Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian
The writ has been dropped and we're trooping to the polls June 28. Let the electoral games begin!
Is it possible that the Liberals may actually lose the election? Paul Martin has tried to distance himself from the last decade of Liberal rule and make people forget that he was a senior minister in that government.
But might he go the way of other leaders who, upon taking office, tried to reform corrupt political machines, only to be swept away by the tides of change? Voters often punish the available messenger, not his departed predecessors. Two recent historical examples come to mind.
After ruling Mexico continuously for seven decades, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), seeing the writing on the wall, belatedly began instituting political changes, but were swept away by current president Vicente Fox in 2000.
And the last Soviet ruler, Mikhail Gorbachev, who came to power in 1985 and tried to radically alter the Communist Party, was forced to step down in 1991. People responded with enthusiasm to his policy of "glasnost" (openness), but it did not save his regime, and one- party rule came to an end.
It's hard to envision such an outcome in this country, though. After all, even former Tory leader Joe Clark has stated that he would prefer a Paul Martin Liberal government to a Conservative one headed by Stephen Harper. In turn, and not surprisingly, many members of the new Conservative Party of Canada, whether old Tories or Alliance partisans, have denounced Clark as a "traitor."
But Clark can be defined in such terms only if we think of the old Progressive Conservative Party as an 'opposition' party. In actual fact the now defunct PCs, along with the Liberals and the New Democratic Party, all adhered to a broad policy consensus about what defines Canada. Indeed, the so-called 'red Tory' wing was often to the left of the Liberals in its social views.
All three were, to use a European term, "parties of state," that is, the ones that supported the status quo hegemony of the left- liberal, secular, redistributionist, bilingual, multicultural non- ethnic state that is Trudeauvian Canada.
They upheld the "pays legal," a French term meaning the "legal country," referring to the state's constitutional order. The Reform (later Canadian Alliance) and Bloc Quebecois parties were the true opposition.
They might be considered representatives of the "pays reel," the "real" or "true" country that lies buried beneath the official state.
To make this distinction more clear, think of the CBC as representing the "pays legal" and hockey commentator Don Cherry as the expression of the "pays reel." If the CBC does indeed fire Don Cherry from his popular Coach's Corner perch on Hockey Night in Canada, it will be an apt example of the increasing divergence in this country between the two.
The "politically correct" and elite-driven CBC represents post- 1960s Canada, while Cherry might be termed the voice of "antediluvian" popular culture in the English-Canadian pays reel. To use another French term, Cherry represents "le Canada profonde."
So there has been a subtle party realignment in Canada over the past few months. Now, in effect, most of the old 'red Tories' have been absorbed into the Liberal Party -- Clark's endorsement of Paul Martin has made that clear. Some might even move all the way to the communitarian NDP. Clark also said he supports former NDP leader Ed Broadbent, who is contesting an Ottawa riding.
The new Conservatives are, whether they like it or not, an enlarged version of the Alliance -- because that's how the "parties of state" will define them ideologically. Clark, Martin, and NDP leader Jack Layton have already begun doing so.
And this is also the reason Layton's attempt to paint Stephen Harper and Martin as political twins won't ring true with the electorate. Because in reality, Layton and Martin are, in the final analysis, on the same side of the ideological divide.
The sponsorship scandal has benefitted the NDP as well as the new Conservatives and the Bloc, but the Conservatives in English Canada, and the Bloc even more so in Quebec, have had the better of the anti- Liberal backlash. Since the NDP also upholds the left-liberal consensus that favours big government, it has found it harder to fight abuses of power in a public-sector, rather than corporate, scandal.
In English-speaking Canada two "parties of state," the Liberals, now informally strengthened with the stealth-like entry of old Tories, and the NDP, will face as their opponents the new Conservative Party. In francophone Quebec one "party of state," the Liberals, will confront the other true opposition party, the Bloc.
Clearly, it is Harper the Liberals will be going after outside Quebec, in a campaign of 'attack ads' designed to define him as a danger to the country. The prime minister himself told his caucus in the last days before the House of Commons adjourned that Harper's values are "not Canadian values." The Liberals have launched a website (stephenharpersaid.ca) full of Harper quotes that portray him as a right-winger with extreme views.
Is it possible Joe McCarthy didn't die in 1957 but moved up to Canada and is now working for a Liberal-friendly ad agency?
With all of these difficulties, can Harper actually win? It's very unlikely. And should the Liberals retain office following the spate of scandals that have now been uncovered, and given the negative campaign they have unleashed, no one could blame them for assuming that they govern Canada by divine right.
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