As a Canadian, I was watching this week's federal election there with interest from afar. Turns out much of the world was too. Although I'm now at arm's length from the workings of Ottawa, I was a little surprised but quite pleased with the outcome. I'm not sure that handing the keys of the land to Justin Trudeau and the Liberals is the optimal outcome, but I'm willing to give it a chance and tend to think it will be an improvement over the past decade's Parliament. What has surprised me even more than the change in Prime Minister or the Green Party getting a representative elected is that the media here in the US has been paying attention too. They're trying to make some sense of it and draw comparisons to the American political landscape.
It makes sense that the US would be interested in Canada's goings-on. The two countries are each others largest trading partners and as every Canadian kid knows from Grade 3, we share the longest undefended border in the world. What one does matters both economically and strategically to the other. However, it might be a bit of a stretch for American pundits to figure that the veer to the left in the Great White North is an omen for the red,white and blue or giving Hillary Clinton a license to simply phone it in and claim her spot in the White House. There are, however, things that can be taken away from the election that apply here, and to most other Western countries as well.
For those not paying attention, the Canadian election on Monday saw the ruling Conservative Party (as the name suggests, conservative and very akin to American Republicans) swept out of power by the Liberal Party. The Liberals are the closest thing in Canada to American Democrats, although they tend a bit further to the left than Obama and company. Furthermore, to complicate things up north, the “left” is split into two parties, the (Clinton-like) Liberals and the (Sanders-like) far-left NDP. Then there's a regional separatist party, the Bloc Quebecois thrown in for fun. The BQ's regional presence in Quebec limits their chance of winning the government but does allow them to exert a good deal of pressure on whoever the winning party is.
This year the Liberals, a party that ruled the country for the majority of the late 20th Century, won 184 out of 338 seats in the Parliament, giving them a clear majority. They also scored a massive increase, they now have 148 more reps than after the 2011 election. The Conservatives fell from 159 to 99 and the NDP dropped from an unusually high 95 down to just 44. The Liberals got about 39.5% of all votes and with the NDP and Green Party factored in, some 62% of all Canadians cast ballots for politicians on the left-side of the fence. It leaves the Liberals young (for a politician- 43) leader Justin Trudeau in charge all the while sweeping beleaguered Stephen Harper, the PM for the past 9 years into public oblivion.
A few things can be read into this that go beyond this election and beyond the 49th parallel. First off Governments have a best before date. Ignore that and they'll start to stink just like a jug of milk left in the sun too many days. Stephen Harper came to power in 2006 largely by pointing out that the Liberal government acted like their nickname - Natural Governing Party- and were unresponsive to public opinion or outcries. He promised a different sort of government. In particular, he railed against the Senate. In Canada, bizarrely, senators are appointed,not elected. The Liberals had appointed quite a few friends to the Senate in what was known as pork-barreling. Harper promised to change that- to either eliminate the Senate, the control over the elected Parliament, altogether or make it an elected one accountable to the public.
Nine years later, he had done neither and had in fact stacked more of his friends into plush Senate jobs than any other Prime Minister in history. Particularly embarrassing for Harper, 3 of his appointees were accused of fraud, charging the public for living and travel expenses they didn't incur. One of them was in and out of police stations to boot on accusations of beating his girlfriend. Another, Mike Duffy, caused the government even more trouble.
Duffy was a partisan TV Reporter from Toronto that Harper rewarded with a Senate post. Unfortunately, as there were no jobs open for Ontario, Harper appointed the round-faced media talking head as a PEI senator. This led to a scandal where A) other media types tried to find any link between Duffy and the province he was supposed to represent and failed, other than to B) find Duffy had billed the government for questionable living expenses in that province. He was ordered to pay back $90 000 and the government was reimbursed...only those pesky reporters found the cheque came from the Prime Minister's Office. While Harper denied knowing about it, suffice to say the evidence trail suggested that he had ordered the government to repay itself to make the scandal go away. The effect on public trust of the Big Cheese was similar to that of Watergate's effect on Nixon's popularity.
Ninety thousand is a mere drop in the bucket in the federal budget but it shot the Prime Minister in the public face. People that had supported him felt he could no longer be trusted. His government had gone beyond its best before date.
Mr. Trudeau needs to take a lesson from it too. He's already promised election change so that the seats in Parliament more closely represent the number of votes cast, so marginal parties like the Green get fair representation. If he turns his back on it, Canadians will remember that not too differently than his predecessor's about-face on the Senate.
