Politics in an Alternative Universe

Living in Canada provides many opportunities to learn things new, one of which is the pleasure of politics as sheer entertainment. U.S. politics primarily gives me a headache because it is both a duty and a distant activity, and it affects my life and my sense of who I am. Another country’s politics: not at all.

When I came here, the Progressive Conservatives (center right) were in power at the federal level. Within a few years, the Liberals took over, and the Progressive Conservatives (what could that mean? Is that like the hopeful pessimists?) almost disappeared, winning only 2 seats in a parliament that they had dominated for almost a decade. But the Liberals who won weren’t really liberals; they’re centrists (like moderate Republicans). An entirely new party entered Parliament that election called The Reform Party. Reform was like Ross Perot Republicans (right). The other two parties represented at the federal level were the New Democrats (the pretty far left, like the U.K.’s Labor Party used to be), and the Bloc Quebecois, whose raison d’etre is to have Quebec secede from Canada and thus not to be in this Parliament at all. Hard to know where they actually are on the political spectrum because they’re not on this one. What a crowd! What an opportunity for entertainment if you are just watching from afar. More like baseball than politics.

Within a few years, the Reform Party changed its name to The Canadian Alliance as it allied itself with the bits and pieces left of the Progressive Conservative Party. But it took yet another metamorphosis before it actually consumed the P.C. party. It then became the Conservative Party. ‘ It’s pretty far right, anti-government, pro-U.S. (sort of) party, and holds the seeds of what could become a Canadian religious right. By now, about 8 years since this bunch invented themselves, they are in the majority, with Stephen Harper now the Prime Minister, having overthrown the original patriarch and creator of the Reform Party, a Westerner named Preston Manning who was a cartoonists’ and TV satirists’ delight (also like Ross Perot).

Harper came to power a year or so ago, but he has a pretty tenuous hold on his position and could fall out at any moment. He is primarily a Western player and the power in Canada tends to lie in the East. One of the interesting parts of this most recent election was that the leader of the Liberals, Paul Martin, who had been Prime Minister, resigned, leaving the party to elect a new leader, who would become Prime Minister if the party won enough seats (and they had a good chance of doing so). One of the candidates for party leader (and potential Prime Minister) was Michael Ignatieff, a genuine public intellectual who came back to Canada from Harvard where he had been teaching philosophy for a number of years. Ignatieff had never held public office, so he had not only to win the leadership but also to win a seat in Parliament. He managed the second but not the first as he came in second in the leadership race.

For an American, the possibility that a public intellectual (if we had any) could just become the President virtually overnight seems so far-fetched that one can hardly believe that this system of government has anything at all in common with ours. I wasn’t sure that Ignatieff as Prime Minister was a good idea, but it didn’t matter: not my country, not my responsibility. On the other hand, it was surely an interesting idea, so I was sorry it didn’t happen. The election campaign lasted about six weeks and the Conservatives won barely enough seats to get themselves in charge (with the help of the Bloq, which you will recall wants out), leaving the New Democrats and the Liberals in opposition, and Ignatieff there to live for another day, another election. What I have learned is that governmental change in Canada can be quick, thorough and surprising. We could learn something from them.

(This post was edited on 26 March in response to a commenter's corrections. I hope I've got the names and players straighter now.)