The Canadian election, which was held yesterday, provided the first indication of a return to health of the Canadian body politic. This is not merely because the incumbent Liberal government fell to the Conservatives but because there is a sign that the distortions introduced into the political system by ex-Prime Minister Brian Mulroney are finally beginning to dissipate.
There is no doubt that the Liberals had to leave power. Everyone, including the Liberals themselves, knew it. Aside from the ADSCAM scandal which had immobilized and discreditied the Liberal party, there was just the fact that they had been in office for almost 13 years. In that time they had wasted billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money in idiocies like the gun registry and the HRDC scandal to mention only two. Any healthy democracy needs a periodic change of government.
The Liberals under Prime Minister Chretien were aimless. Chretien’s raison d’etre was to fight Quebec separatism and to be in power. Once the separatists were defeated all he had left was the power. That was his motivation for his last four years in office, and this was apparent in all his acts as Prime Minister. When he was replaced by Paul Martin, there was hope that the new Prime Minister would lead the country forward with vigour and vision. Instead he became “Mr. Dithers”. As Margaret Wente put it in The Globe and Mail last Saturday, Martin’s goal was only to be Prime Minister, and he had no idea what he wanted to do once he had achieved that.
Canadians were tired of the Liberals at least two elections ago. The problem was the lack of alternatives. For this the blame must be placed on Brian Mulroney who ought to be regarded as the most disastrous Prime Minister in the history of the country.
The Renaissance Man does not say that Mulroney was a disaster because of NAFTA (which had been working for us up until the US decided to disregard the results of the arbitration process). It is not because of the Meech Lake Accord and Charlottetown Accords which were (thank God) defeated. It is not because of the GST, because, as Canadians we seem to be able to tolerate almost any level of taxation and still have a thriving economy. It is not because of the massive debt that he left, because Paul Martin got us out of that successfully.
No, Mulroney was a disaster because of the havoc he wreaked upon our political system.
Historically, Canada had three national political parties. Two, the Liberals and the Progressive Conservatives (now Conservatives) have been “mass parties” meaning that they draw support from a broad range of the public. The Liberals have always been the most successful because they managed to advance policies which appealed to people ranging from centre-left to centre-right, which is a very broad part of the Canadian political spectrum. The Conservatives, on the other hand, drew support from centre-right to far right as well as certain non-political constituencies such as farmers, small business types and so on.
The Liberals and the Tories each had a particular responsibility to the political system The Liberals duty was to soften the left wing tendencies of some Canadians by providing a home for moderate socialists. This had the effect of marginalizing Canada’s socialist parties.
On the right, the conservatives had the same role…to dilute the strength of the far right wing. The idea was that the far right would have nowhere to go but the Conservative party. Thus, they would have some influence inside their own party, but really right-wing ideas would never get good traction on the Canadian political landscape.
Of course this was never written down anywhere. It was just the way things worked and was basically acceptable to Canadians.
This model had two consequences. The first is that Canadian government policies were always basically moderate. Secondly, it meant that the Conservatives would attain power less frequently than the Liberals. The Liberal base was much broader and nationally based than that of the Tories. The Tories would come into office from time to time, perhaps when the Liberals had been in office too long and become tired or arrogant (or both). But soon, after a renewal, the Liberals would return to power for another stretch.
For Brian Mulroney, this model was unacceptable, He wanted power, he wanted it NOW, by damn, and he wanted it at all costs. The biggest obstacle he faced was the block of seats in the province of Quebec. These seats, numbering in the range of 70 to 75 depending on the current redistribution, would return 75% of their seats to the Liberals. In order to form a majority government this block had to be broken. As Blackadder would have put it, Mulroney had a cunning plan.
Mulroney turned to Quebec nationalists to join his Progressive Conservatives. They were invited to run under Tory colours with the promise that, if the Conservatives were elected, Mulroney would deliver to them greater provincial powers. And so, from right to left on the political spectrum these nationalists flocked to the Conservative party. The most prominent was Lucien Bouchard, but there were others even more radical than he. Many were closet separatists; others were completely open about it.
With the support of the nationalists, Mulroney won two large majorities. These victories were built on the foundation not only of strong western support, but large blocks of Quebec nationalists winning Federal seats for the Tories.
The problem came with power. Apart from the fact that Mulroney was unable to deliver to these nationalists (many of whom were separatists, and all of whom had primary allegiance to Quebec and not Canada) the constitutional changes they had come to seek, he was faced with a wide variety of political views in his caucus. The party had no unified political approach. Some were right-wingers, as had always been there, but now some were socialists, unionists, even fascists.
To govern, Mulroney had to legislate from the centre and also “kowtow” to his Quebec caucus. This alienated many of the Tory party’s most loyal supporters in the west. As his government moved more into the centre (turf normally occupied by the Liberals) the right wing of the party became more and more alienated.
In the end, Mulroney destroyed the Progressive Conservative party. By promising the Quebec nationalists more than he could deliver, he caused the bulk of them to split off to form what is now called the Bloc Quebecois. By alienating the right-wing of the party, he caused them to break off under Preston Manning to form the Reform Party. The Progressive Conservative party became a parliamentary rump, consisting of some Ontario MPs and a few from the Atlantic Provinces.
The problem for the Canadian political system arose when the public became tired of the Liberal Chretien government. There was no organized alternative. The right-wing had shattered into two parties who were feuding with each other. Neither had the ability to form a government, or even to become the Official Opposition (as a result, for years we had the spectacle of the Bloc Quebecois forming Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition…to their credit they did a responsible job of it, in the opinion of the Renaissance Man).
As a result of Mulroney’s hubris, Canadians were unable to rid themselves of the Liberals when their time had come due. Consequently, we were forced to endure aimless government, led by Prime Ministers with no vision or real idea of where they wanted to go. Government became reactive rather than proactive. The Liberals campaigned not on new programmes but on personal destruction. The Renaissance Man believes that Canadians became tired of the politics of personal destruction and scaremongering.
Under Stephen Harper there are signs that rationality has returned to the Canadian political system. The main thing is that the conservatives won 10 seats and 25% of the vote in Quebec…without closet separatists as candidates. They won their seats as Tories and as federalists.
Also, there are now, once again, two national mass parties. The personalized politics of the liberals failed.
There are still some aspects of the system out of skew, mostly with the Liberals. The Liberals are now occupying a part of the political spectrum far to the left of their normal place. There are many Liberals who do not agree with same-sex marriages, abortion on demand, legalization of marijuana, a billion dollar non-functioning gun registry etc. That is not to say that they will not support a government propounding just those things, but they will not accept being vilified by their party leaders simply for having a different opinion. In the past, the Liberals accommodated different viewpoints on these types of issues, and moved incrementally. If they wish to regain the centre right part of their base they will have to find ways to again appear receptive to opinions held by Maritime, and western liberals and not just the Toronto, white-wine types.
And so, it was an interesting election, with some hopeful signs for the Canadian political scene. It remains to be seen what will evolve.
A couple of days ago the Renaissance man suggested that the Conservatives would have difficulty governing with a minority. At the moment, with Paul Martin indicating he will step down as leader, it appears that the Tories have some breathing room. Still, once the parties refill both their batteries and their coffers the question of bringing down the government will arise yet again. It remains to be seen how long the Prime Ministry of Stephen Harper will last before he goes back to the polls.
It promises to be a fun year.
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