“Can you imagine a man, who spent years outside Canada to be a prime minister of this country?” will be a follow-up on the last year’s mantra “Can you imagine Stephan Dion to be your prime minister?”.
I wrote that three weeks ago – the Conservatives would attack Ignatieff using rather pathetic form of nationalism. What a sin against being a “real Canadian”. Ignatieff lived abroad.
Announcement of Bank of Canada’s new lending rate of 0.25% was as interesting as was the explanation behind the decision, shall we say, intriguing. “The global recession has intensified and become more synchronous since the bank’s January Monetary Policy Report Update with weaker-than-expected activity in all major economies.” The Bank has also retracted on its optimistic recovery prediction and revised expected GDP numbers. In other words, the recession in Canada will be deeper than the Bank anticipated.
The thing is, though, that the recession will be exactly like most of economists expected. However, Messrs. Harper and Flaherty were busy listening to the Supertramp’ Crisis? What Crisis? Album, breaking up the country, proroguing the Parliament and, apparently, sharing the aforementioned CD with the Bank’s governor Mike Carney. He went through similar twist-and-turn of opinions as Canada’s finance minister, first predicting almost rosy future and then, again with a considerable delay when compared to most economists, gradually proceeding to the realm of economic reality.
Maybe he, as well as Flaherty, stumbled upon the Breakfast in America album that features the famous Logical Song….
Counting Jim Flaherty’s fiscal pirouettes would be about as useful as counting on his economic expertise in a hope they would get Canada out of the economic crisis. A short recap. Canadian finance minister walked a long way from refusing even remote possibility of a budget deficit through his infamous economic update to the stimulus package. And he walked it pretty fast.
The $40 billion stimulus was supposed to be the Conservatives perfect answer to the storm. Now, the storm is perfect, according to Flaherty, “this is an emergency situation”. Globe and Mail, and I’m sure many others, rephrased Flaherty words as “dire straits”. Hence, Flaherty hurries things up and is willing to make mistakes just to get the stimulus package working as soon as possible. The same package which, in a way, exists only because the Conservatives needed it to stay in power. So why the sudden rush to implement its instruments?
The package could have been in the works and as a result could have been implemented much sooner had it not been delayed by the pointless politics of the November economic update and subsequent crisis which the Conservatives steered into, at that time, relatively tranquil waters of national unity debate. Or was it just a proof of incompetence on Flaherty’s part? A country can’t afford to have a finance minister who would, in about three months, swing from one extreme to another and take temporary occupancy of any imaginable position in between. Especially, if his opinions are presented as official government economic plans for the country. Prime Minister, being aware of this, would have sacked the sultan of swing by now. Of course, the general consensus seems to be that it was not Flaherty’s plan but Stephen Harper’s politics play in which Flaherty was just a human-sized marionette.
Did Harper play his game because he was, for one reason or another, in denial of the state of the economy? Or did he played it even though he was very well aware of what was going on? Both options are somewhat unsettling.
Canadian finance minister Jim Flaherty has been busy using the controversial parliamentary break to stitch together the federal budget and the stimulus package that are supposed to steer Canada away from recession. It will not work that way. Following pretty much every economist in the country (sans the Conservatives’ flock), Conference Board of Canada, an Ottawa based think-tank, released its own gloomy prediction for 2009.
The Board expects all major indicators to move significantly – in wrong directions. Unemployment rate is supposed to shoot over 8%, house prices will drop 10% in 2009. Low commodity prices and major slowdown of the US market will contribute to the expected shrinking of national economy. On the same day, Parliamentary budget officer Kevin Page warned Canadians to expect at least five years of budget deficits.
This added an insult to the Flaherty’s injuries, such as his pathetic deficit u-turn, subsequent denial and the legendary explosive economic update. Judging by his election and post-election record, Flaherty is either incompetently out of touch with the real world or he let his boss, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, to use him for rather questionable political objectives. Canadian political commentators discussed the possibility of Flaherty’s voluntary or involuntary departure from the government at the beginning of parliamentary dispute. The same question should be on cards today. Flaherty’s reluctance to go and Stephen Harper’s unwillingness to sack him only reinforce the impression that hangs above the Conservative party from the days of election campaign – they have no idea how to deal with economic crises. Sure, sacking Flaherty will not save Canadian economy from recession but at least it would save Harper’s face. But does he care?
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?
Stéphane Dion is stepping down. Again. I think only Bill Gates announced stepping down more times, using a “salami method” to slowly, gradually, post by post, withdraw from the company he loved so much, the company damned so many times by too many. Each time, most of the press provided backing vocals singing praises and preaching the gospel of Gates.
