I have a friend at law school named Jack (pseudonym of my own choice). Jack is intelligent, works hard, and clearly already has a disgustingly impressive career ahead of him. Jack is also a Tory (he’s worked for the Minister of Justice), and we like to argue politics all the time because arguing politics with a friend who disagrees with you in good faith on serious issues (in our case, mostly philosophical differences over taxation and the size and appropriate power level of government) is something that just makes you sharper for arguing your own case, as well as forcing you to think hard about your own positions in the process.
Last Monday, I got to come into class and watch him be annoyed with Stephen Harper for overreaching. This Monday, he got to come into class and watch me be annoyed with the Liberal party in general, and it’s for the same reason I always get annoyed with the Liberal party. As Jack said to me, “how can you support, even slightly, a party that’s only interested in power?”
And of course anybody worth supporting in the Liberals – Stephane Dion, Gerard Kennedy, Ken Dryden, Garth Turner, Justin Trudeau, Martha Hall Findlay, et cetera – isn’t just interested in power. The problem for the Liberals is that people of this stripe are perceived to be a minority. And the reason that people think serious, dedicated public servants are a minority in the Liberal ranks is because they are a minority in the Liberal ranks.
The coalition debacle – and make no mistake, at this point it’s a debacle – is simply one case in point. It’s been less than two weeks since the coalition agreement was announced. Since then, half a dozen Liberals have publicly stated they’re against the coalition, including that useless limpdick Michael Ignatieff. Guess what, assholes: the moment to say you were against the coalition? Was before you stopped thinking it might work. Don’t try to convince anybody that you were taking time to deliberate about whether or not it was the right thing to do; we all know you were just waiting to figure out whether or not the public liked the idea.
The sad thing is that the public could have been convinced to support the idea, if the Liberal Party had had the balls it never ever seems to fucking need. “This is a perfectly normal procedure in Canada’s Parliamentary system; we’ve just never had occasion to use it.” “Germany has coalition governments all the time and their government works just fine.” “We represent sixty-two percent of the popular vote in Canada; last I checked, that was a majority.” “Stephen Harper was trying to get a coalition government formed in 2004 and he didn’t seem to think it was such a horrible idea then.” The Tory arguments against a coalition government were so hypocritical and base and just plain stupid that it should have been easy: just get everybody you can to a podium somewhere and let them take turns making the Tories look like asshats.
Except that didn’t happen, did it? It didn’t happen because the Grits didn’t want to get on board and risk their asses, precisely because most of them never want to risk their asses. It didn’t happen for the same reason Stephane Dion’s leadership collapsed: precious few in the party were willing to step up and go to bat for the team, not when it would get in the way of their own political futures. (The idea that stepping up and fighting on principle can create a political future is foreign to these idiots, I swear.)
It’s a party full of Liebermans, a collection of spineless twats with beliefs so vaguely defined that they can mean anything and be anything except something. People have blamed Stephane Dion’s image for being the reason why the Conservatives came out ahead in the last election, but that’s not it at all – when people saw Dion in the debates, they liked him more. The problem with the Liberal Party is that people think they’re weasels, and they know that the Tories stand for something. They might not agree with the Tories on most things, but at least, they figure, the Tories are neutered by Canada’s general political beliefs. (Whether or not this would be the case in the instance of a Tory majority government is up for debate.)
In the choice between “fuck you” and “eh,” people will choose “fuck you” more often than “eh.” That the Liberals still don’t get this is one of the reasons their party is gradually dying.
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I’ve learned most of what I know about Canadian politics from your blogs. The situation with the Liberal Party in Canada sounds like the Democrats in the US, where they did not stand up to Bush and in general haven’t been a very strong, decisive group. Of course, now we have Obama so perhaps that will change.
I support Jean Charest for leader of the Liberal Party of Canada.
I suspect a large part of it is a display of the fatal flaw of being _the_ political party in a country for a long period of time. You still get people joining because they support the ideals that party purports to represent, but the party also fills up with people who are politicians because, first and foremost, they want to be politicians. You’ll always get people going into politics mainly for the power, its just that when only one party is seen as the way to the top job, that party well attract a huge majority of these types.
I, too, know next to nothing about Canadian politics and the people involved. It would be smack dab at nothing except for what I read here.
And I can’t agree more with Ken B’s comment that your Liberal Party sound exactly like our Democrats.
Our Dems took over the majorities on both houses two years ago, brought in in large part because teh majority of the country was disgusted with Bush et al and wanted SOMEbody to rein him in.