The whole idea of a lack of trust in politicians was front and center. Takeaway two- People dislike 'Career' Politicians. Although Trudeau grew up in a political household - his dad Pierre was one of the longest-serving and most famous Canadian Prime Ministers- he only threw his hat in the political ring in 2008, spending his post-High School years alternately obtaining various degrees and working as a teacher. Opponents criticized him as “inexperienced” and belittled his previous career as a teacher; the public rallied behind it. Fresh faces and ideas are appreciated by the voters, if not by Ottawa or Washington insiders. It's a part of the reason both Ben Carson and (as much as I hate to say even his name) Donald Trump are doing well in polls Stateside and the more-experienced, possibly more intelligent Jeb Bush is a non-factor despite his family name. It's also why Hillary Clinton needs to worry on the Democrats side. Being married to a man who was governor then President and then was Secretary of State herself may be seen by many as a huge turn-off rather than positive experience.
Third, people are Tired of Negative Campaigns. For over a decade most of the Canadian political advertising landscape has centered on finding fault with, or better yet demonizing one's opponents. Stephen Harper had been a champion at it, playing on everything from the public's fear of Islamic terrorists to a previous Liberal candidates time spent at university out of the country, calling his patriotism into question. One thing most of those campaigns are short on are details about just what the candidate running them would do for you if you do vote him (or her) in. Trudeau ran a largely upbeat campaign, talking about what he'd do for Canada now. and what he vowed were things people cared about- bringing in fairer elections, putting money into public transit, high speed rail service, protecting the environment, upgrading hospitals. People can understand the idea of better hospitals or a train that will take people between the two largest cities (250 miles apart) in an hour and take some pressure off the most crowded of highways; they care about their parks and the quality of the drinking water. Thomas Mulclair of the NDP, a smart but rather dour individual, wary of his party's reputation for being spendthrifts, campaigned on doing many of the same things- but over a much longer timeframe, one of decades, vowing to balance the budget first. Which leads us to another fact to pay attention to- Voters don't care about the same things economists and political scientists do. Sure the NDP said no more deficits, and skeptical economic think tanks nodded, but did the voters care? The election says “no”.
The public care about the things the government does for them. They want jobs created and if they lose their job, they want to know there's unemployment to collect while they look for a new one. They care about having nice parks and clean lakes; they care that their garbage gets picked up off the curb every week and their kids have schools they can walk to with well-trained teachers. They don't care about abstract numbers and concepts like gross domestic product or national deficit or hearing about why the falling Canadian dollar is supposed to be good for the country but makes citrus fruit and holidays down south in winter more expensive for them. Trudeau picked up on that and promised change now.
It will be an interesting four years in Canada seeing how he can implement the changes he's promised. I wish him luck and hope he can make the country greater. And it will be interesting to watch this side of the border and see if any of the candidates take note of these points... because as Depeche Mode say, “people are people.” There are cultural differences between Texas and Toronto, between the Gaspe and San Francisco Bay, but when it comes to basic things like accountability and fresh ideas, voters are all pretty much alike.
It makes sense that the US would be interested in Canada's goings-on. The two countries are each others largest trading partners and as every Canadian kid knows from Grade 3, we share the longest undefended border in the world. What one does matters both economically and strategically to the other. However, it might be a bit of a stretch for American pundits to figure that the veer to the left in the Great White North is an omen for the red,white and blue or giving Hillary Clinton a license to simply phone it in and claim her spot in the White House. There are, however, things that can be taken away from the election that apply here, and to most other Western countries as well.
For those not paying attention, the Canadian election on Monday saw the ruling Conservative Party (as the name suggests, conservative and very akin to American Republicans) swept out of power by the Liberal Party. The Liberals are the closest thing in Canada to American Democrats, although they tend a bit further to the left than Obama and company. Furthermore, to complicate things up north, the “left” is split into two parties, the (Clinton-like) Liberals and the (Sanders-like) far-left NDP. Then there's a regional separatist party, the Bloc Quebecois thrown in for fun. The BQ's regional presence in Quebec limits their chance of winning the government but does allow them to exert a good deal of pressure on whoever the winning party is.
This year the Liberals, a party that ruled the country for the majority of the late 20th Century, won 184 out of 338 seats in the Parliament, giving them a clear majority. They also scored a massive increase, they now have 148 more reps than after the 2011 election. The Conservatives fell from 159 to 99 and the NDP dropped from an unusually high 95 down to just 44. The Liberals got about 39.5% of all votes and with the NDP and Green Party factored in, some 62% of all Canadians cast ballots for politicians on the left-side of the fence. It leaves the Liberals young (for a politician- 43) leader Justin Trudeau in charge all the while sweeping beleaguered Stephen Harper, the PM for the past 9 years into public oblivion.