Dion’s second departure, sort of announced on Monday, will be less pompous, think of whimper, not of a bang. The world will not end, only the hollow men of the Liberal party will have less time to think about the future of the party they helped to damage.
After the federal election on October 14, Dion announced he would step down. In May. Inexorable logic of political cause and the effect, however, suggests that the unsuccessful election leader steps down immediately If he did, the Liberals would have had one less problem to solve. But it’s all academic now.
Dominic LeBlanc, Michael Ignatieff and Bob Rae showed the much needed unity in the hour of need and supported Dion on the day the Coalition agreement was signed. And they should have maintained that position whether the parliament was prorogued or not. From a few-days distance it seems they could have delay the leadership race until after the overall political situation would have had stabilized, but who could have known that the Governor General would throw democracy out of the window and give prime ministers powers to shut down parliament any time they’d face a no-confidence vote.
Still, while the Liberals’ enemy was tearing the country apart alongside anglo-franco and east-west lines, instead of showing the much needed unity of the party for the sake of the country, they went on to squabble over the leadership. Yes, supporting Dion wasn’t the first choice of many, but it would be lesser of two evils. That’s what parties do to show the unity and to come to power. It requires both maturity and ability to control one’s personal ambitions. When forming coalitions, people swallow their prides, forget past fights, but apparently it’s easier to forgive your political opponents than to get on with your party comrades.
The Liberals had the chance to use the parliamentary crisis to renew the sense of leadership they shattered during the federal election campaign. Instead, they’re using the salami method to deconstruct their own party. After arguing over the leader, they are now arguing over how to chose one. Instead of debating policies, they debate the ways how their party should work.
This makes Prime Minister Harper the happiest person in Canada. It’s not that he managed to beat the Liberals, his political genius stems from him being an opportunistic authoritarian rather than a brilliant super-strategist who “planned all of this”. The Liberals made him blink, blink big, and then stopped mid-way. Harper didn’t really win, but the Liberals have surely lost. Not with a bang. With a whimper.
(Written for World Business Press Online)
Some countries you love. Some countries you hate. Canada is a country you worry about. Canadian author Robertson Davies, author of the above definition, seems to have nailed it.
Prime minister Stephen Harper, facing a non-confidence vote everybody knew he was going to lose, asked the Governor General Michaëlle Jean to prorogue the parliament for almost two months, to avoid the vote. And the Governor General duly obliged. Unconditionally. From now on, any prime minister, facing a no-confidence vote will be able to do the same. At any point.
The Governor General could have set another precedent, or, depending on the point of view, re-affirm the one set in the 1920s in the King-Byng affair. She could have asked the coalition of the two opposition parties, that had secured majority of votes in the House of Commons, to form a government. That would have done much less damage, certainly in political and constitutional sense, because it would have had been both more controllable and less likely to occur.
The 2008 Canadian parliamentary dispute (already a Wikipedia entry) highlighted several issues that will have to be addressed at some point in the future. Despite the paint of multiculturalism and openness, Canada still listens to sunshine patriotism talk and anti-Quebec sentiments. That, in turn, alienated many Quebecois and the dispute certainly did nothing to ease East-West inter-provincial warfare, on the contrary, it deepened the divide. Stirring pseudo-patriotic emotions and hatred is irresponsible. Another point of interest is that Canadians do not really understand how their political system and election systems work.
The parliament is closed. Canada is left deeply divided. It will be governed by a minority government led by the prime minister who managed to secure the right to decide at will whether he would allow the non-confidence vote. There’s no institution, and certainly no elected institution, to prevent that. Is it time to worry about Canada?
(Written for World Business Press Online)
Unfortunately, after Jim Prentice, Canadian environment minister, said that “this attempt by the coalition, the separatist coalition is undemocratic”, he didn’t go on to explain which coalition he meant. Resolving the validity of the word “separatist” is a question of realizing that the Bloc Québécois is not the part of the Liberals/New Democrats coalition. Yet, the Conservatives continue to use pseudo-patriotic rhetoric and compare the cooperation with the Bloc Québécois to a treason.
Branding a coalition formed in the democratically elected parliament by the legally elected MPs as undemocratic would send any government minister in any parliamentary democracy right down to the political cemetery. Coalitions are normal part of multi-party parliamentary democracies and if the Conservatives can’t get it, they are probably not happy with Canada being a multi-party parliamentary democracy. Their attempt to ruin opposition financially by tailoring the legislation to suit them was certainly very suggestive in that matter.
