by Kyle Shaw
One year ago,Canada had it all. Same-sex marriage was suddenly legal. Pot moved toward decriminalization, with the support of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police. Canada even had the guts to stay out of the war on Iraq. And most important for North America's most self-conscious nation, much of the United States was jealous."Good old Canada. It's the kind of country that makes you proud to be a North American," Hendrik Hertzberg wrote in the New Yorker. "Now Canada is leading the way. And America is looking fussy, Victorian, and imperial," said the Washington Post. To celebrate the Fourth of July last year, The Stranger did a "Land of the Free" issue, which I guest-edited, dedicated to "the greatest, most freedom-filled nation on Earth: Canada!"
For a brief moment, Canada was an example to the world. A beacon of liberty, like Reagan's "shining city on the hill," only reinvented as the "shining commune on the hill, smelling of skunk weed and honeymoon sex." But it turns out the top of a hill is a precarious place for a city, even a metaphorical one.
But after its celebrated and fun-filled 2003, Canada's decline started within days of the new year's arrival. January 6, 2004, the Canadian agriculture department issued a little note about how Canada slipped a mad cow into the States. Whoops, sorry about that. Eh? America's border is firmly closed to Canadian cattle, and it's probably going to stay that way for about a million years.
More bad luck arrived at the end of May. The Calgary Flames made it to the finals of the National Hockey League playoffs, playing against the Tampa Bay Lightning for the Stanley Cup trophy. The country united behind the Flames, daring to have that certain kind of hope dimly remembered from over a decade ago, the last time a Canadian NHL franchise won the Cup. The Flames, knowing the nation's pride was on the line, played valiantly but alas, the storied chalice of brutal ice supremacy is now just another gewgaw in the Sunshine State.
Then Canadians woke from the hockey doldrums to find themselves facing a national election. Worse yet, an asshole--a conservative in the George W. Bush mold--appeared likely to win and roll back all those hard-won social advances that had earned Canada so much good press in the New Yorker, the Washington Post, and The Stranger.
---
Most Americans, of course, didn't even realize Canada was having an election, just as most Canadians wished they didn't have to go through one. Mostly because the choices were so shitty.
We've got four national parties up here and countless less organized concerns--from Christian Heritage to Marxist-Leninist--but only two parties with a serious chance of winning. And the leaders of both are remarkably unappealing. The ruling Liberal Party is led by Paul Martin, 64-year-old millionaire industrialist and Canada's former finance minister. He owns a shipping company, Canada Steamship Lines, that registers its boats under cheap foreign flags of convenience, yet has accepted more than $160 million in government contracts and subsidies. Martin's dad was also a politician, and he never reached his goal of being Canadian prime minister.
Determined to live Daddy's dream, the younger Martin went to work in the back rooms of the Liberal Party. Late last year he pushed the old prime minister into retirement, finally claiming the PM title for himself. (Citizens don't vote for prime minister under the Canadian system; the leader of the party with the most candidates elected to parliament automatically gets the job.) Drunk with power, Martin forced a few more Liberals to retire then called an election--the PM gets to pick the date for our national elections--for June 28, predicating an easy victory.
Manipulative, selfish, wrinkled, and full of shit as Paul Martin is, he is Canada's shining white knight compared to the other contender. At 45 humorless years old, Conservative Party leader Stephen Harper looks a bit like Al Gore, minus Gore's charisma. He comes from Alberta, home to a cartoonish (and, no doubt, familiar) strain of conservative thinking. Big government bad, taxes bad, bigger armies good, war on Iraq good. Gay marriage bad, messing around with the Supreme Court to make sure they understand how bad gay marriage is--good.
Sounding like a member of the Montana Militia (or the Trent Lott wing of the Republican Party), Harper has used racism to explain away unfavorable election results for Canada's conservatives in past elections, saying, "People who are either recent Asian immigrants or recent migrants from eastern Canada... people who live in ghettos and who are not integrated into western Canadian society [tend to vote for Liberals]." And he jeopardized Fox News' hard-won reputation for accuracy by flat-out lying in an interview about attacking Iraq: "I believe very strongly the silent majority of Canadians is strongly supportive."
Paul Martin must have felt invincible going against Harper. But almost from the campaign's May 23 start, polls showed Harper in the lead. Prime Minister Martin's undisguised arrogance, plus a financial scandal involving the Liberal Party, helped underscore Harper's simple message: Vote for me to get some needed change. Oh, and tax cuts.
Martin replied with an even simpler pitch: He accused the Conservatives of having a "hidden agenda" they would implement if elected. Harper vigorously denied having such an agenda, even going so far as kicking out two Conservative Party candidates who revealed parts of this supposedly nonexistent "hidden agenda" during the campaign.
On Monday, June 28, the voters finally got to weigh in, and they sent a complicated message. Paul Martin was elected prime minister, fulfilling his filial obligation, although he didn't win much power. But Stephen Harper and the Conservatives finished a strong second, becoming the official opposition party. With 135 seats in the 308-seat parliament, the Liberals have more than any other party but not the majority needed to pass legislation. So they will pull together what's called a minority government up here, a quirk from Canada's days as an English colony, forcing the Liberals to share power with an also-ran party like the marijuana-friendly, same-sex-marriage-backing, environmentally sensitive New Democratic Party, thereby keeping Canada safe for abortion, same-sex marriage, legal marijuana, and other cherished Canadian traditions.
---
Before the Canadian election, I talked to plenty of people who felt trapped by an impossible choice. The only way to vote against the hardliner, Harper, was to vote for Prime Minister Martin--but lots of people also wanted to vote against the awful Martin, too. Up north we could cast our ballots for a number of candidates we'd like to see win--Greens, New Democratic Party candidates, other progressives with principles--and hope that didn't accidentally put the Conservatives in power. As it turns out, an underdog party did wind up as kingmaker, so it looks like lots of people went that route. But it's a dangerous strategy--as I'm sure repentant Nader voters in the States will agree--and if more Canadians had voted their hearts and not their fears, the Conservative Party could be dismantling our health-care system, attacking gay marriage, and rounding up pot smokers today.
Almost nobody in the U.S. cares about Martin and Harper--even Canadians are more repulsed than interested--and a Harper win wouldn't mean much to the States. (You'd maybe see William F. Buckley Jr. praising Canada instead of Hendrik Hertzberg.) But we Canadians know about Bush and John Kerry; we're following yourpresidential election closely because we are affected by American politics.
So while Canada may have lucked its way into a minority government, you don't have minority governments down there, what with your winner-take-all elections. (I'm too polite to mention the occasional loser-steal-all election.) So the lesson for Americans in the Canadian election may be this: While we had the luxury of voting for small, liberal parties and still keeping a guy like Harper out of power, you have to vote decisively for the lesser of two evils.
Bush, as we've all seen, is only too willing to start wars. You are the lucky voters who can stop him.
Kyle Shaw is the editor of the Coast, the weekly newspaper of Halifax, Nova Scotia.
