Coalitions and other lost causes

How did coalition become a dirty word in Canadian politics? Since last winter's failed attempt, Tory ministers have used it as their default term of derision in Question Period. Er, no deficit, um, sound fundamentals, ah, lost files, sexy something ... Aha -- COALITION. This week, the Bloc Québécois and New Democrats adopted the usage, mocking the Liberal-Conservative, yuck, coalition.

This smarts. I consider coalition a noble, eloquent term in the political lexicon. It refers to groups who put aside differences to achieve something better for all. The Allies of the Second World War were a coalition. Most social advances, like health care or Old Age Security, are won through forms of coalition. It's a technical, structural term, yet it strikes an almost elegiac note, like a comparable word, organize. (He said what they can never kill -- goes the song about murdered union poet Joe Hill -- Went on to organize ...)

Never mind, its time will come round again, that's the way of worthy lost causes. In 1982, NDP MP Margaret Mitchell rose to say a report showed one in 10 Canadian husbands abused their wives. She recalls: "An uproar of male laughter erupted ... a nearby Tory joked, 'I don't beat my wife. Do you, George?'" I heard it broadcast; it was crass and shocking.

Just two years later, women's issues had become so prominent that federal leaders were forced to hold a televised election debate on them. Nobody guffawed.

The (momentarily) lost cause of coalition is linked to the lost cause of proportional representation, which has gone down in three recent provincial votes. That smarts, too. I thought PR was a no-brainer. It's self-evidently more democratic than our current system, where a minority of votes routinely elects majority governments and many or most votes simply don't count. The link is that under PR, parties would often have to work together. PR equals coalition politics.

Opponents say this would mean unstable government, as if stability, rather than good or democratic government, is the goal. So either I'm wrong or it wasn't the time yet for PR. I'm hoping the latter. Save your coalition dollars, boys, PR will rise again.

In this vein, take Rev. Jesse Jackson's run for U.S. president in 1988. It just wasn't in the cards -- the winds of history were in his face, not at his back. Most people would have said the same of Barack Obama. Maybe he thought so himself, and was just positioning for vice-president or for 2012.

But the winds of history had shifted. No one quite controls them, although many try. Generations come and go and suddenly the excluded becomes possible.

Take U.S. health-care reform. In 1992, Hillary Clinton said a Canadian-style single-payer approach wasn't even discussable. The Obama team agrees on that, but has put a "public option" into its bill. It has stunning 76-per-cent support in this week's polls. As for single-payer, the U.S. media have always considered it unmentionable. Even congressional Democrats refuse to let its advocates testify on it.

Yet, for the first time, it has slithered into public view and debate anyway. It's the zeitgeist, a.k.a. the winds of history. It was time. With the zeitgeist, as the old guys say in the sauna, Ya never know.

I'm not saying there's progress in human affairs, I don't want to go that far. But there is movement, and it hasn't entirely to do with conscious agents, especially those in formal politics.

This poses a challenge to social activists, because sometimes you have the wind at your back and sometimes not, and if you stick to your principles, it can get lonely with the wind in your face. That's the testing time. Today, you say coalition and many Canadians shudder.

But a day will come when they will merely shrug because, after all, it's only democratic and not to tremble over. All the clichés apply. There is a time and tide. But you have to wait, ready, and then seize it.

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