Some time ago we decided that Telus was rich enough and didn’t require the subsidy represented by our landline. So we dropped it, and have reaped benefits ever since, the most recent being that nobody got hold of us to help scrutineer the election results.
We finally got to watch an election broadcast all the way through!
This was also significant because that watching included, for the first time, our eldest grandchild--just back from watching his dad vote--whose Grade 5 class has been studying the Canadian political system all year. After careful consideration he had decided that he was a “Vert”, but the rest of us, all orange to the gills, didn’t hold that against him: we were just delighted he was so passionate about the process.
Those of you who watched CBC will probably agree with us that, at least until the election crossed the Rockies, the coverage was excellent, and Rosemary Barton was a superb ringmaster. (We especially enjoyed how she managed to keep Andrew Coyne from doing most of his usual Andrew Coyne shtick, but that may be just our household!)
And then came the results from BC. The Liberals had already been declared minority winners so the tension had pretty-much evaporated and the entire focus appeared to become “how was the returned Prime Minister going to deal with “the West” and its rejection of him?”
Anyway, some reflections on the result:
--The West: I am so tired of Toronto pundits referring to Alberta and Saskatchewan as “the West” that I wrote an (unpublished) letter to the Globe about it: Living, as I do, on an island on the west coast of Canada, I'm getting really tired of Alberta and Saskatchewan, increasingly proving to be very different from BC, constantly being referred to as "the West" in news stories and opinion pieces. What's wrong with "the Prairies"? I would have added, had I thought of it in time, I promise to stop referring to Toronto as “the East” if you stop forgetting BC exists.
Besides, that characterization of the Prairies as terminally out-of-step with the rest of Canada is seriously defective, although Jason Kenney and Scott Moe would like us to believe it: over a quarter of Albertans voted NDP or Liberal in this election; nearly a third of Saskatchewan voters voted either NDP or Liberal. What’s seriously out-of-sync with the rest of Canada is the temporary and increasingly-illusory pursuit of wealth represented by their petro-economies.
--The Pipeline: Half-way through the election some Conservative activist decided that, should the NDP or Greens be required to prop up a minority Liberal government the pipeline to the Coast was dead. I even saw some NDPers and Greens make the claim. But that’s 100% guaranteed bogus, because if the NDP and Green caucuses (and Bloc, as it turns out) try to leverage their influence that way, Conservatives can be counted on to save it. I simply cannot conceive of Conservatives trying to campaign in a future election on the premise that, because the Liberals had to be defeated they allowed the NDP to kill the pipeline.
I don’t like it one bit, but the pipeline is a done deal once the court challenge barrier has passed: the government has passed the required legislation, the NEB has had its say, and it cannot be stopped in Parliament. The best we can hope for is stalling until the economics no longer make sense. Although some economists (https://www.nationalobserver.com/2016/10/05/news/nebs-kinder-morgan-pipeline-expansion-boost-based-outdated-info-economist) (https://thetyee.ca/News/2017/05/31/Kinder-Morgan-Forget-Economic-Windfall/) are already saying that point has been reached.
--Liberals: Pundits who are determined to see this as an election where everyone loses except the Bloc (https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-bloc-quebecois-leader-yves-francois-blanchet-emerges-as-the-only/ sorry: it’s behind a paywall) are ignoring some really important facts: yes, Liberals lost their majority, but by fewer than 20 seats; they still have the most seats in Quebec; in BC they had the second-best result in the last 50 years; they won the three largest cities big-time; and they have both the Bloc and the NDP to partner with, which means that they have lots of room to manoeuvre. Liberal Prime Ministers have done very well with minority governments in the past, and I believe this prime Minister is politically smart enough and has learned enough in the past 4 years to be one of the great ones. He probably needs to retain Gerald Butts. He needs to avoid putting rookies in charge of essential portfolios, like, say, Justice. Even if they are female, and aboriginal.
--Wilson-Raybould: I don’t think Vancouver-Granville did itself any favours on election day. An independent's only ability is to assist her constituents with federal matters, and she's already poison to the bureaucracy and her former party. She may be able to get herself out of this conundrum, but she'll have to modify her natural inclination to intransigence to do it. She'll also have to curb her instinct to be the Member for the AFN, or her constituents, who are not members of the AFN, will tire of her, her lack of influence, and her inability to “do politics differently” very quickly.
--NDP: Jagmeet Singh proved to be a considerable voice for the NDP during the campaign. However, there are still major issues to overcome:
...the Bloc took most of the NDP seats in Quebec and they’re not coming back. There are people who will blame Singh’s turban, but although I believe that’s a factor for a minority of Quebecois who previously voted NDP, it’s unlikely to be the killer. Even Mulcair couldn’t hold the vote, and Mulcair is much more tuned into Quebec and its values than Singh. Layton took Quebec seats because the idea of the “besieged Quebec” surrounded on all sides by hostile forces, collapsed. Bill 21 resurrected that idea, and until it goes away again the Bloc prospers and the NDP loses.
...finances are an issue. Until large numbers of people like us start funding the federal infrastructure and not just local candidates, it will continue to be an issue. I’m prepared to be persuaded, but there are issues to overcome.
...I hope he loses the politics of disparagement. That’s a Conservative/Republican tactic, and doesn’t fit either him or the NDP well. Especially if we mean to influence the agenda.
...So delighted with the Vancouver Island result! Especially Victoria.
--Greens: They are correct to think that they will not make progress until we get some form of Proportional Representation. The BC and PEI experiences should be instructive in this regard; I wish them well in that campaign. But I deplore Greens putting all their efforts into unseating NDP members (eg Victoria) when their present leader beat Gary Lunn, a Conservative, for her seat. Paul Manley doesn’t count, because his father was an NDP MP, and he actually tried to score an NDP nomination before he was successful with the Greens.
--Facebook and landlines: After the 2015 election I wrote a blog post in which I covered the influence of Facebook, as we experienced it in that election. (https://occasionaljustus.blogspot.com/2015/10/reflections-on-historic-election.html)
How quickly things change! In this election there was hardly any political exchange between participants on my feed, but there were lots of Conservative ads. I do not know who the Conservatives thought they were aiming at, but the ads were, frankly, a bit of a disaster: repetitive, uninteresting policy statements, ad hominem attacks on “Trudeau”, and never funny or even catchy. The few Liberal and NDP ads were less offensive but not more effective. I’d say that Facebook can stop fretting about influencing anyone politically in Canada.
I’ve already alluded to the other major change, which is the absence of landlines. The traditional phone campaign is clearly dead. Door-knocking, anyone? Apparently not, at least in our riding, where--let’s face it-- because of distances it has never really been much of an influence.
And lastly, 2nd choice: the Conservatives can attribute their lack of federal election success directly to being almost nobody’s second choice. That's a sure recipe for permanent opposition!