Meanwhile, Stephen Harper relies on the lack of knowledge of political system Canadian citizens are displaying and fosters the false idea that Canadian citizens elect prime ministers and the governments.
Studying how parliamentary democracies work would reveal, to both Harper and Canadians, that if you form a minority government, you usually try to secure some kind of support from one or more opposition parties to stay in power and to run as much of your program through the parliament as possible. Instead, Harper did all he could to alienate the opposition. Now he has very little ground to accuse the Liberals for refusing to cooperate on budget with the Conservatives because he never made the offer.
Instead, after loosing legitimate arguments, he went to an overdrive of populism, creating a sense of national unity being threatened and now he’s appealing to calm down the very emotions he deliberately created. Another danger is that by demonizing Quebec, and indirectly Eastern Canada, the Conservatives are profiling themselves as a regional Western political party.
In the evening, Harper made a televised address to the Canadians. Instead of coming up with a plan that would involve all political parties, he went on to repeat the mythology about the Canadians choosing governments and giving mandates to a particular party to govern. Another interesting point was accusing the coalition of changing the results of election which was simply ridiculous.
Harper tried to put himself into a role of defender of democracy. However, by saying that the opposition didn’t have the democratic right for a coalition he proved exactly the opposite. On Thursday, he will visit the Governor General with only one plea. To prorogue the parliament until the end of January to avoid non-confidence vote he will lose. Or would he go directly for the new elections?
(Written for World Business Press Online)
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Conservative party can’t enjoy the status of being the majority political entity in the House of Commons, and, de facto, lost the House’s confidence. Harper is now, apparently, loosing the plot and plays very dangerous game with only objective – to stir up the public emotions to extremes in a hope to stay in power.
During the Tuesday question period, Harper managed to sink into the lowest level of vulgar nationalistic populism and criticized the coalition for not having a Canadian flag behind them – when they signed the treaty in one of the rooms of the House of Commons.
There were two Canadian flags, one at each side of the table.
It would have to take a wide-angle camera to get them and the three leaders in the picture. And that’s exactly what Harper is missing. Wide picture.
By branding the coalition as a threat to the Canada unity, Harper decided to alienate Quebec and to turn the western Canada, his electoral base, against the francophone province, which, at the moment, is still an integral part of Canada. As is Alberta. Forgetting in the proces, that he himself relied on support of the Bloc few years ago while in opposition and recognized Quebec as a nation. Of course, sovereignist agenda of the Bloc Québécois is not making an abrupt exit. However, in the current economic situation, most of what’s good for Quebec is good for Canada and vice versa and in that sense, Bloc’s support for the Liberal/NDP coalition makes a lot of sense.
At the moment, however, the economic agenda is only one part of the debate. The other half is democracy. The Harper’s Conservatives tried to undermine the opposition financially by tweaking rules about political parties financing to suit themselves. They proposed to withdraw the right to strike from the public sector workers. And then they managed to pull out their own Watergate and produced an unauthorized (read illegal) recording of the private NDP’s MPs phone conversation. Harper is now trying to avoid the inevitable by postponing the confidence vote and, potentially, adjourning the parliament. In that sense, the coalition is putting the country first – it’s trying to prevent Stephen Harper quest to establish the Conservatives as the permanent election winner.
Or is the all part of Harper’s intention to make the parliament dysfunctional, force in the new election whatever the cost and get the majority? He wouldn’t be the first autocratic, democratically elected leader of a party to do so.
(Written for World Business Press Online)
Canadians are totally gobsmacked by the proposition of majority of parties forming a coalition government. Political analysts and political scientists are taking turns in TV studios trying to explain what the heck a coalition is. Amazingly, Canadians still believe that they elect governments in general elections, but that can be easily explained by the nature of the democratically deficient first-past-the-post election system. People don’t elect governments. People elect parliaments. Parliaments form governments.
The amazing thing is how the CBC is stirring anti-coalition moods by repeatedly airing anti-coalition statement of people many of whom seem to have no idea about how Canadian political system work and, more importantly, how democracy work. That plays in accord with the Conservatives propaganda machine that’s desperately trying to brand the coalition as something non-democratic and suggesting that it amounts to coup d’état. Conservative even went as far as to suggest that the Monday’s TSX drop occurred due to the forming of coalition.
Governor General Michaëlle Jean fortunately stayed calm and voiced what was one of the few reasonable opinions – it’s part of the democratic process
Canada, grow up.
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