My fellow Canadians did our country proud yesterday/last night, electing a Minority government.
Canada
is a multi-party parliamentary system. We have 338 Members of
Parliament who then have the right to elect their leaders without
further interference from the electoral masses. The leader of the party
with the most votes in a Majority (i.e. 170 seats) government becomes
our Prime Minister. For the last five or so years, Justin Trudeau has
ruled Canada as a Majority leader.
Trudeau, the
charismatic son of a former multi-time Prime Minister, Pierre Elliott
Trudeau, didn't exactly make the last few years smooth ones. He had a
variety of issues, starting with possible malfeasance in trying to
protect the crooks from SNC-Lavalin. He then had cultural issues that
offended many people of colour or of Indian heritage. And Indian
heritage here in Canada is amongst the most widespread of any ethnic
group. (NOTE: By Indian, I mean from the Indian sub-continent, not First
Nations)
On the other hand, in a world where the
Oleaginous Orange Oaf of the Oval Office represents Western leadership,
the good-looking PM from the north looked SOOOOOOOO much better in
comparison, that he was able to give Canada some serious world cred.
Canada's leadership on Climate Change responses is to our nation's
credit. I think MOST Canadians are happy with Trudeau as our figurehead
... and occasionally with his policies beyond Climate Change.
Ergo,
the Minority government. Canada is a small-C Liberal country. We think
of taking care of each other before ourselves, as a nation. We hold out
our helping hands. Suburbanites are liberal, farmers and oilmen are conservative.
No different than our American neighbours. But we have a different form
of government. The American citizen that ran for the Conservatives
nationally actually won the plurality of votes nation-wide. The Conservatives wiped
the Liberal presence on our prairies out of existence. So, the electoral
map of Canada shows the Liberals with a healthy prominence in Ontario, a
dominance in Atlantic Canada and a carving up of Quebec with the
separatist Bloc Quebecois. With a smattering of seats out on the west
coast, it gave Trudeau the chance to continue to govern.
BUT
the key difference is one that bedevils Majority governments, whether
it is here or down south in the good 'ol USA. The arrogance of
insulation from consequences.
Trudeau was not a
rousing success in his first go-round as the PM. Growing pains?? Some of
his problems could be given to that. Murphy's Law?? Well, every
government runs into that. The response to Murphy running the nation off
the tracks in a way nobody could have anticipated is more important
than that Murphy screwed things up. No, the real problem Trudeau had was
being secure in the knowledge that he was going to be in his seat for
five years come hell or high water. Ergo, he stuck his hand into the
SNC-Lavalin hornet's nest and got stung. And paid for it years later.
In
reality, the case against Trudeau was almost ALL SNC-Lavalin. There
was the hassles of the complicated energy issues out West.
There's oil on the east side of the Rockies and tankers on the west
side. Ever the twain needs to meet. The hows are ... complicated. And
Trudeau and cabinet didn't get it right in a way that left MOST people
happy. Cultural misappropriation?? From decades ago in the worst case, cluelessness in the latter examples. Still, not worth toppling a majority government over. It was
SNC-Lavalin that made Conservative Andrew Scheer think he had Trudeau by
the short hairs. He was wrong. But not FAR wrong.
So
we have a Minority. Trudeau's had his hands slapped. But the country
hasn't given way to the conservative Populism that has been a blight on
the world this century. The worm has been s-l-o-w-l-y turning with
rebuke after rebuke of the poster boy for Populism petulance, Comrade
Donald. The Israelis seem to have gotten over their Netanyahu fixation
and installed somebody who doesn't fall into line with Putin, President
Small Hands and a host of other calamities for world peace. And we in
Canada, who elected a village idiot to run our largest province, seem to
be learning from the mistakes of others.
Why do I like
Minorities?? Well, they have short-lived existences, six months to
three years seems predictable. But a Minority government has no
arrogance. It cannot. It must govern with a consensus of sometimes
opposing points of view. That's not always true. Stephen Harper governed
Canada as if he HAD a Majority, even when he didn't. To Canada's
detriment. But that required particularly weak Liberal opposition and
the acquiescence of the other parties. Mostly however, Minorities pass
the laws the country needs, without the agendas that Majority
governments employ when the arrogance of a Majority lets them. Those
laws tend to be ideologues. And bad laws.
Generally
speaking, the laissez-faire attitudes of Majority governments are
diminished when there are true consequences to things like patronage
appointments. We don't have utterly unprepared national diplomats
representing Minority governments as adverse the kind of dipsticks that
have represented the US on the international stage the last three years.
We don't make TV hosts and hoteliers with big checkbooks posts as our
representative to the UN or Europe, for example. Trudeau COULD have done
that with a Majority. He didn't. And won't with a Minority.
There's
one last advantage of this particular Minority. No upheaval of the
government. It'll operate largely as it has last week. No learning curve
for new incoming (in one big Tidal Wave) as there is when the colour of
the team changes. The country's still Red. (and Orange with a little
bit of Green thrown in. Heck, the teal of the Bloc might also come into
play). But not Blue.
Canada remains stable. Trudeau has
been chastened. The next few months/years will show whether he and the
Liberals have learned from the experience. And that should lead to a
better-governed country. Won't be MANY laws passed (Gridlock tends to be
the greatest negative about a Minority government), but the laws passed
will be good for all.
And if that last paragraph is wrong, the country will be awash in Blue soon enough. Maybe I'll be dead by then.
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