The possibility of yet another Canadian federal election being triggered this week has been averted by the Bloc and it would seem that NDP, while not first off the gates, has provided even more padding. This seems to be good news for the Liberals, despite their best intentions to perform yet another electoral nose dive. But no one can say definitively how long support for Harper’s minority government will last.
Given that Canadians are pretty election exhausted, it would make sense, to ensure we don’t have record low turn out in this election as we did in the last, that the whole event be girded by and predicated upon issues of substance that will galvanize Canadians to the polls and drive an important and meaningful discussion among the citizens of this country. The question, of course, is: what are those issues?
I thought it would be interesting to poll some of the politically engaged and sharp Canadian (and interested non-Canadian) commenters here at the League about their thoughts. So how about it, folks: if we wind up in yet another election in the near term, what should we be talking about?
Will Truman 
Patrick Cahalan 
Cornelius 
wardsmith 
Tod Kelly 
Tom Van Dyke 
Murali 
James Hanley 
Borat: “I do a picture, only small, of the Tishnik Masacre. Where many Uzbeks…crushed!”
Kindly Gray Hippie: “How did you feel when you drew this?”
Borat: “Very proud!”.
KGH: “I’m just listening with sadness…a little sadness for your people…?”
Borat: “Yes…no, it is not sad. It is us who do the kill!”
When in doubt,
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Quebec and how the rest of the country takes it for granted and how Francophones are treated as second-class citizens the second they cross into another province.
Are you being facetious?
To keep it short: up until Harper every PM in power for longer than a few weeks was from Quebec, for over 30 years.
The problem is that Quebec thinks it’s 1/2 of the country, when in population terms it’s 1/4 and in terms of the number of provinces 1/10.
Jay my man, don’t bait Canadians. They have hot maple syrup and they will not hesitate to use it. Don’t expect the Quebecois to get yoru back either. They only have poutine and they hate Americans.
Whoops, thought this one didn’t post, and then it showed up after I repeated the post in shorter form… weird.
But |Katherine, where would this country be without the great contributions that the Turner and Campbell governments gave us!
Campbell at least contributed the image of a politician that knew the end was near. Bambi on the railroad bridge always springs to mind when I think of her. Good times.
That’s a great question…I’ll admit that I’ve been out of Canada for ten years now, so I can’t claim to be an expert, but it seems like there’s very little of substance. The carbon tax vs cap-and-trade question that decided the BC provincial election doesn’t strike me as one that animates very many voters.
Unemployment is high and will likely persist, particularly under Harper, but there was definitely a rush to self-congratulation for getting beat up less badly than other OECD nations (what are the odds Iceland will remain #1 on the UN HDR ranking?) that may have removed some of the political will to do something about it.
This extended stretch of minority government really seems to be powered by a lack of substantive issues.
I think you’re right about that, Mark, and that feeling is a lot of what drives this post.
Agreed. Canada is in a generally good position at the moment. You can guarantee that cap and trade won’t be raised by anyone with a politican brain in their skull until the economy recovers.
To throw $0.02 at my own question.
Canadian involvement in Afghanistan seems like an obvious issue that, were the election called in the next couple of months to a year, would motivate some decent discussion (and likely will).
The other issue that springs to mind is a real substantive debate on the state of the Canadian health care system. Maybe it’s all the talk in the US that brings it top of mind to me, but Canadians generally rate health care at or near the top of their list yet I don’t know that I’ve seen/heard a real and grounded discussion on this issue since the Romanow Report.
I’m a novice on Canadian affairs although I am curious. Here’s my uneducated opinion: energy and particularly oil since Canada is a big exporter of oil to the U.S. and I’d imagine elsewhere.
Daniel, there is definitely an oil-related issue bubbling under the surface (sorry, had to do it). I don’t think there has been sufficient debate surrounding the development of the Alberta tar sands. It seems to me that people are either reflexively for it or against, and just use it to hammer away at their opponents or rally their base.
I’m skeptical that this will capture a lot of voter attention, but it should. Either route we take, a debate is long overdue.
Doesn’t really matter what the ‘issues’ are; the parties are just going to concentrate on mud slinging and scare tactics anyhow.
Thanks for that…
If I had any solid idea about the answer to your question Scott I’d be more qualified to be the leader of the Librals than Iggy is. I need a drink and a fresh lobster.
Well, you’re a smart dude (and I use that in the uni-sexual context, though your writing leaves me with a male vibe), what pops to mind?
Yes sir, I’m male but doughy and not a little bit fey.
Katherine: Yes I was to Canada just last month. My husband and I got married in Nova Scotia at my mothers house (our parking direction signs were written on the back of re-used NDP campaign posterboards, I felt the party would have approved).
What springs to mind? I’ll throw up some thoughts.
It seems to me, from a distance that Harper and his crew don’t have any concrete ideas for change that anyone is willing to give much thought to. Things from the end of the Liberal era just seem to be being held over. And really, as status quoe’s go it’s not a bad one to maintain.
-Environmentalism is going to have to take a back seat to the economy, people don’t care about warming climate if they can’t afford a coffee at Tim’s.
-Something is going to have to be done about Afghanistan. Either Obama is going to have to really smooze up to the Canadians or else they’re going to start talking about leaving.
-Whatever party forces an election within the next 12 months at least will be whipped like a dog by angry election fatigued voters.
