By G.D. Maxwell
A new oxymoron has slipped into the Canadian lexicon, courtesy of the tightest federal election in recent history. Stable minority.
Paul Martin – who, rumour has it, sold his soul to the devil for the chance to be our elected Prime Minister and will now have to sell his manhood to the highest bidder to keep the job – says he has one. Looking every bit as sheepish as a man who dressed like a woman to slip aboard one of too few life rafts when the Good Ship Liberal Majority floundered on the rocky reefs of truth, honesty and believability, Little Pauly gave a victory speech worthy of the Been-To-The-Woodshed-and-Seen-The-Light school of contrition.
"We’ll do better," he said.
"Can’t do much worse," the rest of the country answered in unison, except for the snivelling whiners in Alberta who are already talking separation, as they have after every election since oil was discovered in that otherwise barren wasteland.
Eyeing the results, Ralph Klein, Premier of all Albertans, did something he’s never been known to do in recorded history – he didn’t say a word. Watching the Great Conservative Dream crash and burn – due in no small part to his intemperate remarks on what would happen to health care the day after the Conservative juggernaut swept across the land – it must have taken all the restraint he could muster to keep from calling for his car, falling off the wagon and heading out to cruise for homeless bums to rough up to salve his disappointment.
Overall, the election results posed more questions than they answered. The most obvious question posed is what exactly will the makeup of the new Parliament be? Several races were so close they’ve triggered automatic recounts; several others are close enough it seems likely the trailing candidate will request a recount. And right here in British Columbia, a scorned, former Conservative who ran as an independent was elected with no party affiliation. I’m sure Chuck Cadman will be a very, very well-courted man in the next few weeks, holding, as he may, the balance of power.
But if the numbers hold, Canadians have either been delivered the best of times or the worst of times – a Liberal minority government 20 seats shy of a majority and their "natural" coalition partner, the NDP, with 19 seats. This means a marriage between Little Pauly’s Libs and Diamond Jack’s New Dems – a marriage at least as stable as, say, Britney Spears and her Boy Toy du jour – still wouldn’t be enough to make things happen. Having embraced homosexual marriage, Canada, at least politically, must now welcome the formation of a ménage à trois of convenience. There’ll be more swappin’ and swattin’ going on in Ottawa than there is on New Year’s Eve at a swingers bar. Oh, the mendacity.
If Paul Martin’s the consensus builder he’s touted to be, Canada could be in for some enlightened days. With the need to cut deals for at least 20 more votes to get anything done, he’ll have to be open to the wishes and desires of the other parties, at least the ones he can live with. This is something Big Jean never had to worry about. I’m not even sure Big Jean knew there were other parties sitting in the House of Commons when he was running the graft and corruption show.
And with one vote too few in Jack Layton’s hands, it’s going to require an even more delicate balance than just cozying into bed with the NDP. Little Pauly’s going to have to toss a bone to the Bloc and a bone to the Conservatives. His will have to be the politics of inclusion for a refreshing change.
Unless, of course, he can’t pull it off. In which case, we’ll be subjected to the whole mess all over again much, much sooner than we care to be.
But watching this election unfold simultaneously with the one south of the border reveals several interesting paradoxes. Despite all the tortured rhetoric to the contrary, politics – and life – in Canada seem to be moving inexorably closer to the American model.
The Conservative tide, so strong just 10 days ago that Stephen Harper was musing about a majority Conservative government, was turned back by the politics of fear. Paul Martin’s Liberals played the fear card and employed negative advertising as adroitly as any pol ever has in the U.S., with the possible exception of Bush Senior’s vile Willie Horton ads that cast Michael Dukakis as being so soft on crime he might as well have been a criminal himself.
It didn’t help that Harper was also blindsided by what Craig Oliver termed friendly fire from some of his own, intemperate colleagues ranting about abortion being murder, marriage being for heterosexuals only and the Supreme Court being out of control, none of which are things most Canadians see as fitting within their model of Canadian-ness. Many voters suspected those strongly-held feelings more closely reflect Conservative policy than the moderated words of Mr. Harper, and those suspicions weighed heavily on the minds of small "c" conservative voters when they marked their ballot.
David Brooks, a conservative columnist for the New York Times, wrote recently about the polarization of politics and the irony that research tended to show a correlation between being more highly educated and plugged into the tsunami of information available via mass media, and being more strident in one’s political views, be they liberal or conservative. It is this polarization, this near-even splitting of the electorate that has made elections in western democracies so close in recent years.
Welcome to the club, Canada.
But as troubling as a minority government might be and as much as we might not be comfortable believing ours is becoming the politics of division, Paul Martin, Stephen Harper and Jack Layton – supported by more meaningful voices the newly empowered provinces will enjoy, a natural spillover of a minority government – have a real opportunity to govern in a way Canadians would like to think marks them as different from Americans. In a way that embraces more voices, more points of view, more tolerance, more caring, sound fiscal policy, international sensitivity and peaceful coexistence. In other words, the kinder, gentler nation we’d like to be but lose sight of far too frequently these days.
Or the whole damn thing can blow up in our faces. Only time will tell.
