Reasonable men and election

Everybody says that they don’t want one. Everybody talks about it. First, it was Michael Ignatieff’s turn. The leader of the Liberal party and the official Leader of the Opposition in one promised to deliver his verdict on the government’s economic report card on Monday. This was expected to be also the verdict on the future of the Stephen Harper’s Conservative government.

The former happened, the latter too. Sort of. A semantic decomposition of the Harper’s report card was rather brief – if the funds for infrastructure investments had been authorized, committed and flowing it didn’t necessarily mean that the money were already there. A clear message was sent on the employment insurance too.

The political part of the message was less plain. Sticking to his trademark, Ignatieff was as direct as two fighting pretzels when it came to answering the question whether he’s willing to bring the government down in the Friday’s vote and trigger an election.

Despite that, the message to the other side of the House of Commons was loud and clear: I don’t want an election, but your report is not adequate and I do have responsibility. But rather than threatening Harper with an early election and being the one who initiated it, Ignatieff played the ball to the other side leaving it up to Harper to decide. That left Harper with the only reasonable option. To react and, in the same pretzel fashion, agree to talk to the leader opposition.

Harper is apparently coming to terms with the idea that the leader of a minority government has a very limited set of options available to keep the job. And Ignatieff made that clear. It’s Harper’s responsibility to make sure the Government has the confidence of the House and it’s the Harper’s responsibility to seek the support of the opposition. Had he chosen to ignore Ignatieff, he would have turned himself into the man who triggered an election nobody wanted.

By the way, Harper made a big deal out of the fact that Ignatieff didn’t ask those question during the Question Period in the House. In fact, pretty much everybody expected the Leader of the Opposition to do so. But by refraining from triggering a fierce showdown over a two-sword-length wide demarcation line in the House, Ignatieff forced Harper, who simply had to react, to go the National Press Theater, which is an environment the Prime Minister doesn’t really like.

I’m a reasonable man, said Ignatieff to avoid being the one who triggered an election. I’m a reasonable man, said Harper to avoid being the one who triggered an election. Nobody wants it. But apparently, Harper doesn’t want it more. Which gives a tiny little edge to Ignatieff. Let’s see how the expected meeting between the two goes.

STV died. Democracy died a little bit, too.

Vox populi, vox dei? Well, it depends. Sticking to the world of secular politics, without venturing into murky waters of religious debates, the Latin phrase usually freely translates as “the voters have spoken”. Riding along this particular interpretation, the decision of British Columbia’s voters to reject electoral reform has to be respected and supporters of the current first-past-the-post system will trump it up all the way down to Ottawa.

There are many reasons why BC voters rejected electoral reform that would replace ancient first-past-the-post system with the proportional representation. Campaigning of the anti-proportional camp is one thing and it was hard for the pro-side to fight the propaganda that could simply hitch a ride on the “tradition” of the first-past-the-post system. Even the name of the particular proportional system, Single Transferable Vote, acronymed as STV, had very little chance to become another ATM.

The outcome of the Tuesday’s BC referendum reaffirms the rejection of the proportional election system from 2005 and that means the reform on national level is very unlikely. The nation has spoken.

On the other hand, the will of the same nation, its decisions, are being ignored during every single election on any level. Seven million votes were not counted in the last year’s federal election. Voters did vote, but thanks to the magic of the first-past-the-post system, their votes did not count. Earning 49.9 percent votes doesn’t guarantee a single seat in the parliament (1987 New Brunswick election). On the other hand, a majority government can be formed by a party that comes second in popular vote and, in effect, lost the election. 1,379,991 voters elected 49 MPs for the Bloc Quebecois, 2,515,561 votes were enough only for 37 NDP parliamentarians. Bloc earned only 2 percents of the popular vote more than the Green Party which ended up without an MP. Nearly million Green Party voters were disenfranchised.

Canada will continue to function according to a medieval voting principles and will exercise its democratic deficit as a reminder of the colonial legacy. Yes, the nation has spoken and rejected the proportional representation. Chances are that at the next election the nation will speak again and those who advocate it’s right to speak and be heard now will deny the same right to the same nation. Again.

Conquering West or conquering rural Canada?

