What has happened to this country? Stephen Harper seems able to carry out the most outrageous acts, week in, week out, and there seems to be barely any consequence. From breaking the law and lying about it (dismissing charges laid on the election financing case as all about accounting), to publicly condoning (and almost certainly ordering) Bev Oda's repeated lies, to the infantile ejection of the media from an event organized by the Indian High Commission so they wouldn't be able to cover remarks made by Michael Ignatieff -- the list is endless and growing.
These morsels are, of course, just the appetizers of the meal from hell that Harper has been dishing up for five years. It gets depressing listing them all -- over and over again -- hoping that at some point there will be a critical mass of vicious, autocratic, hyper-partisan actions that will finally create the outrage which will liberate us from this man and his un-government.
But, of course, that may be just the point. Harper wants us all depressed, disengaged and running, screaming, from politics. He is counting on the denigration of the political culture to secure a majority in the next (ugh) election. Harper -- whether by design or just the serendipitous result of his malignant narcissism -- has made politics so profoundly offensive and almost unbearable, that perhaps the only people who really want to get involved are the pre-pubescent junk yard dogs he has hired throughout his government to bully and insult and attack anything that moves. I wonder, sometimes, if they aren't ordered to inject themselves with speed every morning -- like the U.S.-sponsored Contras in Nicaragua used to do (it made them even more nuts than they already were -- and willing to do anything).
Have people adjusted to this new normal in Canadian national politics to the extent that they don't even recognize the newest outrage? Do they -- and I realize that most Canadians still do reject this government and its mean little dictator -- simply ratchet down their expectations of what kind of behaviour is to be expected of politicians? Is there a limit to bad political news beyond which people experience a numbing effect -- like soldiers and other experience during war time? I know friends of mine who were political junkies now avoid the news and political conversations.
One of the successes of the political right over the past 25 years has been its lowering of people's expectations of what is possible -- that is, what is possible from government. Campaigns focused on the deficit in the early 1990s, huge cuts to social spending by Paul Martin as finance minister, the relentless propaganda that we can't afford anything any more (despite the fact that we are twice as wealthy per capital today as when Medicare was established) and the general demonization of government and government employees, has had a terrible impact on people's trust in government. And of course when you cut funding to services they do inevitably deteriorate and further convince people that government just can't do it any more.
It's only a matter of time that those lowered expectations begin to erode participation in elections -- the process that creates government. If you believe that government won't deliver the goods no matter who you vote for it could get harder and harder to convince yourself that it's worth voting. Then add in Harper's importation of the hateful political tactics of the U.S. Republican Party and you have what may be, for many people, the last straw.
But if Canadians succumb to this political malaise they will be engaging in a self-fulfilling prophecy. If Harper gets a majority because another five per cent of Canadians stay away from the polls (a disproportionate number of absentees are Liberal and NDP voters) we really will have a situation in which government will not deliver -- because Harper will dismantle much of what is left.
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We can't let this happen. In depth values research demonstrates that Canadians' values -- in contrast to their expectations -- have changed little since the late 1970s. They still desire a government that will tackle climate change, provide economic security, help their kids go to university and end child poverty. They think that government should do these things -- and a clear majority even say they would pay more taxes if government pledged to do them. But for good reason they look at the political landscape and see little hope that government will speak for them or their community.
Perhaps if people realized that their distaste for politics is no accident but the result of a 25 year campaign to lower their expectations, and their democratic participation, they would not give up so easily. I hope that is the case as we get closer to a possible election. As people again try to apply strategic voting in close ridings, it seems to me that one strategy that we haven't pushed at all is simply this: don't even think about not voting.
While Canadian politics may seem at its lowest ebb possible things can change anywhere with amazing speed (think Egypt). But if we abandon politics and the civil society foundation it rests on, we are contributing to our own demise. Remember, Harper is like a mild depression: you think it's going to last forever. But it doesn't -- eventually it goes away.
Murray, this is an excellent (albeit gloomy) analysis, and I appreciate the optimistic rebound at the end.
Just one point: I don't think that the Right has earned all the credit for the dumbing-down of Canadian politics. To a large extent they have done this by default - any maybe that's putting it too charitably for the centre/left. We have seen three decades of constant, gutless retreat and unwillingness to engage the Right on the key ground of ideology and principle. None of the political actors seems prepared to discard the "message box" and maintain an intelligent dialogue with people, and treat them as though they were rational beings motivated by anything beyond the basest self-interest.
Witness all the ducking for cover in the face of far-right law-and-order/tough-on-crime. The opposition parties are making it too easy for the Conservatives to define the agenda. If it were not for all the self-defeating pettiness and corruption of the Harper government, they would be in a totally commanding position politically.
