The Prognosticator Weighs In

ahem – what about the Green Party?

On another note, I think you’re wrong about the NDP. Its just a hunch I have, but I think many liberal voters may be fed up with the party’s slithering ways, but find the Conservatives even slimier. I think we’ll see a boom in NDP support. My impression is that the NDP will be campaigning on their ability to affect change, just as they did during the 38th parliament. That is what they will build on.

But then again, I’m no political enthusiast – in fact, most politics bore the shit out of me.

I agree with Ilia that the NDP might do okay this election. In spite of being irritated with some of Layton’s decisions, at this point they represent a party with progressive values and none of the taint. We all know that the Liberals commonly run on an NDP-like platform, but we’re catching on to the fact that they shed it as soon as they arrive in office. Among other things, the Libs have a credibility problem, and that should help the NDP.

However, I don’t sense that NDP-voters are fired up exactly, and this is probably why alevo is predicting many will stay home. It’s hard to be excited about voting for a party whose goal is to be the swing vote in a minority government. Perhaps they would do better if they would come out swinging a little more, or if they were to fly the Liberal flag, painted orange. The whole “we’re above the fray” thing is getting old.

As far as the Green Party goes, I don’t think they’re a realistic alternative at this point. I think it would be better for the country if the people in the Green Party put their efforts into a nationally recognized party and tried to influence that party from the inside. Although I don’t know a great deal about the Green ideology, since I forgot most of what I read last election, the NDP might be a good place to stick a lot of them. Stop the vote-splitting fellas…

So, Harper. Is he a hardcore right-wing ideologue? I’m not sure that question is as important as: are his supporters hardcore right-wing ideologues? The more I read on the Internet from the people who want Harper in office, the more I think it’s a bad idea. Wondering what he’d do to Canada’s social programs? Well, his supporters seem to like to call Canada a “nanny state” because we have them, so that should give you some idea. A similar host of contemptuous terms are tossed like smelly little hand-grenades at gay marriage, abortion rights, Canada’s withholding of support for the war in Iraq, people who aren’t sure the US has our best interests in mind, Quebecers, people who vote Liberal or NDP, etc.

More on that later.

Another thought why the NDP are in trouble – this election is not going to be as focused on social issues. At least not as much as the last election. In 2004, the dialogue around National Child Care, Health Care, and Post-Secondary Education was much more intense. These are good NDP issues. They can speak easily to these issues. The only real NDP-worthy electoral issue this time around (so far as I can tell before the platforms are released) is The Environment and Kyoto, and maybe a minor focus on sustaining public health care.

Ade wrote: “The Liberals will try to emphasize that Canadians don’t know what to expect from a Harper government. Of course, the flip side to this is that they know exactly what to expect from the Martin government – for better or worse.”

There’s a reason the Conservatives are focused much more heavily on Liberal corruption than on their own platform.

We know exactly what to expect from a Harper government. The Conservatives were in power for eight years (1985 to 1993) and they burned their way through such a huge swath of lies, corruption, pork-barreling, scandals, shame-faced resignations, etc. that voters ultimately reduced them to a tiny fraction of their former power – but not before they did major, long-term damage.

I still remember the continentalist fiasco – the about-face after being elected, the leaked internal memos, the wholesale trashing of Canada’s made-at-home industrial policy, the $40+ billion deficits, the gargantuan corporate (BCNI) propaganda campaign – and the thought of those Canada-hating corporate assholes getting back into power fills me with loathing and revulsion.

Many of Harper’s advisors are Mulroney’s advisors (and Harris’s advisors, too – that’s Mike “get those f***ing Indians out of the park” Harris). His donors and sponsors are Mulroney’s and Harris’s donors and sponsors – the same colonial overseers, hangers-on, and bought priesthood who are absolutely dying to get the chance to finish what they started.

If they get that chance, Canada won’t be recognizable when they’re done. No, I’m not being hyperbolic, but to be fair I’m not convinced a Conservative minority will afford them that chance. It may, however, give them a chance to play nicey nicey with voters and give them a shot at a majority.