While some people were busy falling in love over the Valentine weekend, Canadian Liberals revealed their crush on the West. Or at least that was the idea. Michael Ignatieff went to Saskatchewan, for the first time as the leader of the Liberal Party, with the clear message. The party must embrace the West, it cannot afford to succumb to temptation to run against it, against what it represents. Which means, cowboy values aside, the energy sector, oil, drilling and perceived capitalism.

Ignatieff has very good reasons for the love-thy-enemy approach. Poor showing in the last federal elections cost the Liberals 26 seats in the House. They lost Ontario, which certainly hurt, but west of the Canada’s largest province they managed to get exactly 7 seats – one in Manitoba, one in Saskatchewan and five in British Columbia. And zero seats in Alberta. Of course, the seat math distorts the real vote distribution due to the natural democratic deficit of Canadian first-past-the-post election system. Proportional vote would have resulted in a very different House of Commons.

Still, the Liberals would have lost. The Green Shift, or carbon tax plan, which was the lead of the Liberal’s campaign didn’t go down well in oil-rich provinces, for a start, not many people really knew what it was all about and second, it came from the Liberal party, therefore it is probably a socialist idea trying to undermine western capitalism. There’s no love lost and, occasionally, there are talks about Western Canada splitting from the rest of the country. Many dismiss the idea as too marginal, others say that it’s not meant for real anyway, and point out to the Quebec’s secessionist movement instead. With the Bloc Québécois, it is rather simple. Everybody agrees it’s a one province party. They don’t campaign outside Quebec so while other parties’ leaders and candidates are busy flying across 4 and half timezones, Bloc’s folks are enjoying bus trips within the province.

The Bloc Québécois is the only province-based party but they’re certainly not the only regional one. The Conservatives dominate in the West and while they’re not a single-region party, the West is certainly a single-party region. Unlike Quebec with surprisingly inspirational popular vote distribution (Bloc – 38.1%, Liberals – 23.7%, Conservatives – 21.7%, NDP – 12.1%). Compare that to Saskatchewan (Conservatives – 53.7%) and Alberta (Conservatives 64.6%)…

The Liberals were pushed, with the great help from themselves, out of the West. But they also lost touch with the most of Canada. With few exceptions, their main sources of votes were city centres. Urban jungle seems to be the winning battleground but there’s still Canada beyond the downtown quarters.

That Canada is very different. It may not have the western energy mentality, but it’s certainly less academic about everyday life. Embracing the West is good, but embracing Canada would be even better, for the Liberals and for the country. Michael Ignatieff, the impersonation of intellectual powers and academia, must find the way how to embrace the whole country without becoming Stephen Harper in the process.

Canadian president

On the night of Barack Obama’s election victory, thousands of people flooded streets across the United States. The morning after, it was impossible to book a room for the inauguration weekend in Washington and its very broad neighbouring area. Everybody wants to be a part of history and, apparently, people are willing to shell out 5-figure sums to get the ticket, CNN reported a $20,095 price tag. Busloads of people from all over the United States are expected in Washington.

Interestingly, many of them will come from Canada. Yes, Washington is close, or at least closer than from the rest of the world. But Canadians’ interest in inauguration also reflects their pre-election behavior. Many chose to watch the US vice-presidential debate and ignored Canadian election debate taking place in Ottawa. Election turnout fell to a historic low. Canadians couldn’t be more uninterested in what happens in their own country.

Do they feel that the US election have more influence on Canada than the domestic vote? Or do they miss a fatherly figure of US presidents on the Canadian political scene? Harper may be charismatic and populist enough to attract Western Canada but that’s about it. He’s not Obama. In spite of that, as shown by the parliamentary dispute and the following political crisis triggered by Harper himself, even opposition supporters lined behind Harper ready to defend his perceived right to govern. That was totally irrational since this public outrage was based on a severely distorted view on how a multi-party parliamentary democracies tend to work. And, more shockingly, how their own political system works.

Canadians simply projected the values and principles of the US political and election systems onto the Canadian politics. False expectation led them to forget that a US president, as the most powerful part of a government, is balanced by Congress. Sure, most Canadians would like to see an Obama clone in charge. But to achieve that, they ought to spend more time paying attention to their own country. Or have they already gave up?