Different Stances Toward the Political Realm

The blogosphere is an interesting space from a political point of view, for it is highly unlikely that anyone would write about matters political who didn’t have some internal drive or passion toward it. What this means is that we are far more likely to find partisans online — both as writers and as readers/commenters — than we are in the broader public.

Writers, of course, write because they want to be read. So they look to join blogrolls and communities. These help bring new readers their way. But they often come with a price: one of converging upon the general view of that community. Add a few overt partisans to that mix, and slowly that community will become almost a reflexive mouthpiece for one party or another.

For those with active or independent minds, such communities can seem a straight-jacket.

Moreover, no community exists in isolation. The community itself will have a site, and feeds, which must be managed. Perhaps this effort is donated as a labour of love, but, more likely, it must be funded, by donations or by advertising. The net effect is that the community has a vested interest in reinforcing itself around its sources of income. How expulsions from the community can then occur isn’t hard to see.

I don’t — and have never — belonged to such a community. The reason for this is that I believe, deeply, that we should decide each issue on its merits. This can lead us into conflict with those who subscribe to the community’s position, “right or wrong”.

As an example of this, take the recent issue of Dan McTeague, MP, and his RESP tax deduction private member’s bill. Perhaps this is a worthy measure (I don’t happen to think so; I prefer simpler tax systems, and this is yet another complexity) but fundamentally my opposition to it stems from the bill’s disregard of Parliamentary tradition. Tradition matters to me: while it does change, it should change by express deliberation and consideration of what is being given up, not backed into in a fit of partisan excitement. I believe the Speaker erred in allowing this bill to proceed: while he might have been able to find no explicit restriction upon which to hang a denial of a bill like this which is all about restriction of revenue planned for in the budget, our tradition is that it is the budget which is voted up or down, and that such a measure should have been an amendment to the budget itself.

Does this then make me a Government supporter (as in last Thursday’s Ways & Means vote, which included an explicit repeal of the previously-passed RESP provision)? Obviously, yes, but as someone who shared an issue, not someone even who is necessarily doing it for the same reasons (the Government’s stated reasoning is that this would threaten the stability of the budget to remain out of deficit, which is also a truth, but only if no move is made to accommodate the new provision as a choice; the Government did not choose to challenge the affront to Parliamentary tradition, as it ought to have done).

Men and women of good will and engaged, active mind can disagree with one another without any sound and fury at all. My fellow writer — and one whom I respect deeply — Werner Patels, the author of Ideas and Issues, supported the RESP provision. Promoting post-secondary education and tax relief are also things I support; we disagree as to the methods to accomplish these (to some extent), and we obviously disagree about the value of hewing to Parliamentary tradition and the Canadian methods of responsible government. But we can share these, even commenting on each other’s writing, and the voice is never raised.

Compare that to the partisan! Both the Liblogs (the self-identified Liberal Party supporters) and the Blogging Tories (the self-identified Conservative Party supporters) wrote reams on this whole tale — opposed to each other, naturally — and both echoing the sound and fury occurring in the House. Here there was no cross-engagement, just a closed world encountering another closed world.

Most Canadians, as well, although they might vote for the same party again and again, do not identify themselves with one enough to actually sign up and become a member of a riding association, or be a regular financial supporter. (I have done the second, but for three different parties at various times Federally, and for three different parties Provincially, sometimes for years at a time.) One can share a great deal with a party and its policies — motivations might differ, but the direction is roughly aligned — and thus feel that supplying them with either the mother’s milk of labour or of cash makes sense. Parties, too, do not operate for free: in the words of the old Spanish proverb, “take what you want, and pay for it”.

Still, those of you who have followed my writings here and elsewhere know well that I prize the independent candidate, the person who will stand against both their riding and their party when needed. In other words, I value independent thinking and a willingness to trust that I, the citizen, will engage when we differ rather than simply shout you down unthinkingly, and try to encourage it. This is the legacy of Chuck Cadman’s last term as an Independent MP representing Surrey North; the thought of electing more such is why I support STV as a voting mechanism (there are times to consider changing traditional practice, and this is one of them, as I have argued earlier this month.