The Liberals have had 13 years to undo the Mulroney Tories’ damage, and they pissed it away maintaining the status quo and consolidating Mulroney’s sweeping reforms. They’ve administered a thousand small cuts to the political manifestation of Canada’s unique identity, but the Tories want nothing more than to deliver the killing blow and finish the job of rolling Canada into a U.S. protectorate.

Both parties disgust me.

The Greens have been struggling through internal upheavals since the last election as they try to decide how to win seats. I don’t think they’re ready for the big leagues yet.

The NDP aren’t perfect, but they are the only major party that believes Canada should stand for something more than being a nice place to park your money.

I think those will be broad themes Ade, but once the platforms come out (by most accounts shortly before Christmas), we will likely see some unique policy promises. There has been so much spending on the ‘big ticket’ priorities – health, taxes, innovation – that many of the elctorate are feeling a bit glossed-over like yourself. The parties could be expected to have some rather intricate policy proposals in their respective platforms. Harper will definately play up his accountability & ethics package.

Alevo, I disagree heartily. Harper’s political philosphy is a distillation of the neoconservative, continentalist philosophy that the Mulroney era introducted, not a departure from it.

Mulroney was by no means a Red Tory. He was a neoconservative akin to Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. The Mulroney era was chacterized by the erosion of made-in-Canada industrial, economic, and social policy.

The replacement of FIRA with Investment Canada, the forging (in secret) of the Free Trade Agreement and its subsequent ramming through Parliament and the Senate, the Bank of Canada’s ill-fated war on modest inflation, which drove up the Canadian dollar and decimated Canadian industry, and the many concessions Canada made to US foreign and domestic policy were major steps to remake Canada as a minor player in a continental market dominated by the United States.

The Conservatives and their Calgary School economists, analysts, and wonks endorse continentalism even more fully than the Mulroney Tories did. This is because the party has finally been purged of the Red (or “Progressive”) Tory elements that stuck through the Mulroney government, most of whom, like Stronach, ultimately bailed to the Liberals or simply retired from politics.

I agree that the Calgary School is Straussian; they adore US neoconservatism. But Straussian political philosophy is “populist” only in the particular sense that it espouses a modern version of Plato’s Noble Lie – those philosopher-kings with the wit and wisdom to govern must do so, and tell the rabble whatever will keep them stupid and passive.

Here’s a quote from Leo Strauss: “Because mankind [sic] is intrinsically wicked he has to be governed: Such governance can only be established, however, when men are united – and they can only be united against other people.”

Does that sound like a foundation for the foreign policy of any parties we know?

Senior Neocon Irving Kristol expands on Straussian ‘populism’:

“Strauss was an intellectual aristocrat who thought that the truth could make *some* [emphasis Kristol’s] minds free, but he was convinced that there was an inherent conflict between philosophic truth and political order, and that the popularization and vulgarization of these truths might import unease, turmoil and the release of popular passions hitherto held in check by tradition and religion with utterly unpredictable, but mostly negative, consequences.”

Also spake Kristol, “There are truths appropriate for children; truths that are appropriate for students; truths that are appropriate for educated adults; and truths that are appropriate for highly educated adults, and the notion that there should be one set of truths available to everyone is a modern democratic fallacy. It doesn’t work.”

I’ve never claimed that Harper’s agenda is hidden. All you have to do is read the Conservative Platform from the 2004 election cycle to see where he wants to take Canada. However, the Conservatives will be very careful to downplay their own plans, keep the focus on Liberal corruption, and hope not too many Canadians bother to read their 2005/6 platform that closely.

I call them “colonial overseers, hangers on, and bought priesthood” because they are just that: intellectually, philosophically, and ethically beholden to the neoconservative imperial power to the south, eager to dismantle what they consider the illegitimate products of Canadian governance (single payer public health care, well-funded public education, a foreign policy based around internationalism rather than deference to U.S. imperial objectives, etc.) and merge Canada in all but name into the economic engine to the south.

That’s not hyperbole: that’s policy.

