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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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 Posted: Sat Sep 13, 2008 10:26 am Post subject: What's the matter with Canada? |
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This short article smells like bullshit.
Nothing's the matter with Canada that can't be fixed. They're sliding into deficit? That means they're at level spending right now!
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| Since 2004, a succession of unstable minority governments has led to a constant campaign frenzy, brutalizing Canada's once-broad political consensus and producing a series of policies at odds with the country's socially liberal, fiscally conservative identity. Canada is quietly becoming a political basket case, and this latest election may make things even worse. |
Political basketcase? Seems exaggerated.
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Just scan the headlines. In June, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development warned that Canada�for years the only G8 country to post regular budget surpluses�was likely to fall into deficit this year, thanks to a reckless cut to the national sales tax. In February, the government proposed denying funding to films and TV shows whose content it deemed "not in the public interest," sparking cries of censorship from a sector that has historically received public support. In 2007, a member of the governing Conservative Party proposed a bill that would reopen the debate over abortion, a topic that governments both liberal and conservative have avoided for decades.
The country is projecting its uncharacteristic behavior abroad as well. After decades of encouraging countries to increase their foreign-aid spending, Canada cut its own, from 0.34 percent of GDP in 2005 to just 0.2 percent last year. Long a beacon of human rights, Ottawa announced last fall that it would stop advocating on behalf of Canadians sentenced to death in other countries. And Canada is now the only Western country that still has one of its citizens held in Guantanamo, but Ottawa has refused to press for his release.
But nowhere is the rift between the old and new Canada more apparent than with regards to the environment. Canada was an early and enthusiastic supporter of the fight against climate change, and as recently as 2005 it was the Canadian environment minister who helped broker an agreement to extend the Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012. Then last December, at a U.N. conference in Bali to negotiate a successor to Kyoto, Canada executed a neat 180-degree turn, trying to block an agreement that set a target for future cuts to greenhouse-gas emissions. Of the 190 countries at the conference, only Russia supported Canada's position.
Left-leaning Canadians blame the country's predicament on the current Conservative government, which was first elected two years ago. They're right, to a point. The Conservative Party, formed five years ago in a merger of the country's two right-wing parties, is Canada's first experience with an anti-government, socially conservative party in the mold of Reagan-Bush Republicans. Its leader, Stephen Harper, who is now the prime minister, once called Canada "a Northern European welfare state in the worst sense of the term."
But the Conservative Party wouldn't be in power, let alone willing to risk such divisive policies, were it not for the collapse of the country's most formidable political institution, the Liberal Party of Canada. The Liberals have been Canada's left-wing standard-bearers since the country's independence in 1867. And just as Canada's right-wing parties were coming together, the Liberal Party was coming apart.
In early 2004, Canada's auditor-general found that under the Liberal government, public funds intended to promote the federal government in the province of Quebec had been diverted toward advertising companies connected to the Liberal Party in the form of inflated payments. In response, the prime minister called a public inquiry, which only prolonged the controversy.
In the 2004 election, the Liberal government was reduced from a majority to a minority. Nineteen months later, it lost power entirely, and the party's leader resigned. The Liberals then embarked on a long, fractious leadership campaign�leaving the party exhausted and broke, and tempting the governing Conservatives to introduce ever more draconian policies with little fear of the consequences.
As the Liberals work on rebuilding, Canada's other left-wing party, the New Democratic Party, has grown at their expense; the Green Party, long a fringe movement in Canada, gained its first member of parliament when an independent MP joined the Greens; and the Bloc Qu�b�cois, which shares many Liberal positions but advocates for Quebec's independence, remains a force in that province. The Conservatives may not represent the views of most Canadians, but with four parties fighting for the left-wing vote, the Conservatives might win simply by sliding up the middle.
Italians and Israelis may have learned how to function under minority governments, but Canadians are still working on it. If the current election ends in a third consecutive minority government, the polarization of Canadian politics will continue, and with it the brutal, zero-sum politicking that has left the country in convulsions. |
I don't know. I think Canada has some problems, but I can think of many countries far worse. |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Sat Sep 13, 2008 11:00 am Post subject: |
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The article was rather strange in some respects, and I was surprised to see that it was written by a Canadian political speechwriter.