So naturally the Dems take impeachment off the table, cave on immunity for the telecom companies and generally give up whenever a Republican even hints that they might filibuster something or that somebody somewhere might not like what the Dems do.
It’s pretty disheartening, actually, and repeatedly leaves me wondering when enough folks in the Dem party will get a clue and realize it doesn’t matter if someone will say bad things about you if what you’re doing is popular.
You have just created the perfect phrase to describe Canadian politics to Americans. “The Liberal party is a party full of Liebermans.” That is absolutely perfect.
MGK: It sounds like you folks are starting to develop a political ratchet. Hopefully your parliamentary system will give you an easier escape vector than those of us trapped in US bipartisanship.
Ken B: It won’t change.
Sean: Democrats don’t cave to Republicans because they’re afraid the voters won’t like it. They defy their voters because they’re not afraid that they’ll lose votes for it. See Stop Me Before I Vote Again for the full story.
“– The problem with the Liberal Party is that people think they’re weasels, and they know that the Tories stand for something. They might not agree with the Tories on most things, but at least, they figure, the Tories are neutered by Canada’s general political beliefs. (Whether or not this would be the case in the instance of a Tory majority government is up for debate.) –”
Yeah, so that’s exactly how the Democrats lost their majority in ’94 and again in ’02. Even if the Republicans stand for corruption, stupidity, religious lunacy, endless war, and making the poor shoulder the burden for the rich guy’s tax cut, at least they’re reliable.
Republicans blew a ton of political capital on Terri Shavio – a ten-years-and-counting comatose vegetable – and while people can accuse the GOP of being blood sucking opportunists or fascist thugs for their efforts at least no one can say they’re surprised which side of the issue the landed on.
Democrats will sing from the rafters about how they’re against Iraq and for the environment and all about women’s reproductive rights, then waffle and stagger and cave to the next GOP crap legislation that comes rolling down the pipe.
It’s all a giant pile of stupid.
Great good god, Canadian politics is such a wonderful clusterfuck.
I’m thinking of spending a few months working in Canada but I’m beginning to question my own stubbornness on this one.
Canada is still like America but better, yes?
“Canada is still like America but better, yes?”
Depends on your point of view, and honestly, the provinces vary quite a bit. Depends where to and where from your moving.
The coalition’s utter fucking failure to explain itself properly simply boggles my mind. They had Harper by the balls. All they had to do was sell their case to Canadians, which admittedly meant having to provide the kind of civics education which most Canadians have apparently not ever gotten. Nobody was required to like the idea of the coalition, but it is legal and it is constitutional, and as you’ve said works perfectly well everywhere else.
They had more than a week to do all this, and if they had properly utilized their clout Harper might not have dared ask the GG to prorogue Parliament. If he had and if she acquiesced, the opposition would have been able to portray him as a Thief-in-Chief the likes of which George W. Bush could only aspire to be.
I cannot for the life of me imagine why this did not happen. They snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, and we stand a chance of going to YET ANOTHER election in a few months because of it, and public opinion is apparently so bad that Harper could get his majority despite having forever alienated Quebec.
You know something? I have to agree completely with the title of this blog post. There Is No Thing That The Liberal Party Cannot Fuck Up.
Its things like this that make you wonder if either the Liberal Party in Canada or the Democrat Party in the USA is actually working in the left wing’s best interest or if they’ve just been infiltrated by their right-wing counterparts to merely play a role for their opposition.
Looks like the Liberals have found the answer to their woes: Michael Ignatieff. Whose picture is actually in the dictionary under “weasel.” Bloody fucking hell, the Grits aren’t just stupid cowards, they’re bloodthirsty mendacious stupid cowards. So Ignatieff won’t push the coalition, but he will “force concessions” from the Tories without the assistance of the NDP or the BQ, and without the threat of bringing down the government. Oh, yeah, that will work. As will rebranding the Liberals as the party headed by someone who’s been on every side of every issue, sometimes simultaneously, and who couldn’t be bothered to live in Canada for what, 27 years? Enjoy your eventual Conservative majority, folks.
I can feel the Ignatieff-hate waves drifting west towards Victoria.
01d55- I have read the first couple chapters of that book there, and I think it is oversimplifying the issue immensely. On civil rights issues the country has moved to the left a lot; a conservative 20 year old probably is more accepting of blacks, gays, Muslims, etc. than a liberal of the 1970s. In general both sides do a lot of “the politicians don’t really represent us” bitching because they are idealists and politicians play the game.
“As Jack said to me, “how can you support, even slightly, a party that’s only interested in power?””
I’ll take your word for it that Jack is interesting to argue with, but that quote does not exactly support it…
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