Having grown up in a country with a political system I didn’t completely understand, I spent enough years in university to accidentally rack up the credits needed to earn a degree in Political Science. The name of the field of study should tell you pretty much everything you need to know about it. A bunch of academics who couldn’t pass organic chemistry without a copy of the test answers in front of them decided to study a political system long on personalities, short on rules, and embroidered by endless subjective speculation. They slapped the name “science” on it to give it a patina of credibility it wouldn’t have had with a name like Political Bullshit. I guess they could have called it Sociology but that was already taken by an even more bogus field of study and Politicology sounds vaguely like something that takes place in a gastro-intestinal tract riven with parasites… not an entirely inept description of most political systems when you get right down to it.
So it should come as no surprise I have difficulty understanding the Canadian brand of Westminster-style parliamentary politics. The way I understand the Canadian system, you vote locally for someone you don’t particularly care about because it’s the only way you can vote for someone you prefer to run the country, who is, him/herself a candidate in a local riding but who has enjoyed such success among fellow party hacks that they’ve decided to anoint him/her Leader of the pack. This person, in turn, has the absolute power to read the entrails of a goat — the scapegoat no doubt — and call an election at whim. Failing that, an election will happen in five years absent a vote of no confidence.
It’s only been recently I figured out the no confidence part. Up until now, I thought the general election was mostly a vote of no confidence. But since Steffi Dion’s been playing political chicken with Stevie Hapless for the better part of two years, I think I’ve gotten a better handle on it. No confidence means the party(ies) out of power taunts and threatens to not support the government and bring it down but doesn’t have the confidence to actually do it. Whew! I’m glad they cleared that up for me.
In an informal poll conducted over the Labour Day weekend at the Grand Forks International Baseball Tournament, 8 per cent of respondents were firmly behind PM Hapless pulling the plug on parliament and calling an election. Sixteen per cent thought it was a terrible idea. Twenty-four per cent weren’t certain who or what I was talking about but were pissed off I was interrupting them in the middle of enjoying baseball and borscht, and fully 30 per cent thought parliament had already been disbanded and Stevie was running the show all by himself.
An amazing 99 per cent were still in shock that Team Canada had lost their quarterfinal game after taking a five run lead into the bottom of the ninth against the San Diego Stars. Comprised largely of players from UBC — disguised as Team Canada to avoid the unseemly sight of collegiate players competing in a money tournament — they’d overcome an early 7-0 deficit and were coasting to victory when suddenly, without any warning whatsoever, they morphed from ball players into insurance salesmen and did what Team Canada seems to have done so often in the past: blown a comfortable lead by turning aggression into caution.
But I digress.
Stevie wants to call an election because he’s tired of having to appease one of the three opposition parties to get his agenda through. He doesn’t think parliament is working, notwithstanding his own party’s Paralyze Parliament Plan has been executed with breathtaking efficiency. He thinks Steffi’s Green Plan will further alienate the Liberals and make them look like effete pussies to Heartland Canada, especially compared to the Conservative’s Round ’em Up; Lock ’em Down plan to get tough on crime… which is way down according to any measurement known to sociologists, whatever they are. And, of course, he wants an election because he believes he can win an even bigger minority now but might not be able to do so well next October when the protoscandals, his government’s fiscal mismanagement and the Canadian economy have all had another year to fester.
But then, there’s this pesky law he has to get around. A little over a year ago, some idiot politician — actually Little Stevie in a moment of uncharacteristic weakness — decided it was patently unfair to give the Prime Minister absolute power to call an election any old time he/she felt like it. Rather than just promise to let the government run its course, he codified fixed election dates. It was the showpiece of his Reform package. From now on, Canadians will know when the next election is, absent the no confidence thing, and no conniving politician can quick kick an election to take advantage of advantageous timing.
Stevie must have been like a drunk who wakes up the next morning to find out he’s joined a missionary team and is headed to darkest Arfrica to bring the word of God to heathen tribesmen when he realized what he’d done. Having taken the single most powerful tool Prime Ministers wield away from himself he was left with a choice: Abide by the law he himself had crafted and passed or show what a complete and utter weasel he is by breaking it and calling an election.
Welcome to weasel world, Stevie.
So Canadians are — absent Miki Jean finding the courage to say, “No Way, Jose. You made the law; you abide by it.” — going to the polls the day after Thanksgiving for an election no one except PM Hapless wants. We’ll be voting for people we’re indifferent to in order to vote for a government run by the weasel Harper, Greenie Dion or Diamond Jack. The outcome is likely to be another minority government not dissimilar to this one.
But Canadians have an interesting choice to make. We all know you can’t trust anything politicians say they’ll do. We know you can’t hold them to promises they make on the election trail; the Supreme Court said as much. But shouldn’t you be able to trust politicians to adhere to laws they’ve fought for, drafted and passed themselves? Laws they realize constitute long-needed reform?
If Canadians, even Conservative Canadians, can let our political leaders get away with shenanigans like this, the old adage about getting the government you deserve is demonstrably true. Vote for Stevie; you’ll have no one to blame but yourself.
