“Anonymous” got it right when s/he guessed at the reason for my hope for a Conservative minority as the result of the election on Monday:
I strongly believe that reasoned compromise and moderation is one of the best ideals of the National Character:
between English and French, between ties to the countries from which we
came and the country we adopted, between free markets and socialism and
yes, between being like and unlike our neighbour to the south. I think
that a Conservative minority allying itself with the Bloc (who would
agree on decentralization and granted more powers to the provinces,
which works given Canada’s vast size) and an opposition alliance of the
Liberals and NDP would’ve been a workable solution and would’ve given
the Liberals the “time out” that they so richly deserve. At the very least, it would result in Paul Martin’s ouster.
I also believe that repairing some of the damage to the US/Canada
relationship is in order, and I think that the Tories are probably
better able to do that than the Grits. We may not necessarily agree
with everything they do (my own stance on the Iraq war is that they’re
invading the wrong country), but as anyone who’s made it even part-way
to adulthood will tell you: friends can disagree and remain friends. I think we make a pretty good Simpsons to their Flanders.
“Anonymous” also says:
While I find a good chunk of their social agenda repugnant (and I’m
sure that for at least some of them, their Canada does not include
Accordion Guy), I’m of the “I don’t have to like you to work with you”
school of thought — hell, anyone who’s been to any of David Janes’
“poliblogger” get-tyogethers knows that I’m even of the “I don’t have
to agree with you to have a friendly beer with you school of thought”.
They can do their job and keep the government running and the swindling
down, and I can do mine, which is making the Internet go. A minority
position would forve them to curb their retrograde social enthusiasms.
I won’t go to
their barbecues and they don’t have to attend my hot tub parties.
I live in the Trinity-Spadina riding, where the race was between
current MP Tony Ianno and the challeneger Olivia Chow. David Watters,
the Conservative candidate, is a non-entity in this riding,
“non-entity” being defined as “not being able to get more than twice
the votes for the Green Party, around whom I can’t even sustain a straight face, never mind the environment“.
Given that I wanted to give the Liberals a time-out and the fact that
Olivia had the best shot at usurping Ianno and since she was probably
the candidate with whom I could actually buttonhole for a half-hour
over coffee (she once tried to recruit me to play accordion at an event
she was hosting), I held my nose and voted NDP.
(By the bye, Ianno won, but by just about 1000 votes)
It may have been madness, but there was a method.
One wonders what the Colbinator (who wrote a good piece on why one should vote Tory) and Judy Rebick (who co-wrote a predictably finger-wagging piece on why one should NDP) would think.
(Truth be told, I’d gladly have a beer with Colby, who seems like the
sort of fella with whom one could imbibe many fine brews and discuss
just about any topic under the sun. On the other hand, I would probably
avoid ingesting anything — even air — with Judy. It’s not from any
political disagreements I have with her; it’s fear of catching The
Shrill.)
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But there's another big downside to a Tory government, even a minority one: Harper would be appointing (at least) two Supreme Court Justices. It wouldn't matter that "Tories couldn't successfully pass any socially conservative legislation if they had a bare plurality of seats" if they controlled the Supes.
Personally, I'm glad it turned out how it did, though before I went to bed, the LIberals/NDP actually had a majority. When I woke up, it was down to exactly half the seats.
- Ian
The idea that Canada's relationship with the US needs repairing is an odd notion to me. The US doesn't deserve to have a positive relationship with those it mistreats. As a citizen of the US, I've watched us flush down the toilet nearly every positive relationship we had with our allies. It's not Canada's fault they couldn't abide by the extremist views of their neighbour to the south. And I'm not only talking about Iraq or this "war on terror" but trade - an area in which Canada seems to get screwed on a regular basis these days, by its so-called "allies".
Perhaps the Liberals did need being knocked down a peg or two but not at the cost of allowing extremists in the Conservative party into power. The previous comment is right on the mark. When the right-wingers get to start making long-term judicial appointments, the costs of that time-out for the Liberals increases exponentially. We're all holding our breath here south of the border that we can rid ourselves of the bible-thumpin' moron-in-chief before anything happens to our current batch of Supremes.
The justices were a wrinkle I hadn't thought of. I agree that the last thing we need in the Supreme Court is a set of Tory-appointed neopharisees.
Ok. Point of interest. In a Simpsons metaphor, Canada would be the Flanders. Polite, courteous, and slow to anger. We Americans would be the Simpsons, fat, loud, and doing whatever our self-interest tells us to do. I'm just saying.
The statement on the Supremes just points out to me how out of control people feel the Supremes are, if they just take it for granted that the Supreme Court will just write new law whenever they feel like it according to their ideological makeup, as opposed to abiding by existing precedent and the Charter as written. In any event, that would be a threat easily disarmed (against a Conservative minority) by pushing through legislation calling for approval of any Supreme Court Justice by both Parliament and Senate in a free (and secret) ballot. Yes, it would be politicized. The Supremes are already politicized, this just gets it out in the open. It would have been hard for Harper to oppose it without being an absolute hypocrite, and with a minority that saw it as being in its immediate interest, it would be doable. And yes, I know the Liberals defeated several opposition bills that tried to implement parts of the Liberal party platform, but majorities that think they're unbeatable behave differently.
Mind, I didn't want a Conservative majority myself; I'm a weak-libertarian/small government conservative myself, and there are too many SoCons for me to want them to be unrestrained. Given the result that we have, I'm hoping the opposition trio can join forces to push through accountability reform (something all three have reasons to want to approve of), and greater changes to responsiveness within the House.
As for Mattmend's comment.... Canada doesn't treat the U.S. well, either. The primary difference is that because the U.S. is by far larger, the impact is greater. A Canadian exporter denied access to the U.S. market (or penalized by duties) is hurt far more as a percentage of his income than (say) HBO is hurt by not being allowed directly into Canadian markets. In general, U.S. behaviour, by the standards of history, has been pretty good. Yes, the U.S. is flawed, and has much room to improve but to paraphrase Churchill, "it is the worst Superpower in the history of Earth.... except for all the others."
All the more reason for us to behave better. The consequences of our actions are magnified many times when compared to those of Canada. But given your professed political ideology, I imagine i'm barking up the wrong tree, myself being somewhere between the NDP and the Greens. 'Course with only two parties here, for all practical purposes, I'm forced to vote for a Democrat every time. I do see your point tho'...
Matt
In a way your story tells exactly what is wrong with the elections and the political scene: a) there are no real alternatives for a political party b) the district system can lead to a my-preferred-candidate-can't-win-but-I-want-to-make-sure-that-this-other-candidate-will-not-win-either vote.
The Bloc in the government is scary. This way we can have a 'legal' sponsorship deal. I mean, if a Quebec company and a PEI company go after the same government contract, which company has an advantage to get the deal if the Bloc has something to say about this. I would find it normal to see more government money flowing into Quebec with a Bloc in the government than with them not in it. Just the thought of having a party that wants to separate from a country ruling over this country should scare everybody.