Defining ourselves by government: Permanent Liberals: PC-Alliance merger may provide serious opposition, but don't bet on it.

Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian

Will a united Conservative party be able to revive competitive party politics in Canada? We can only hope.

Historically, nations have been defined by some common denominators, be they language, religion, culture, ethnicity, a common historical past, a defining ideological moment of origin such as a revolution, and so forth.

Modern Canada has eschewed all of these forms of identity, and has replaced them with contrived and manufactured symbols of commonality, such as our much-vaunted national health system, our northern identity and our commitment to international peacekeeping.

In a country that lacks the cohesiveness that stems from a common sense of nationhood, political power often comes to rest with a somewhat autonomous nomenklatura -- an interlocking elite composed of ambitious bureaucrats and political operators, who derive benefits from controlling the levers of power.

In Canada's case, this state apparatus has come to revolve around, and is led by, the Liberal Party, whose 1982 Trudeau Constitution and Charter of Rights has embedded its own definitions of what makes a "good Canadian" into a secular state doctrine.

This creed encompasses various components, including a rather pervasive (and perverse) anti-Americanism that passes for "nationalism," the fetishization of bilingualism, multiculturalism, human rights, affirmative action, open immigration, equalization payments to "have-not" regions, environmentalism, pacifism and a host of other left-liberal or vaguely socialist bromides.

It also legitimizes the incredibly onerous extraction of money (read taxes) from the citizenry necessary to keep this political class afloat. The state religion is protected by a secular version of a grand council of theologians, the Supreme Court, who guard against all incorrect interpretations of dogma or outright "heresy." As political scientist Frederick Vaughan states in his new book The Canadian Federalist Experiment, the new politics of rights and entitlements bypasses legislatures "and goes directly to the courts, where judges armed with the Charter rule absolutely."

The elite, which now also includes political entrepreneurs from aboriginal, visible minority and other ethnic communities, finds allies within the cultural and communications institutions, such as the universities and the CBC, which themselves serve in large part to socialize Canadians into the appropriate liberal (and Liberal) mindsets necessary for such a state of affairs to continue.

The government reciprocates by erecting protectionist barriers against the flow of foreign (mainly American) culture and personnel into the country, using various weapons wielded by, among others, Heritage Canada and regulatory agencies such as the CRTC.

All of these mechanisms enable our rulers to successfully fend off challenges to their hegemony from those on the far left and on the right, and also from the threat posed by the ethnically-based Quebecois nationalist movement.

Canada in all but name has become a one-party, indeed one- ideology state, with precious little room for reasoned argument or debate. Federal political parties that oppose the Liberal machine have been reduced to little more than irritants, written off as grumblers and cranks, "regionalists," impractical idealists, or dangerous fools.

Perhaps a merger of the Canadian Alliance and the Tories will provide the Liberals with more in the way of opposition, but don't bet on it. Polls have shown that most Conservative supporters would rather vote Liberal than for a party that moves too far to the right.

Other voices protesting this liberal monopoly have come mainly from provincial governments or groups outside the cosy symbiosis of money and power located mostly in the triangle between Ottawa and the financial centres of Toronto and Montreal.

Their opposition, too, has so far been futile and they seem to be fighting a rearguard action. In fact, apart from governing the country, Liberals are now also in power in Canada's three largest provinces -- Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia.

Our Liberal intellectual and political elites, less and less challenged by other parties or ideologies, are becoming ever more brazen, making it plain that they, collectively, "own" Canada, and the rest of us are here to supply them with the money to facilitate their extravaganzas.

Their sense of entitlement, from Rideau Hall and 24 Sussex Drive down to many a mid-level functionary, seems to know few bounds. Think of the recent spate of cases exposing instances of public money being used for personal benefit. Patronage and profligate spending remain the order of the day.

But in reality, this elite, as events over the past decade have demonstrated, is ideologically vacuous and somewhat demoralized.

Medicare is a scandal and our much-diminished armed forces make our ability to serve as peacekeepers more and more uncertain. As for northern identity -- the vast majority of Canadians live huddled next to the U.S. border.

Can such a ruling elite survive indefinitely, given its lack of external enemies and its vast arsenal of ideological weapons? Only time will tell whether, to paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, it will be able to fool (or buy off) most of the people of Canada forever.