It seems that barely a month ago, the Conservative party of Canada was spending much of its most recent convention
licking its wounds. Wank -- er,
leader Stephen Harper was furiously attempting to muffle the wingnut contingent of the Conservative party -- a kind of Frankenstein fusion of Western religious Reform conservatives and fiscally moderate Tory conservatives -- by insisting that their speeches at the Montreal convention be vetted. Imagine the novelty of a wingnut party
actually being afraid of being seen as such by the general public! Dare to dream, America.
Not only that, but facing the popularity of Paul Martin's Liberal government -- which had just stood up to U.S. on the crucial issue of missle defense (some of you will remember the deliciously withering smackdown given to the U.S. ambassador to Canada by former minister of external affairs, Lloyd Axworthy) -- Harper was afraid to take a stand on the budget, lest he accidentally dissolve parliament and give the Liberals ground on which to reestablish their parliamentary majority.
Oh, what a difference a month makes. Revelations coming out of the public inquiry into a sponsorship scandal that implicated the Liberal party in the 1990s have come back to bite that party in the ass, suddenly knocking the stuffing out of their public approval ratings and sending the Conservatives and the Bloc Quebecois into a screaming lather. Canadians can be quite vicious protest voters -- witness the NDP rout of David Peterson in the early 90s in Ontario -- and there's good reason to believe that if Canadians are sent back to the polls, they may overlook the wingnuttery of the Conservatives in their bid to punish the Liberals. The effect would be disastrous for all concerned.
This has led, as many of you know, to a potential dissolution of parliament. The Conservatives want power, and they are backed in their fight against the Liberals -- for some fucking reason! -- by the Bloc Quebecois, which has about as much in common with the Conservatives as broccoli has with tuna fish. (The Bloc is ideologically quite to the left -- social democratic, really -- but their main policy stance is the removal of Quebec from Canada, which doesn't give rise to the most productive use of federal parliament, IMHO. They probably figure that an English Canada run by frothing wingnuts will provide just the sort of intolerant tone of xenophobia that would justify their secession from the country.)
The crucial showdown is this Thursday, as Martin's government tables its budget. The Conservatives and Bloc can raise a vote of no confidence, effectively forcing the Gov. General to dissolve parliament and call an imminent election. (Keep in mind we just had our last one one year ago.) The Liberals are furtively, tentatively backed by the social democratic New Democrats, and the silver lining to all this is that the NDP has managed to use its limited clout to obtain Liberal commitments to progressive policies, such as more day care funding, etc. The NDP are just short of providing the balance of votes to shut down a non-confidence vote, so it's going to come down to two independent seats in the Commons, who I'm sure are being wooed as aggressively as any Iowa primary voter:
By SIMON TUCK
Monday, May 16, 2005 Page A1
OTTAWA -- The Conservatives say that if they fail to bring down Paul Martin's Liberal government in Thursday's budget vote they almost certainly won't try to trigger an election before Parliament breaks for the summer recess.
That means that if the Liberals survive Thursday's vote -- a result that rests largely in the hands of independent MPs Chuck Cadman and David Kilgour -- it could be September before the Liberal minority faces another test. That would push a potential election date late into the year.
Conservative House Leader Jay Hill said yesterday that his party will focus its attempts to bring down the government in Thursday's high-stakes vote on the budget and if that effort fails, then it is unlikely his party would push for another confidence motion before the House rises in June.
"If the government survives Thursday, it sends a signal they have the confidence of the House," Mr. Hill said during an interview. "We can't just ignore that."
I was perplexed by how gloomy Blairites are about a mere 60-seat balance of power in the British Commons, given the precariousness of the current House in Canada, where I'm sure Martin could only dream of a 60-seat buffer. The Conservatives were going to call a vote earlier this week, but one (1!) of their members was facing surgery.
It's become quite the delicate balancing act; Paul Martin had originally been reluctant to be present for the 60th anniversary of V-E day in Europe, lest the other parties dissolve parliament in his absence. So, in a delicate arrangement, all four party leaders went to Europe, probably each one muttering and gnashing their teeth as they cast furtive glances at one another.
Things have been delicate in Parliament, too, and it's a measure of the deference to procedure -- one absent, it seems, in current U.S. Congress -- that has the leaders embracing such careful balancing acts as this one:
The mutual arrangement over Thursday's budget vote, which followed intense negotiations between the rival parties, is expected to boost civility on Parliament Hill -- at least for a few days.
Animosity between the Liberals and Conservatives peaked last week as opposition leaders tried to shut down all parliamentary business in a bid to force the government to hold a confidence vote.
The parties have also now agreed to a "pairing" deal to cover the potential absence of at least two seriously ill MPs: Mr. Stinson and Alberta MP David Chatters.
The NDP proposal would see the New Democrats and/or the Liberals withdraw MPs if the two cancer-stricken Tories cannot make it.
The parties have apparently agreed to pair Mr. Stinson with Natural Resources Minister John Efford, who is suffering from diabetes and is at home in Newfoundland. Mr. Efford said yesterday on CTV's Question Period, however, that he'll do "everything and anything possible" to be present for Thursday's vote.
Regardless, the budget vote -- and the government's survival -- will now likely be determined by the votes of independents Mr. Cadman and Mr. Kilgour.
In any event, the upshot of all this is that a moderate and for the most part humane government is hanging in the balance. I have no love for the Liberals' death grip on power, which has no doubt made them every bit as corrupt as the forthcoming sponsorship inquiry indicates. Since the early 1990s, they have maintained a kind of half-hearted "Third Way"-ish consensus in Canada, without feeling much pressure to push policy in more progressive directions.
By any measure, though, this government is a beacon of sanity for those of us who are acutely aware of the alternatives. I will not dignify the Conservatives with the nickname "Tories," because they are not Tories: the Progressive Conservative party, which was the major second party to the Liberals throughout the 20th century, offered a moderate, fiscally conservative alternative to the Liberals, tacitly accepting the social contract established in midcentury by the introduction of Medicare, multiculturalism, pensions, social assistance, progressive policies on abortion, maternity leave, etc. etc.
The Conservatives, who have gone through a number of facelifts in the 90s, to boost their maudlin poll numbers (the Reform Party, the Canadian Alliance, briefly the incredible "Canadian Reform Alliance Party," or CRAP), are a different kettle of fish. Their base is largely in Alberta, a province well to the right of mainstream Canadian politics, and they have embraced wacked-out policies on everything from a referendum on abortions, to the introduction of two-tiered private medicine, to the use of the "notwithstanding clause" (which suspends the Charter of Rights) to prevent gay marriage from becoming law. On the question of foreign policy, they are syncophantic towards the U.S. (particularly its like-minded religious right), and would have sent Canadian troops into the debacle that is Iraq.
There is a reason Harper was busy shouting down his wingnuts a month ago. Up until now, their base of support has been limited to the West, with Ontarians in the crucial exurban "905-belt" around Toronto skeptical about their social conservatism. But the current scandal could be enough to send moderate-to-right Canadians into their clutches. This vote this Thursday is one to watch.