Don't go sleepwalking to the polls
Andrew Cohen, The Ottawa Citizen
Published: Tuesday, September 09, 2008
What do Canadians want? As the election campaign begins, the answer isn't clear, much as the politicians say it is.
We do know that most Canadians are not demanding an election this autumn. While this has been the longest minority government in our history, it wasn't "dysfunctional" as the Prime Minister said. Issues were debated; laws were passed.
By and large, things are good in the contented Kingdom of Canada. The economy is fairly strong. Unemployment is low and inflation is manageable. Debt is falling amid large (if shrinking) surpluses. Crime is the lowest in a generation.
In a sense, Stephen Harper's Canada of 2008 is reminiscent of Bill Clinton's America of 1998: rich, comfortable and awfully complacent. Without a pressing issue, like terrorism or a foreign war, a Republican Congress found time to impeach a Democratic President.
Two years later, Americans voted in an election that comedian Jerry Seinfeld said was about "nothing." In a sense, it was. Charm trumped intellect in an age of affluence; George W. Bush was the incurious beneficiary.
Three years later, the world changed. The long, languid American summer came to a violent end. Today Mr. Bush is the most unpopular president in memory.
Canada is not America, Mr. Harper is not Mr. Bush and this is not a decade ago. But if a prosperous, somnolent Canada treats this election as inconsequential, convinced that it is about nothing, it will be a grave mistake.
If Canadians give their unloved Prime Minister a majority because they think minority government is a nuisance, because they resent voting a fourth time in eight years or because they think this contest is only about personality, they would be as misguided as Americans were in 2000.
To see Stéphane Dion as Al Gore -- brainy, detached, aloof and uninspiring -- is to miss what is at stake here. No wonder that is how the Conservatives are painting the Liberal leader, whom they call "elitist" and "intellectual," just as Mr. Bush painted Mr. Gore.
At the same time, to see Mr. Harper as disciplined, effective and authoritarian is to miss the full measure of the man. Mr. Harper is all those things, but he is also the most ideological of prime ministers. He believes in a re-imagined, conservative Canada -- and craves the freedom to act.
His theology is devolution. With a majority, he will be unencumbered in reshaping the federation. Think this is far-fetched? Declaring Quebecers "a nation" and giving it powers in international affairs is only one step in creating a country of strong regions and a weaker centre.
Mr. Harper's distaste for Ottawa (rest assured, the national portrait gallery is going to another city) mirrors a larger antipathy to a vibrant national capital of a country led by a national government.
Don't expect him to discuss this. But it should surprise no one.
A secret agenda? It may be more instinct than design. The success of the Conservatives in power is how they have imitated the Liberals. They have increased spending, courted Quebec, cut taxes. At the same time, they have shrunk the surplus so they can cry poor and, eventually, cut social programs.
They know Canadians are a moderate people who dislike extremes as much as they like stability, which is why, historically, they have favoured majority over minority governments.
In 2006, voters were angry at the Liberals but unsure of the Conservatives. Shrewdly, they engineered a change of government without a change of direction.
They gave Mr. Harper a modest plurality and made the Liberals a robust opposition, with more seats than the Tories had had in opposition. They even gave the Conservatives seats in Quebec, too, conferring legitimacy.
Having seen the modus operandi of the saturnine Mr. Harper, Canadians remain hotly tepid about him, which is why he remains shy of a majority in the polls. Sure, Canadians think he is smart and competent. They also think he is as cold as a new razor blade, as Leonard Cohen sings, and a touch mean-spirited, too. Surely he is the most charmless prime minister since John Diefenbaker.
As Barack Obama is having trouble closing the deal with Americans, Mr. Harper is struggling to do the same with Canadians. They simply don't know if they can trust him with a majority, which is really the ballot question of 2008.
So, the Prime Minister is making nice now, showing his warm and cuddly side, while never daring to utter "majority," which worries people.
He will talk about leadership, which he says he has and Mr. Dion doesn't. He will call his opponent "a risk." He will call "the Green Shift" dangerous and costly.
And he will hope that blissful Canadians think this election is about nothing, that they will shrug, march unconsciously to the polls, and give him that elusive majority.
Andrew Cohen is a professor of journalism and international affairs at Carleton University.
E-mail: andrewzcohen@yahoo.ca