In the recent past it has been necessary to support the new Conservative Party. Canada needs more than one party of government. Much of my writing in the past month has criticized the Liberal Party, but not with the intent to say “Conservatives right; Liberals wrong”: it is because it is clear to me that the tearing apart of the old Progressive Conservative coalition during the second Mulroney Government has also deeply crippled and hollowed-out the Liberal Party, to the point where it is adrift. (In other words, the Chrétien years represented a period in which they didn’t need to be competitive and the inter-necine warfare that replaced external competition broke that party, too.) I have chosen to write about the Liberals rather than promote a new alternative in large measure because Canadians are deeply small-c conservative when it comes to parties: refreshing a known name gives that party a leg up, at least for a few decades.

But I have also — via the comments on my piece yesterday about how Toryism (which is not at all the core of the Conservative Party) and Greenism (if I can be permitted this abysmal neologism) are a natural pairing with many congruences over issues — been made to realise (thanks to my readers) that it is time for me to look more closely at whether I ought to be stepping forward more clearly for new alternatives in the Canadian political landscape, and broadening my public support where helpful. This may lead me to eschew the money side of politics for a while — the NDP’s insistence that one is simultaneously a member of both the Federal and Provincial parties simultaneously simply by being a donor drove me from continued support, for instance (although we needed and continue to need an ability to alternate parties in BC — and here the NDP is the Opposition — I ultimately could not stand with Layton’s Federal NDP), and I simply will not, any longer, give blanket support to any party that ties me down in this way. But the pen (or the pixels) still await.

I had said, earlier, that I might not vote in tomorrow’s by-election here in Vancouver-Quadra. On that score I have changed my mind. I shall vote. I believe that at this juncture I have managed to find enough commonality on issues to feel I am voting “for” rather than “against”. To that end, I shall, tomorrow, cast my ballot for Dan Grice, and hope that it is enough to push him past the other candidates to take his place on March 31 in the House, as the Green Party’s Deborah Grey.

Periodically, there comes a point where the Augean Stables of Canadian politics need a good cleaning. We have been there for a long time now. The Bloc and Reform were false starts. May this one turn out to be better.

Unfortunately, Almost No One Will Care

In “Joyce Murray and Her Weird Nomination Return”, Steve Janke of Angry in the Great White North puts forward some information about two of the candidates facing off against each other in the by-election in my riding of Vancouver-Quadra next Monday. One would hope that this sort of information — Liberal Murray’s hands don’t seem especially clean financially from reading about how she reported her funds to secure the nomination — might be taken into account on polling day. Unfortunately, I don’t believe it will.

Here’s why. Aside from the fact that this is appearing in the blogosphere as opposed to in tomorrow morning’s Vancouver Sun (to reach this community, the story must appear in the Sun, the Province, either 24 Hours or Metro, or possibly in the Courier, or be on Global’s 6.00 pm news programme), “Questionable Liberal Finances” is — thanks to the Sponsorship matter — about as exciting a news story as “Dog Bites Man”. It’s just expected now that there’s some shenanigan or other buried there. Blair Wilson, the sitting MP for West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast, might have been asked to leave the Liberal caucus and now sits as an Independent in the Commons, but the story of his many loans taken out and not repaid (and not reported) was an afternoon’s wonder, evoking little in the way of calls on the radio and dying as a story overnight.

It’s sad but true, but Justice Gomery’s (in my view, petulant) critique of the Harper Government’s failure to implement each and every one of his recommendations from his public inquiry having made the news has just reminded anyone paying attention of that sorry chapter in Canadian public life on the part of the Liberal Party when it was in government earlier this decade — and thus, a shake of the head and a fleeting thought of “oh, well, you know how they are” goes by without changing anything.

This is still Murray’s riding to lose, alas, judging by the density of local signs (and Vancouver does not allow candidates to place signs on public land, so every sign is on the property of a resident). Stephen Owen, after all, the previous MP, was not only quite popular on a personal basis, but between that and his Liberal affiliation — the riding went “Red” in 1984 even as Brian Mulroney gained the largest majority in Canadian history — and was never threatened by a close result again. I might personally hope for a change, but all the factors on the ground — including the lack of any discussion of the by-election in the community — suggest an uninvolved electorate who won’t be moved to vote rather than one chafing at the bit to elect a candidate.

It’s sad, really, how disaffected the whole process has become — there’s little to no media coverage, open phone programmes receive no calls about the by-election — and judging (as I’ve earlier noted here) by the lack of ground contact (my literature drops are one for the Greens and one for the NDP, with none for either the Conservatives or Liberals, and no one has actually deigned to knock on the door when I’ve been home [just about every night, actually]) the campaigns are having difficulty finding resources. Having given money to the Conservatives, I do get the mailings — including one from Ottawa from the “central office” — imploring me amongst others to “get out and knock on doors for the candidate” (Deborah Meredith). Yet the campaign office for the Conservatives (on West 4th Avenue) is often closed when I go by it. The campaign office for the Liberals is in the same block as a grocery store we frequent; while it’s open, it’s hardly bustling.