Hi Alevo,

You write, “I still disagree on the issue of Harper’s insiders, but that is irrelevant given the direction this conversation has gone.” I’m happy to carry more than one thread of the discussion and would be interested to read your thoughts on this.

FWIW, you’re right that Harper’s insiders come from a specific ‘brand’ of neoconservatism – the so-called Calgary School – but I’d argue that as far as their philosophy concerns Canada as a whole, their provincial chauvinism is less relevant than the underlying neoconservatism that nourishes their chauvinism.

Decentralization is simply Canada’s answer to “States’ Rights” south of the border, which is applied strategically to undermine federal initiatives that challenge neoconservative ideas, and ignored strategically when the federal government acts as an agent for neoconservative ideas.

In Canada, decentralization forces regional economies to orient North-South and integrate more fully into a U.S. led continental economy, rather than the politically-encouraged East-West orientation that has traditionally represented nationalist macroeconomics. This is exactly what the Mulroney Tories wanted, and it’s also what the Calgary School Conservatives want.

But moving on: you ask whether Mulroney’s foreign trade decisions would have been avoided by subsequent Liberal administrations. We don’t need to speculate for an answer. The Chretien Liberals, having been blindsided by the US launching bilateral negotiations with Mexico as FTA came into effect, agreed to expand the Free Trade Agreement toward a NAFTA soon after taking power.

The Liberals were also early champions of the OECD-based Multilateral Agreement on Investments, which was negotiated in secret and collapsed only after a draft was leaked to the public and generated massive public opposition, particularly in Europe.

The Liberals also championed the FTAA, which would extend NAFTA to the entire hemisphere and is currently stagnated due to opposition from a recent coalition of left-leaning South American governments led by Venezuela.

You write, “The fact is, Canadians are quite ready to equate poor industrial performance with the current administration, almost as readily as you are to blame neoconservative ideology in general.”

The fact is that the Liberals, despite the lingering progressive, nationalist legacy that was left by the Pearson/Trudeau era and given a bump by Chretien’s last-minute posturing to ratify Kyoto and oppose sending troops to Iraq, are continentalist through and through.

The Liberals are not necessarily neoconservative, but their politics of accommodation, like those of Tony Blair’s “Labour” Party in the UK, amount to a capitulation to the dominant neoconservativism of the hegemon to which both countries defer.

Some good points here Ryan. I am in complete agreeance with you on the north-south integration of ‘provincial to state’ trade economies. This poses a distinct challenge to the economic nationalist dialogue – perhaps even making such a dialogue redundant. This has been the core challenge to the Martin Liberals as they try to craft their economic vision (one which has a national appeal). They have resorted to blanket investments in nebulous projects under the title ‘innovation’. Whatever that means specifically, no one knows. As an aside – I attended a speech delivered by the Program Director of the Canada Foundation for Innovation, which is an arms-length body set up with an enormous budget to distribute federal and private donation funds to ‘innovative’ national projects. It was a very confusing and rhetorical talk. It made me wonder if the Foundation’s mandate wasn’t designed to be sufficiently confusing to allow political abuse, but I digress (somewhat).

I am always wary of the sort of discussion we have embarked on. It seems incredibly pessismistic, but I understand it’s importance. I think political discussions need to address power-structures, and I am willing to accept your view that one pervasive economic model has (in the last three decades) shaped the agenda of a rather elitist national governing system. I am willing to engage in a dialogue on hegemonic and bellicose continental trade policy because I feel betrayed by some of these policies too. More to the point, I am often enraged when these policies are called ‘national achievments.’ Achievements for whom? It’s a scary view of the world we live in, but a more realistic view of politics than many people I know are willing to accept.

For myself, I believe there is a great deal of social importance for policy that is designed to promote an egalitarean state. We can reflect on the images from New Orleans and think long and hard about the reality of class and race. The Canadian natioanl project should always be about fostering a more egalitarean state. It is a tempering influence on latent colonial rage. Given this, I accept the perspectives you and Ade have shared on the NDP.

