encouraging countries to increase their foreign-aid
spending, Canada cut its own, from 0.34 percent of GDP in 2005 to just
0.2 percent last year. Long a beacon of human rights, Ottawa announced
last fall that it would stop advocating on behalf of Canadians sentenced
to death in other countries. And Canada is now the only Western country
that still has one of its citizens held in Guantanamo, but Ottawa has
refused to press for his release.
But nowhere is the rift between the old and new Canada more apparent
than with regards to the environment. Canada was an early and
enthusiastic supporter of the fight against climate change, and as
recently as 2005 it was the Canadian environment minister who helped
broker an agreement to extend the Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012. Then last
December, at a U.N. conference in Bali to negotiate a successor to
Kyoto, Canada executed a neat 180-degree turn, trying to block an
agreement that set a target for future cuts to greenhouse-gas emissions.
Of the 190 countries at the conference, only Russia supported Canada's
position.
Left-leaning Canadians blame the country's predicament on the current
Conservative government, which was first elected two years ago. They're
right, to a point. The Conservative Party, formed five years ago in a
merger of the country's two right-wing parties, is Canada's first
experience with an anti-government, socially conservative party in the
mold of Reagan-Bush Republicans. Its leader, Stephen Harper, who is now
the prime minister, once called Canada "a Northern European welfare
state in the worst sense of the term."
But the Conservative Party wouldn't be in power, let alone willing to
risk such divisive policies, were it not for the collapse of the
country's most formidable political institution, the Liberal Party of
Canada. The Liberals have been Canada's left-wing standard-bearers since
the country's independence in 1867. And just as Canada's right-wing
parties were coming together, the Liberal Party was coming apart.
In early 2004, Canada's auditor-general found that under the Liberal
government, public funds intended to promote the federal government in
the province of Quebec had been diverted toward advertising companies
connected to the Liberal Party in the form of inflated payments. In
response, the prime minister called a public inquiry, which only
prolonged the controversy.
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.
If the last week is any indication, that polarization is only getting
worse. On Sunday morning, Prime Minister Harper began the race by
predicting "a very nasty kind of personal-attack campaign." Two days
later, his party briefly released an ad that showed a bird defecating on
the leader of the Liberal Party. So much for Canadians being nice.
Christopher Flavelle is a contributing writer for The Big Money, Slate's
business site, which will launch later this month. He was previously a
speechwriter for Stéphane Dion, leader of the Liberal Party of Canada.
http://www.slate.com/id/2199929/
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