-The Liberals need to fire a lot more people and will probably continue to put their foot either in it or in their mouth for a good while yet *sigh*. But eventually they’re going to get their act back together and they’ll sweep Ontario again (and some of Quebec depending on whether the Bloc are in their cranky quebecois contracting phase or their charismatic defenders of the people expanding phase) and be back in the majority.
Have you lived in Canada for the last couple decades? Are you a Liberal?
If the answers are yes, you’re already more qualified than Iggy!
Good question. There haven’t been a lot of big issues for a while, which is partly because things are more or less going smoothly, and partly because all the politicians want to avoid anything controversial.
What we should tackle:
- effective ways of reducing the deficit
- foreign policy: particularly what to do in Afghanistan, how we can influence US strategy there and whether we should leave if strategy doesn’t improve (poppy eradication, for example), the function and usefulness of peacekeeping and Canada’s role in it, increases to foreign aid (0.7% of GDP), and opposition to nations and international organizations trying to dictate economic policy to the Third World
- trade, and how to make trade agreements serve the interests of Third World nations as well as our own
- the fact that Canadian pension plans are heavily invested in Canadian mining companies that are behaving in a socially and environmentally reckless manner in Latin America; more broadly, regulatory measures to prevent blatantly unethical overseas actions by Canadian companies
- economic replacements for declining (eg, forestry in BC) and long-declined (fisheries in the Maritimes) industries, and how to prevent and end the substantial unemployment (the Maritimes are permanently stuck in the double digits, even when the economy’s good) results from said decline
To be honest, it’s hard to find things outside of foreign policy to discuss, because the provinces are in charge of health and education and guard that authority jealously, making any national policy formation difficult. So the government ensures ViaRail runs… well…. slowly, and the rest of us don’t worry about things much.
What about a foreign policy discussion on reviving Canada’s role as an honest go-to global leader in terms of peace keeping rather than an arm of US foreign policy? Think Harper’d dig that one?
No. I’d like to have that debate, though. Or even more than in peacekeeping, in foreign aid and international development, where a relatively small amount of money (compared to what’s spent on conflicts) can go much farther.
Generally in Canadian history, Conservative parties are pro-empire while Liberal ones are pro-Canada. During WWI, Borden felt Canada should put maximum energy into backing up Great Britain because we’d be able to have more influence through the British Empire than we would individually. Diefenbaker (1950s) was also for backing up Britain during the Suez Crisis. After it became clear that Britain wasn’t at all top dog anymore, Mulroney and now Harper switched to the United States, arguing that the closer we are to the US, the more influence we can have.
Liberals (particularly Trudeau) have taken the view that Canada should form its own foreign policy independent of what the US does and forge our own identity in the world. But given that Ignatieff is strongly in favour of American “nation-building” and has lived in the US for a long time, the NDP seem likely to be alone in supporting Canadian independence for the time being.
Scott, I’d rather this wasn’t such a binary formulation. I, generally, support a muscular, interventionist, liberal foreign policy. Working for the U.S. doesn’t fall under that (though working with the U.S. might), but the idea of simply being peacekeepers as an homage to an old “Canadian Heritage Moment” vignette isn’t, necessarily, better.
Oh, if only we could have a debate about the useless policy of poppy eradication in Afghanistan. Then, once we’ve gotten the “War on Drugs” out of foreign policy, maybe we can get it out of domestic policy, too.
Jonathan!!! Get out of my head! Great idea.
Scott: Canadians would love to have that prestige again. But they don’t want to pay for it.
One more thing that should be under discussion: oil resources and the Northwest Passage and how these can be used to increase Canada’s influence in the global economy
I hate Harper, but I can’t say I’m all that opposed to his Canadian far north policies. The country needs to stick up for itself up there or else we’re going to get our lunch money stolen as soon as people start seeing real value in the Arctic.
I agree with you there.
Ditto.
How about starting with the basics: the Constitutions of the various parties. Aren’t these what define the parties? Can’t we extrapolate from these the general policies that parties are likely to endorse? For the life of me, I can’t see why anyone would object to individual rights and freedoms and property rights as endorsed by the CPC which is why I am currently a CPC supporter. On the other hand I can’t see why anyone would endorse a “just society” or “social justice” as endorsed by the Liberals. Come an election, I think that the Conservatives could change a few votes by simply endorsing the individual as opposed to the State.
Hey Scott,
Like the open thread concept … and while I don’t think it will come up, I’d love to hear someone discussing – or actually championing – rural/rural-urban fringe issues. Rural and urban Canada are inseperable and depend on one another’s assets for success. While there’s no denying a rise in urbanization, rural and ‘rurban’ communities need equally strong voices (e.g. as encouraged by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities http://www.fcm.ca/english/View.asp?mp=1&x=1180) and viable options to help them diversify and create long-term sustainable development strategies.
Cheers,
Jennifer @ The Rurban Fringe
http://www.therurbanfringe.com
Alright, I’ve made some comments >a href=http://cannedgoodsandammunition.blogspot.com/2009/09/canadian-election-open-thread-piggyback.html?showComment=1253321808629#c8691994651788809098>here. I threw out five issues I’d like to see addressed:
1. Afghanistan – I’d like to see new goals set;
2. Taxation – Let’s either move away from income-based taxation or flatten the tax code;
3. Trade – We should re-dedicate ourselves to free trade, regardless of other countries;
4. Honduras – Let’s support these guys; and,
5. School choice – Sure it’s a provincial issue, but that hasn’t stopped the feds in the past.
Feel free to trudge over to my sight, or respond here.
Sorry for the HTML typo. Any chance you can fix that for me, Scott?
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