However, I have to take exception to a conversation that poses no solutions. I know that we have taken one step. We challenge complicit attitudes by sharing information on this blog. Fair enough. I’m wondering where we go next?

This conversation started with my prognostication. It was a real politik assessment of the coming electoral campaign. I made no mention of ‘right or wrong.’ We then took some time to consider Conservative party ideology(s), neo-con hegemony, provincial nationalism, and the Liberal and Conservative records on trade policy.

Along the way we have made some fairly pessismitic remarks about some Canadian political parties. I am trying to reconcile our shared views on these subjects with my ballot decision. Clealry, the parties on offer provide an unappealing menu. Since our conversation has one foot planted in electoral politics and the other planted in political philosophy, I think it is a valid to ask how much currency we can place in electoral politics? I feel more empowered writting on this blog than I do voting.

I hope others will contribute.

Alevo writes, “I’m wondering where we go next?”

Ade writes, “We’ve got a month-and-a-half to make sure the people we really don’t want in power don’t get there.”

It’s not enough to make sure the wrong guys stay out. That kind of thinking will get the Conservatives in power.

We need to make sure the right people get in. I happen to think the NDP have by far the most credible platform of the mainstream parties. They’re oriented toward: an independent domestic and foreign policy (as opposed to capitulation to American interests); investments in education, health care, and sustainable transportation and energy infrastructures (after over a decade of slow starvation); and a Canadian nationalism based on shared values and cooperation (as opposed to graft and pork-barreling).

There is room for debate about some of their recent tactics, but throughout this minority Parliament, they’ve shown themselves to be the only opposition party demonstrably interested in making government work and achieving policy objectives that most Canadians support.

Realpolitik aside (since it is ultimately cynical and self-fulfilling), the only reason everyone believes the NDP couldn’t possibly form a government is that the mainstream media say so, and the mainstream media say so because they’re eager to ensure that government remains in the hands of the Liberals and/or Conservatives.

My suggestion is to persuade as many people as possible to vote NDP. Imagine what Parliament would be like with a Liberal minority and an NDP opposition big enough to deliver or withold a majority vote on any Liberal bill.

No more robe-dirtying deals with the Conservatives and BQ; just good policy for the next few years.

Another interesting aside: I can’t explain it, but I just don’t trust Steven Harper. There is just something about the guy, maybe its his demeanor, his voice, his look, I don’t know. But he comes off as an utter sleaze to me, ingenuine, the ultimate untrustworthy politician. I can’t shake it, I can’t look at the guy objectively.

Does anyone else get this feeling/vibe?

An anecdote may help to explain why Harper gives people the willies.

Twenty years ago my maternal grandmother died in England, and my mother and I flew back to attend her funeral. At the airport, my mother pointed across the concourse and said, “Look, there’s Pierre Trudeau. Come with me and I’ll introduce you.”

My mother had met him only once – and briefly – at a Provincial Liberal fundraising event at least a decade before (she did some accounting work for the party), but when she strode over with me in starstruck tow (yes, I was a teenaged politics nerd), he turned, recognized her immediately, and called her by name, embracing her warmly and asking detailed questions about her family and work.

They exchanged a moment of friendly banter that could have passed between two old friends. When she introduced me, I mumbled something unintelligible but he took my hand in a strong grip and said, “I’m very pleased to meet you,” with a warm smile, “and I’m glad to hear that you take an interest in politics. It’s important for young people to be engaged.”

Whatever you may think of his politics or his legacy, Trudeau was a true politician: a high self-monitor with a genuinely warm disposition, an encyclopaedic memory for names, faces, and personal details, and a clear and erudite political philosophy.

Harper, by contrast, is a policy wonk, not a people person. To borrow a phrase from Tolkien, he has a mind of metal and wheels. Where a politican picks up on non-verbal cues, reaches out to listeners, and communicates in terms to which they can relate, Harper only knows how to calculate and machinate.

