Canada’s Democracy Grinds to a Halt

December 5, 2008

About three years ago, I remember seeing a copy of the San Francisco Chronicle that had an article about dogs in New Orleans on page 1, with a tiny article on page 6 entitled “Canada’s Government Topples.” I always thought that was a wonderful microcosm for how much we care about our biggest trade partner. Due to the lack of coverage, I may be the first person to tell you the news this time around: Canada’s Government has toppled.

Three weeks ago, right-wing Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper got elected, with his party receiving about 38% of the votes. 38% was good enough to win the federal election in a mandate because Canada has a “divided left,” with Liberals, New Democrats, and Greens combining for about 51% of the vote. Due to the fact that the “divided left” is rarely able to agree on anything, however, the conservative party has been able to form a minority government for the last two years. Less than a month after getting re-elected, however, Stephen Harper decided to overreach his meager amount of political capital by eliminating publicly financed political subsidies. This was a strategic move for the conservatives, as there is never a paucity of money for right-wing parties, since they have the backing of big business, but the other four parties need these political subsidies to maintain power. As such, the Liberals, NDP, and Bloc Quebequois set a plan in motion to vote out Harper’s government. What came next was rather unanticipated.

Stephen Harper, in a last minute attempt to save his government, asked the Governor General to suspend parliament for seven weeks, preventing the other parties from forcing him out with a vote of no confidence. More surprisingly, the Canadian citizenry, rather than flipping out due to the suspension of Democracy, went from tepid support of the conservative government to overwhelming support, and the Tories now lead by 20 points in the polls.

It should be interesting to see where this goes. We may be a couple of years away from a scenario in which both the government and the citizenry of the U.S. is to the left of Canada and Britain for the first time in decades.

One Response

1. 2:06 PM on January 5th, 2009Anonymous:

   You don’t know too much about Canadian politics, do you?

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