Oh Canada

After an historic vote of no confidence...the Canadian Liberal Government has crashed and burned.

Now it remains to be seen whether Canada will right the ship of state by electing a Conservative government or some type of coalition...and whether the Conservative government understands why it was elected...not for their program but in a backlash.  I think the new government will be conservative in a low turnout election.  In many ways Canada is about to get Jimmy Carter...a conservative Jimmy Carter.  Disillusioned voters will punish the corruption like they did in the U.S...the Carter Administration was the Nixon legacy.  Elect an honest decent person with integrity.  Carter may have been a flop as President, but he is a decent honest person.

That is also how England straightened themselves out.  Margaret Thatcher replaced the Liberal/Labour (Socialist really at that time) coalition of Prime Minister Callaghan.  Prime Minister Thatcher was tough, honest and unafraid.  This may not be a fair comparison to what has happened in Canada.

Canada is a unique situation in that the economy is not the cause, it is deep and well seeded corruption.  The U.S. was also dealing with a recent economic collapse when Carter was elected.  The British were dealing with an economic quagmire.  Not that the British did not have corruption problems with the Labour government, the Unions controlled who could be elected giving them veto power over the choice of party leadership and cabinet positions.  It was part of the organizing structure of the Labour Party.  Not surprisingly when the economy went south the labor leaders had no interest in making concessions for businesses.  The resulting stale mate destroyed the Labour party...Tony Blair actually had to put it back together again by first controlling the power of the labor unions.

Frankly the corruption in Canada dwarfs anything seen in this country, or England, by any administration.  President Nixon is generally held out as the gold standard of U.S. corruption.  He was a mere piker compared to Canada's Liberal party scandal.  Nixon was full of dirty tricks, con-men and privacy violations...of course Agnew was guilty of kick-backs...but the Liberal party in Canada appeared to treat the tax revenues as their private piggy bank to spend on bribes, fake contracts and lavish (probably fake) expenses.  The corruption was so much a part of the scenery that Martin's contention that he had no idea it was going on, is just not plausible.

While Martin has not been implicated in the corruption directly, he would have had to be the most clueless moronic finance minister of all time.  You may recall the see no evil, hear no evil monkeys...Martin would have had to be all three of the see, hear and speak no evil monkeys, for his ignorance to be believable.  I'm not sure it is possible to seat a Liberal party in Canada today without going way deep into the bench...it appears that everyone important is implicated in the scandal.

I would be interested to hear what Peter thinks about this corruption scandal and the likely result of this up-coming election.  I'm sure he will not defend the corruption...but this can be a bitter pill to swallow when in every other regard the Liberal party had not done all the bad a job.  I can not think of any historic precedent in any country for this historic occasion.  Every one that is close included economic issues which impacted the resulting vote...in Canada's case (despite my past ribbing) the economy is not currently a major issue.

One of the results of this historic mess, the potentially disastrous Quebec Independence Movement will probably start to pick up steam again.  In so many ways this collapse is not good news for our neighbors to the North.  I may even find myself rooting for the Liberal party!

Comments

[Peter]

Canada is in a complex situation right now. The economy is booming, unemployment is at a 30 year low, and yet many citizens have a very cynical view of the government - not just the liberals but all political parties.

A booming economy and low unemployment tends to benefit the incumbent in Canadian politics. Opinion polls show the liberals with a marginal lead, very close with the conservatives, with the left-of-centre New Democratic Party not far behind.

The sponsorship scandal has deeply diminished public confidence in the Paul Martin liberal government, despite the fact that it didn't occur on his predecessors watch. However, Canadians are sick of hearing about this scandal, and many are looking past these events to the worthiness of the liberal party in general.

Many are just sick of voting and want to see a majority government (probably the liberals) just to avoid the continued uncertainty.

However, that is not likely. Most pollsters and election observors anticipate another minority liberal government, but with a possible dramatic shift in power from the current system.

If the NDP gains more seats, it may become an NDP-Liberal coalition that governs.

If the conservatives gain more seats, it will be more of a conservative-liberal coalition.

As far as Quebec independence goes, the Liberal (and possibly NDP) party is that movements worst enemy, so if the Liberals fail to succeed in Quebec, Canada as we know it may fall apart.

Its a nightmare I hope never comes to pass...

Just jokingly, I sometimes wonder if Canada should let Quebec seccede, then invade it militarily US-style and settle the issue once and for all.

Hey, it is the 200th anniversary of Napoleon's Austerlitz victory. Perhaps a little bit of that is in order in Canada's usually calm and diplomatic politics.

[Peter]

The conservatives would need to pull off an amazing rout in Ontario and other vote rich provinces in order to become the next Canadian government. The likelyhood of an anglophone leader winning in socially-liberal quebec is very low.

[Carol]

You have to love a country where liberals aren't afraid to call themselves liberals.