This, remember, is for a campaign where the closest next riding in play is two provinces away: all the candidates ought to have the pick of active party members “on the make” for future elections coming to help out. If they are, I’m not seeing any of it happening.

Another factor, I suspect, is sheer fatigue. We’ve had so many election near-misses that I think everyone is just plain worn out. Stéphane Dion, for instance, was in town today (for something or other; the radio host who interviewed him for a few minutes never said why — I presume he was probably doing something for the Murray campaign in the riding) and as he stumbled over trying to answer a simple question about whether he favoured a carbon tax or not (“carbon is very important in this most critical crisis, but the experts are divided…”) he never used the five minutes of air time he was given to even mention that there was an opportunity to elect the former BC Environment Minister in Vancouver-Quadra and send her to Ottawa and his caucus. He, too, sounded tired. The picture of the Prime Minister with the Premier by Coal Harbour taken a day or so ago also showed a tired man.

If they’re worn out, and we’re worn out, then no one truly will care.

That’s unfortunate, for it is at times like this that slipping one in, pulling a scam or neat trick, etc., easily happen. One can hope that nothing of the sort will happen. Janke, after all, in his posting made no accusation — and I recall that Murray is a parachute candidate (she’s represented a New Westminster riding provincially and lost in the 2006 Federal election there) leaning heavily on her younger years here. I do not recall if she was also designated as the candidate, the recipient of the Liberal Leader’s finger of fate (in the same manner as Saskatchewan’s Joan Beatty being placed without further discussion as the candidate in the by-election in that province). But, if she was, then her apparent lack of nomination expenses is quite explicable.

Less explicable, of course, are the names of those invoicing for the minimal expenses noted. Hmmm … Joyce Murray, expensing the candidacy of … Joyce Murray. Ah, well, no doubt there’s a perfectly good explanation.

Monday will come, and with it the outcome of this by-election battle. In profile this riding is quite similar actually to Toronto Centre (a riding — when it was called Toronto-Rosedale — that I actually lived in and voted in for the 1984 and 1988 elections). Vancouver-Quadra doesn’t have the “poor part of town”, of course — that’s elsewhere in the city — but otherwise it is your classic big urban riding, tending Liberal with a touch of NDP. We do have strong Conservative bastions in the riding — but haven’t had enough for years. Of course, by sign count, the Green candidate (who, I might mention, was actively opposed in seeking the candidacy by Elizabeth May personally) has made serious inroads. Not enough to win, just as the NDPer won’t either. The fight is still Deborah Meredith, Conservative, against Joyce Murray, Liberal, for the most part.

Out of force of habit, and willful ignorance, I expect Murray to take the laurels on Monday. It’s not what I hope for, but it is what I expect. And so, if she has engaged in chicanery, I expect her to get away with it and head off to Ottawa.

May she be as effective there as she was in Victoria. Which is to say, not at all.

You Could Cut the Apathy with a Machete

Welcome to Vancouver-Quadra, one of four ridings holding a by-election next Monday (March 17). Well, at least there’ll be one if the Government doesn’t fall before the end of this week and we are subject to a Writ of General Election (and no, it’s extremely unlikely that, in the event that a confidence motion actually fails, the Governor-General would turn to the Leader of the Opposition and ask him to form a Government: that would be against all tradition given the number of months since the last election, so expect a campaign and a vote, period). Of course, Kady O’Malley of Macleans suggests the date for the Ways & Means vote will be April 1, in which case Vancouver-Quadra’s muddled masses will trudge to the polls on March 17, only to risk doing so eight weeks or so later.

Does it matter, though? I wrote a few days ago of being careful what you wish for, as in “what if they gave an election and nobody came?” — and again on why it would be wise to assume nothing about the electorate in this season. Since then, I really do have to wonder if what we are facing next Monday is a potential case of an election without interest. Even the candidates have some trouble getting interested, as Bill Tieleman notes (and, yes, I did notice that he failed to provide a link for the most disinterested candidate, Deborah Meredith of the Conservatives).