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| The Liberals have been Canada's left-wing standard-bearers since the country's independence in 1867. |
Other Canadian posters can correct me on this, but in my experience, Canadians do not normally refer to 1867 as "independence".
And I guess that you could call the pro-capitalist, anti-clerical 19th Century Liberals "the left", in the same way that you might call the pro-capitalist, anti-slaveholder 19th Century Republicans "the left". It still sounds somewhat odd to my ears, though.
And most New Democrats would dispute that the Liberals are the "standard bearers" of the left today.
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In 2007, a member of the governing Conservative Party proposed a bill that would reopen the debate over abortion, a topic that governments both liberal and conservative have avoided for decades.
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This makes it sound like there hasn't been abortion legislation in Canada since the 1950s or something. In fact, the last attempt to pass a law restricting abortion was in 1991(the previous law had been struck down in 1988). So no, that does not qualify, even by the most literal reading, as "decades".
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| and producing a series of policies at odds with the country's socially liberal, fiscally conservative identity |
I'm not sure if social liberalism is really a major part of Canada's identity, unless the comparison is to the US. I doubt too many people in western Europe, for example, think of social liberalism when they think about Canada.
For the most part, the writer just sounds like a disgruntled Liberal hack, bitterly nostalgic for the time(ie. three years ago) when Canadian expats could go around the world and brag about how the Liberals were about to legalize pot(which never happened, by the way). |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Mon Sep 15, 2008 12:39 pm Post subject: |
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What a bizarre article. Total partisan hackery.
I am not a fan of the Liberal Party or the Conservative Party (though I like Harper more than I did JC or PM) but it is not fair to say of either party that they have mismanaged the country in any way. Canada is by any measure a very well run country. |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Mon Sep 15, 2008 12:56 pm Post subject: |
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| mises wrote: |
What a bizarre article. Total partisan hackery.
I am not a fan of the Liberal Party or the Conservative Party (though I like Harper more than I did JC or PM) but it is not fair to say of either party that they have mismanaged the country in any way. Canada is by any measure a very well run country. |
Yeah. But Canadian political rhetoric tends to exaggerate the extremism of opposing parties. When I was growing up in Alberta, you would always hear people talking about how Trudeau's supposed socialism was dragging Canada down the road to Communism. And of course now Harper is portrayed by its opponents as building a Christianist theocracy.
Last edited by On the other hand on Mon Sep 15, 2008 1:03 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Mon Sep 15, 2008 1:00 pm Post subject: |
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| You gotta give the kids something to talk about I guess. |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Mon Sep 15, 2008 1:03 pm Post subject: |
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(copied from what I deleted above...)
Of course, the the parties never bother to examine the 2X4s in their their own eyes. The Liberals passed an abortion law in 1968 that was far more restrictive than that mandated by Roe v. Wade five years later, and they never showed any interest in further liberalizion. And Lougheed in Alberta was as free-wheeling as any socialist in the way he spent money on public projects. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Mon Sep 15, 2008 1:09 pm Post subject: |
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| The political labels and organizations are fluid in dogma and mostly fodder for true believers. Canada is very well run regardless. I'm am not a very good social-democrat and even I have to admit the country is well run. So we don't fly Avi Lewis around the world anymore. BFD. |
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VanIslander
Joined: 18 Aug 2003
Location: Geoje, Hadong, Tongyeong,... now in a small coastal island town outside Gyeongsangnamdo!
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| Posted: Mon Sep 15, 2008 1:14 pm Post subject: |
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uh, it's election time boys
that's all it's about |
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anyangoldboy
Joined: 28 Sep 2007
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| Posted: Mon Sep 15, 2008 1:42 pm Post subject: |
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| Thank fuk I can't vote in Canada...Means having less to worry about when these politicians say blah blah blah this the other party are going to screw you over... |
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