Federal election won’t change anything

There are great issues that could generate an interesting campaign. But there is nobody to articulate them, and the press won’t do its job

by Kevin Potvin <kpotvin@republic-news.org>

By all accounts, a federal election in January will produce a government no different from the one we have now: a minority Liberal regime propped up with support from a tiny NDP caucus facing a Conservative official opposition backed by the Bloc Quebecois. It would appear that a US-style fixed term mandate, the darling idea of the Conservatives, is off the table now that it’s possible to create electoral havoc for the government in the meantime.

Nonetheless we will have an election, because Jack Layton, NDP leader in Ottawa, decided to withdraw support from the Liberals as a result of Liberal Party refusal to promise to keep medicare a public institution. But Layton’s call only moves an election date up by a few weeks since the Liberals already promised to dissolve Parliament for an election in February, after the second half of the Gomery Commission report is released.

The election campaign, whenever it is, promises to be no less depressing than this interminable lead up to it has been. Instead of three competing visions of how Canada should be reconstructed to fit back into the 21 st Century, we the voting public will be asked to choose between a thoroughly cash-soaked corruption of a political party that really operates as a get-rich-quick scheme for a small band of completely unethical old white men (aka the Liberals), a thoroughly moral corruption of a party that really operates as the Canadian arm of the Christian fundamentalist coup plotters who’ve already captured the US Republican Party (aka the Conservatives), and a thoroughly boring party that really operates as a social club for lonely old hippies and factory floor shop stewards who nobody really likes (aka the NDP). There is always the Green Party, if only its national office made at least a stab at remaining in the public light it has legitimately earned during recent election campaigns. Marketing, marketing, marketing—it is so important to sales, even if your product, like the Green Party platform, is stellar.

It is wrong to govern by polls, but unavoidable. The polls say Canadians are downright steamed at Liberal Party corruption, but not enough to risk Conservative Party corruption of an altogether different and certainly more menacing kind. No amount of Liberal stealing killed anyone. The Conservatives, had they been in power two years ago, would have undoubtedly led Canada into war in Iraq, where probably dozens would have by now been killed, not to mention the hundreds of innocent Iraqis our Canadians would have murdered.

The NDP got squeezed out in the play between the two leading parties. At one time, Layton held the ace and used it effectively to win good concessions for working Canadians. But the problem with playing your ace is, you don’t have it anymore. The Liberals called his next bluff and Layton had to back the Conservative’s call for a forced election. That’s too bad because it was the same NDP game that allowed Ed Broadbent in a different generation to steer great Liberal leader Pierre Trudeau toward all the good policy decisions that he is famous for today.

The NDP are likely setting a strategy to campaign on medicare, housing and business taxes—issues, in other words, and exactly those that the media will do nothing to help promote. The Conservatives will likely hammer away at one theme: the Liberals are corrupt thieves, one the media will run up the flagpole for them every morning. The Liberals will likely hammer away at a similar theme: the Conservatives have a scary hidden agenda vis-à-vis America. It worked pretty well last time.

The voter turnout will likely be a record low but for more reasons than merely a lack of vision, salesmanship, or ethics all around. All the federal parties are as good as broke and none will be able to wage any kind of effective campaign. Indeed, it was the state of its poor fundraising results that prompted the Liberals to engage in theft to shore up party finances in Quebec, and it was poor fundraising results for both the former Progressive Conservative and Alliance Parties that prompted them to merge into the present Conservative Party, a disaster if ever there was one.

It is destined to be one of the least meaningful national elections in the nation’s history. That’s too bad because there are certainly many interesting issues that would serve as great themes around which everyone could positively campaign in an inspiring and meaningful election. Too bad there aren’t any leaders capable of articulating those issues and selling them to the public, or the press, with any verve.

Hello, Green Party press office: I said, Too bad there aren’t any leaders capable of articulating those issues and selling them to the public, or the press, with any verve.

Kids these days.

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