How disinterested are they? (I have not hung around the advance polling stations, so I don’t know what turnout has been like to date. As I previously noted, I’m still debating whether or not to bother voting myself!) We are now six days from voting day. I have had one literature drop by the Greens, and one by the NDP. Nothing from the Conservatives, other than a phone call to tell me when the advance poll was. Nothing at all from the Liberals. One wonders how many of the dispirited have departed the Liberals’ ranks, as both Steve V of Far and Wide and the author of Apply-Liberally (and their commenters) have noted an erosion of enthusiasm amongst the on-the-ground supporters. But then, one wonders what rate of erosion has affected the other parties, too. All the money in the world evidently can’t organise a literature drop or door knock on behalf of the Government candidate. All the UBC students in session in creation don’t seem to be swelling the ranks of the NDP (the candidate is at that university) or the Greens (the candidate in favour of green grass in all its forms).

Indeed, the conversation in the neighbourhood is resolutely about anything but electoral politics. Even the die hard observers of the scene who provide ground-level observations for the Election Prediction Project haven’t updated the riding’s profile since the 27th of February. Starbucks and the other coffee houses are silent on the subject. So, too, the chatter beside the playing fields. Apparently, no one cares.It’s a reasonable outcome. Unlike the presumptions of, say, a Jason Cherniak, there are judgements made by citizens about what’s going on. In broad strokes, as Steve V noted today, of course. Broad enough that I haven’t heard a call-in program on CKNW turn to federal issues — much less the local by-election — in days. Open phone segments do not attract even one caller who wants to talk Federal politics: Cadman is dead, RESPs don’t matter, let’s talk about things closer to home.

Is it possible that O’Malley identified the wrong danger? Not that the Government, with the never-ending series of confidence motions honoured by the absence of Her Majesty’s Loyal Abstention Party, out for a drink and a puff when the vote is called, night after night, might suddenly trip over its own feet and find that it had played the game once too often, but that, when the call does come, a mare usque ad marem, Vancouver-Quadra’s apathy turns out to be the country’s apathy.

Good heavens, the handlers normally do try to put the candidate in a bubble where everything is scripted and all camera angles are “just so”, but what if there’s no crowd outside the fence? 2,000 empty seats in that high school auditorium? All 30 die-hard political junkies watching the debates — and no one else? What then?

So much for managing expectations, setting up winning conditions, building war chests, pre-selecting candidates and the like in that event. None of it would mean a damn thing. Instead, they could all stay home in Ottawa and carry out their campaign on the Sparks Street Mall — and sleep at home at night. No need to bother anyone else.

Cherniak got one thing right — “politics is not a game” — alas, as Victor Wong of The Phantom Observer notes, there’s not much else he got right in his post today. It is because both Dion’s Liberals and Harper’s Conservatives have made the House into a game, in fact, that a blanket of apathy lays lower on the landscape here than the mounds of snow covering the East, or a good Newfoundland fog.

The damage is apparently already done. I begin to believe that it has gone far, far beyond a leader, or a party. It is systemic. We Canadians are getting close to calling it quits on Ottawa, lock stock and cookie-barrel.

Already we are a highly regionalised country. Already our provincial governments are the locus for most of the things that matter to us: they handle health, education, welfare, infrastructure, etc. Ottawa is just the money transfer agent, and, as I noted a few days back, it costs us 20¢ on the dollar for the privilege of having Ottawa take the money in and redistribute it, even assuming your province is one that sees you break even or come out ahead on that game of Robin Hood. Cutting out the middleman would be a net gain for “seven provinces representing more than 50% of the population” (the general Constitutional change test). Inertia is doing more to hold Confederation together at this point than anything else — and the sound and fury signifying nothing that is Ottawa today is a potent dissolvent of those bonds.

We are coming to a turning point from which there will be no turning back. When Liberal bloggers call out for their party to grow a backbone and do their jobs they’re (I suspect) coming at this as much from a real concern about the corrosive effect on the Canadian body politic of Dion’s inactions as they are from hopes for their own party’s electoral success. When Conservative bloggers want an election, I suspect it’s as much to bring an end to this endlessly vitriolic stand-off as it is because they think their party’s future would be better off post-election. In other words, here are the ones who understand that “politics is how we live together” — a communal ethic — and it is the Jason Cherniaks, the Senator David Smiths and the like, and their confrères on the other side of the aisle, who are the ones playing games.

I’d say again to bring on the general election except that now the results are also dangerous. Still, there is apparently no way forward with this game of chicken being played two swords’ lengths across the House.

Voting all the bahstids out might be just the therapy this country needs.