There was more than a grain of truth in Kim Campbell's comment (for which she was pilloried - and I shed no tears for that!) that an election campaign is not a very good time for an intelligent debate about issues. But the answer should be to engage in that debate between elections, not to fixate on this week's polls and last week's scandals.
The democratic uprisings in northern Africa and around the Arabian peninsula should help revive our faith in people, however, and I endorse your concluding words.
We on the right have figured out that all social causes have one result. They take money from one group of people and give it to another. We are a little tired of paying for all these causes. We are taxed to death in Ontario and this will ultimately.
Take the debate in Wisonsin and bring it to Ontario. We the people are being treated unfairly.
Go to www.etfo.ca/bargainingandagreements/comparingagreements/pages/default.as... and tell me this is fair. Elementary teachers start at around $48,000 and max out at around $90,000 approximately 11 years later. Every year the scales increases with inflation and bargaining. After the 85 factor they retire with approximately a $65,000 year pension indexed to inflation. This is blatently unfair to the vast majority who earn $40 to $60K who pay for all this and won't come close to retiring as early or as wealthy. Plus, they get at least 3 months vacation per year. Can anyone defend this?
One group (teachers) taking from another (us working stiffs). We get it, Harper gets it and so did Harris.
RDPs logic is offensive. The logical endpoint of his thinking is that we should all just be grateful to have a job, be happy to be earning minimum wage because to earn more would be unfair to someone. Just because someone else has it OK, is not a call to get outrageed and demand that they be brought down to some arbitrary level of fairness decided by.... who exactly? You, RDP? Give me a break. Also, your choice of target is interesting. Did you pick on CEOs, stockbrokers, politicians, doctors? No, you pick on elementary school teachers doing work way more or at least as important as any of the above. The only thing Harris had right is the blatant stupidity of some working class people to buy into his agenda that nobody is deserving of a decent pension, decent wages, or decent benefits, except those he decides.
Good article Murray but I really think the Opposition is just as guilty as the Harper government for the demoralization people feel. If no-one in the political system is expressing outrage, it is difficult for ordinary people to respond. The G20 comes to mind. Massive repression on a scale never seen in peacetime in Canada and not a single political figure spoke out until more than a week after it happened,after, i suppose they had done their polling.
I am one of those who is paying less and less attention to electoral politics; although of course I will vote and I was a political junkie so I certainly understand why those who have never seen anything much accomplished by government are sitting on their hands. I think only a mass political citizen's movement will wake people up. I no longer believe any of the parties is capable of leading something like this.
To Epiong:
I don't pay the salary of the greedy CEO or stockbroker. The stockbroker is paid on what he or she produces. If there is no production, the stockbroker earns $0. I don't have to buy the product from the greedy CEO's firm. I have no choice with the teacher.
"arbitrary level of fairness" has been decided, not by me, and it is $90,000 with a fantastic pension. Someone decided this arbitray amount and in my opinion it is unfair.
Everyone deserves a decent job and pension and what ever else you want to throw in. The problem is that someone has to pay for it. We the people are tired earning our standard of living and paying for someone elses. Public servants deserve to be paid but not that much. We the people understand and accept that we will be taxed but not this much.
To RDP
You say you don't pay the salaries of the greedy CEO or stockbroker. Wow, you must be one frugal dude. I assume you've never bought a car, a television, a computer or even food. You surely built your own house from wood you cut down yourself and you mined the metal you needed for nails, screws etc... You must get the point by now. To say you have a choice to buy the CEO's product but not pay the teacher's salary is just so ludicrous it boggles the mind. You have no choice but to pay the CEOs' salaries, if not this one then some other one. In case you've forgotten we don't yet live in my socialist utopia and almost every product you buy was made by some privately owned corporation or shareholder owned corporation. We all pay their bloated, unfair, obscene salaries. And remember one other thing, the price you pay for their stuff is always way overpriced because they have to make a profit. At least a teacher does something useful in this country. Very few corporations and employees thereof can make the same claim. Teachers and all public sector workers are WAY underpaid. And it is the rich and the CEOs and the corporations who are WAY undertaxed and should be paying way more so that all of us ordinary folks can enjoy cheaper, better public services.
To Epiong:
Is every CEO greedy? Is every non-governmental entity nothing but a vehicle to foist on me a shoddy, worthless product.
Pick up an annual report for a few firms. You will find that profit is typically between 5 to 15% of revenue. At higher levels, competition is attracted and prices and profit fall.
After 12 years of service, teachers in Ontario earn roughly $90K with three months off and this isn't even the problem. Their pension is the problem. They retire with an pension stream that would equate to an RRSP of greater than $1,000,000. ($60,000 per year for 25 years equates to one heck of a large RRSP). This is WAY underpaid? Don't believe me...check this out. http://www.etfo.ca/bargainingandagreements/comparingagreements/pages/def...