He and his advisors know that Canadians don’t want what they advocate, so their strategy is to hammer the Liberals on “ethics” and make vague noises about integrity and accountability. However, on an interpersonal level, Harper has no idea how to translate that into giving people the warm fuzzies that might otherwise ignite a huge shift in voters.

He’s getting better, of course. He has a team of trainers, image consultants, etc., who are teaching him to fake it. He looks a bit softer, more confident and relaxed on TV. But in close-up shots and in person, you can see he’s still machivellian at heart.

His popularity, such as it is, comes from a) the hard core of Canadian conservatives who would vote Conservative if they ran a flying squirrel as party leader, and b) moderate voters who are sick of the Liberals, have forgotten how bad the Conservatives were last time, and don’t have the time or inclination to investigate Conservative policy too closely.

Hi Alevo,

I suspect that my category b and your category c have a larg overlap, although I agree that Alberta reformers probably do represent a distinct society – no pun intended.

Thanks for sharing an engaging story that turns popular perceptions of two notable Canadian leaders upside down.

I expect the difference in perceptions on Trudeau stems from encountering him at different times in his life. When I read Trudeau’s Memoirs years after meeting him, the book’s narrative voice reminded me of the elegant, cocky politician I met in the airport. (Of course, any autobiography is likely to catch the subject at his best.)

In any case, we digress from the purpose of this discussion, which you summarized by writing, “I have to take exception to a conversation that poses no solutions. I know that we have taken one step. We challenge complicit attitudes by sharing information on this blog. Fair enough. I’m wondering where we go next?”

Iliafer wrote, “You guys have bantered aplenty over the Liberals and Conservatives, lets hash out the only party I have any shred of hope in.”

So let’s hash. The NDP are an anomaly: a party that stands for just about exactly what a large majority of Canadians profess to want, but can’t seem to get elected.

I’ve written that the Liberals borrow liberally from the NDP platform during election campaigns and then borrow liberally from the Conservative platform while in power. I guess that’s called “moderation”, but it represents mendacity on a grand scale.

When the Liberals crow about the Conservatives’ hidden agenda, they undermine their argument fatally by demonstrating a hidden agenda of their own – in fact, the same agenda.

So how can the NDP respond effectively? I had a debate today with an acquaintance who is normally quite perceptive, but is perfectly willing to “give the Conservatives a chance” to prove whether they’ve really moderated their politics even as he accepts carte blanche that the NDP are just tax-and-spend socialists.

I argued that the best way to judge politicians is to assess what they write and say when they’re not campaigning, and that a review of the Harper/Flanagan literature shows a radical agenda that surely won’t evaporate if they suddenly find themselves in a position with the power to make policy.

My acquaintance railed against the Martin Liberals for – wait for it – being beholden to big business, reneging on their promise to honour Kyoto, starving our public infrastructure, undermining public health care and education, corruption, cronyism, and so on, but refused to consider that the Conservatives would be a purer manifestation of the very things he hates about the Liberals.

He said, “Do you think the Conservatives are going to get power only to throw it all away by trashing the country? Of course not. And if they do, then we throw them out, too.”

I felt like banging my head against a wall. How can the NDP get past this? Few people will read 5,100 word essays in The Walrus.

Any ideas?

It’s funny you should mention the Walrus. I sent Ade an article from the magazine when we started this discussion; the article was about the Calgary school and Tom Flanagan, entitled “The Man Behind Stephen Harper.” Your friend should read it.

It’s a scary thought indeed that some votes are cast on the expectation that either the Tories will moderate, or that the Liberals will clean up their act. Like yourself, I suspect that neither change will occur. No matter, both parties are trying to appeal to people in the same fashion – saying: we’re not as bad as you think – and that means that they are both just as bad as we think, maybe worse. Chantal Hebert wrote a column in late November that suggested both parties are striving to fulfill the politcal dimensions of the old Progressive Conservative Party. I tend to agree.

On to the NDP. You raise an importatn question. You write: The NDP are an anomaly: a party that stands for just about exactly what a large majority of Canadians profess to want, but can’t seem to get elected.

