I've been hiding from politics all summer as any sane person would. This is actually very easy to do. Watch no television. Turn off the RSS feeds, listen only to sports radio, and buy books.
The difficulty is coming back. I don't want to come back. It is brutal. The respite allows you to forget the federal pettiness, the shallow bruised egos, the shortsightedness, the posturing, the rancour, and the deceit.
As I return they are talking of an election this fall. Mr. Harper and Mr. Dion are sparring about who will force it, or not force it, or be forced to force it or be forced not to force it.
Of course, nothing they actually say is factual. What they are really jockeying for is who looks decisive. If they can look decisive, they are happy. We will have confidence in the decisive one. We seem less interested in what the decisive one will actually do.
My guess is that Mr. Dion will not wake up Prime Minister anytime soon. He doesn't seem to be mean enough to play the game to win (see deceit and posturing) and his little heart is going to break when he finds out that Canadians will be caring more about the economy than the environment by the time the election is called. Neither am I sure the Prime Minister will rise above a minority government. Although he has done everything in his power to mute his very conservative beliefs (crime, abortions, health care, limited government etc.), it would be foolish to think a Harper majority would look anything like a Harper minority and most people, even those hiding during the summer know it. If they would, of course there would be nothing to have an election about.
Truly Conservative thinking in Canada is in a minority. When you ad up the NDP, the Green Party, the Liberals, the Red Tories and yes, even the Bloc Quebecois, you have a small liberal majority that believes government has an important role to play in civil society and should not be outsourced to the private sector or abandoned altogether.
The question, however, is what will the election be about?
Will it be leadership, will it be the environment, will it be regional issues (i.e. the fight between Tories in Newfoundland), will it be the economy or Quebec's frustration with small 'l' liberals, will it be wedge issues like crime and abortion? It's hard to say.
Stephen Harper is by far the smarter politician. Not only is he a good tactician, he knows no shame (i.e. outraged at Belinda Stronach crossing the floor from the Conservative party to the Liberal party he engineered the defection of David Emerson from the Liberals to the Tories before the ink was dry on the election results). It is not possible to be more cynical. He has that unique ability, (matched by Jean Chretien), to be outraged at the drop of a hat on either side of any question. His retort no doubt is that any means justifies the end, in this case achieving power and saving Canada and Western Canada in particular, from Liberals.
Stéphane Dion, unlike Chretien and Harper is burdened, admittedly less and less, by honour and principal. He is trying, but he cannot truly get his heart into the moral relativism of partisan politics.
The country needs more than a smart cynical politician trying to limit the footprint of the national government and it certainly requires more than one act (i.e. the environment) nave sophist who can't or won't grasp the complexity of the political process.
The country is in trouble; it just doesn't know it yet. Canada is living off an energy dollar and its Royalties, it has ruined much of its forestry and fish resources, it has permitted many of it's most promising companies in key sectors, (mining, energy, steel, forestry hospitality and technology) to be sold to foreign owners with nary a whimper ( with the willing collaboration of a business class that is soft and risk averse) and our future is uncertain.
It is uncertain because it isn't even being articulated. We are lost in the minutiae of petty squabbles about small things. The energy is spent on diminishing the other (note the recent rush of negative Tory advertising to support current by elections).
We are a country made up increasingly of immigrants; immigrants who came from far away lands to find a place of opportunity and enlightenment.
When they get here, they find we are soft, more lucky than smart, more lethargic than hardworking and most importantly, not who they thought we were. This is reflected in our aggressive and contentious politics wrapped inside a listless political agenda. It is hard to see the remedy in the next election.