Here’s one thought. The NDP has a few distinct challenges when speaking to Canadians. These are impediments that, as I see it, are holding them back from more widespread credibility. I say “credibility” with some trepidation because I think the point I want to make has more to do with marketing – the perception of credibility – than it does with their legitimacy.

The NDP has a hard time speaking in a nationalistic voice to Canadians. They really need to take a lesson from their competitors on this point. Please hear me out. This has more to do with the kind of political dialogue Canadians respond to than it does what the parties are saying. Canadians are generally a very patriotic lot, and the average person likes to see that reflected in the federal political dialogue. Canadians, particularly those of the age group with the highest voter participation, like to hear patriotic politics. I’m not saying that the NDP is un-Canadian, or less patriotic than other parties, but that the party’s marketing is more issue-first than it is Canadian-first. For the average voter, this makes it hard for them to reconcile the NDP as a substantial and well-rounded political option. Canadian voters are steeped in nationalistic rhetoric at election time. The Liberals always do well in this sense. No matter what the Liberal policy is, they are always “fighting for Canada.” They have done an outstanding job equating Liberal values with Canadian values (mythic or substantiated). Some might call this shameless, or phony, but it wins hearts and minds. In my view there are two political realities: issue-politics and electoral politics. The NDP would do well to focus more on the latter. Their current campaign slogan: “getting results for people” – brutal. What people? CANADIANS.

Mind you, they have made significant gains in marketability under Layton’s leadership. The party had more seats in 1997 under McDonough, and much less media recognition. My point is that they need to speak to Canadians often and with a simple (slightly nationalistic) message. I know it’s not a very philosophical answer but it’s how I see it.

Speaking to people like your friend is hard. I would be interested to know why they don’t consider voting NDP. I think many folks might have weak candidates in their riding, which doesn’t help matters. Any thoughts on the above?

Ade wrote, “That the Liberals have to rely on people who want the NDP but will settle for them is damning.”

You’ve nailed it. Even Martin admits many of the people who vote Liberal would prefer the NDP.

So why the hell don’t the Liberals actually give Canadians what they want? Because they’re just as beholden to big business as the Conservatives – possibly more so, since most elites in Canada tend to be socially liberal rather than socially conservative.

For example, I recall an editorial in the Globe and Mail when William Thorsell, a continental big business apologist if there ever was one, was still the editor. He argued in favour of legalizing pot, strongly hinting that he and all his friends and acquaintances have enjoyed the weed at one time or another.

Alevo wrote, “The NDP has a hard time speaking in a nationalistic voice to Canadians.”

You make an excellent point. Ironically, most of the organizations most likely to support the NDP (I’m thinking, for example, of Maude Barlow’s excellent Council of Canadians, Judy Rebick’s Rabble website, most unions – Buzz frickin’ Hargrove notwithstanding) speak very strongly in pro-Canadian language. The huge debate over free trade, after all, was between nationalists and continentalists.

It’s ironic that the Liberals, historically the most cosmopolitan of the parties and responsible for the Reciprocity Treaty in the late 1800s and a trend toward free trade ever since, have managed to co-opt the language of nationalism so completely. How galling that Martin can stand up and talk about the “clash of values” between his party and Harper’s even as he sponges votes from people who would rather have a government that actually believes in a strong and independent country that makes decisions at arms’ length from the elephant to the south.

So here’s my challenge: write letters to Jack Layton, to your local NDP candidate, and to the NDP campaign team imploring them to position themselves as the one party really prepared to adopt made-in-Canada solutions to our problems (instead of caving into US policy), to protect and enhance the programs that support our distinct values (instead of starving or slaying them), and to promote those values in our international dealings (instead of embarrassing us with hypocritical double-talk like bragging about Kyoto but refusing to commit polluting businesses to clean up their act, or talking tough about poverty but refusing to commit adequate development funds or forgive the bogus debts that shackle the “developing” world.)

What think ye all?

“Where have all the cowboys gone?” Apparently, to the Conservative Party.

Yup, look for it by 10:30 or 11:00. Don’t post your letter just yet.