A few things can be read into this that go beyond this election and beyond the 49th parallel. First off Governments have a best before date. Ignore that and they'll start to stink just like a jug of milk left in the sun too many days. Stephen Harper came to power in 2006 largely by pointing out that the Liberal government acted like their nickname - Natural Governing Party- and were unresponsive to public opinion or outcries. He promised a different sort of government. In particular, he railed against the Senate. In Canada, bizarrely, senators are appointed,not elected. The Liberals had appointed quite a few friends to the Senate in what was known as pork-barreling. Harper promised to change that- to either eliminate the Senate, the control over the elected Parliament, altogether or make it an elected one accountable to the public.
Nine years later, he had done neither and had in fact stacked more of his friends into plush Senate jobs than any other Prime Minister in history. Particularly embarrassing for Harper, 3 of his appointees were accused of fraud, charging the public for living and travel expenses they didn't incur. One of them was in and out of police stations to boot on accusations of beating his girlfriend. Another, Mike Duffy, caused the government even more trouble.
Duffy was a partisan TV Reporter from Toronto that Harper rewarded with a Senate post. Unfortunately, as there were no jobs open for Ontario, Harper appointed the round-faced media talking head as a PEI senator. This led to a scandal where A) other media types tried to find any link between Duffy and the province he was supposed to represent and failed, other than to B) find Duffy had billed the government for questionable living expenses in that province. He was ordered to pay back $90 000 and the government was reimbursed...only those pesky reporters found the cheque came from the Prime Minister's Office. While Harper denied knowing about it, suffice to say the evidence trail suggested that he had ordered the government to repay itself to make the scandal go away. The effect on public trust of the Big Cheese was similar to that of Watergate's effect on Nixon's popularity.
Ninety thousand is a mere drop in the bucket in the federal budget but it shot the Prime Minister in the public face. People that had supported him felt he could no longer be trusted. His government had gone beyond its best before date.
Mr. Trudeau needs to take a lesson from it too. He's already promised election change so that the seats in Parliament more closely represent the number of votes cast, so marginal parties like the Green get fair representation. If he turns his back on it, Canadians will remember that not too differently than his predecessor's about-face on the Senate.
The whole idea of a lack of trust in politicians was front and center. Takeaway two- People dislike 'Career' Politicians. Although Trudeau grew up in a political household - his dad Pierre was one of the longest-serving and most famous Canadian Prime Ministers- he only threw his hat in the political ring in 2008, spending his post-High School years alternately obtaining various degrees and working as a teacher. Opponents criticized him as “inexperienced” and belittled his previous career as a teacher; the public rallied behind it. Fresh faces and ideas are appreciated by the voters, if not by Ottawa or Washington insiders. It's a part of the reason both Ben Carson and (as much as I hate to say even his name) Donald Trump are doing well in polls Stateside and the more-experienced, possibly more intelligent Jeb Bush is a non-factor despite his family name. It's also why Hillary Clinton needs to worry on the Democrats side. Being married to a man who was governor then President and then was Secretary of State herself may be seen by many as a huge turn-off rather than positive experience.
Third, people are Tired of Negative Campaigns. For over a decade most of the Canadian political advertising landscape has centered on finding fault with, or better yet demonizing one's opponents. Stephen Harper had been a champion at it, playing on everything from the public's fear of Islamic terrorists to a previous Liberal candidates time spent at university out of the country, calling his patriotism into question. One thing most of those campaigns are short on are details about just what the candidate running them would do for you if you do vote him (or her) in. Trudeau ran a largely upbeat campaign, talking about what he'd do for Canada now. and what he vowed were things people cared about- bringing in fairer elections, putting money into public transit, high speed rail service, protecting the environment, upgrading hospitals. People can understand the idea of better hospitals or a train that will take people between the two largest cities (250 miles apart) in an hour and take some pressure off the most crowded of highways; they care about their parks and the quality of the drinking water. Thomas Mulclair of the NDP, a smart but rather dour individual, wary of his party's reputation for being spendthrifts, campaigned on doing many of the same things- but over a much longer timeframe, one of decades, vowing to balance the budget first. Which leads us to another fact to pay attention to- Voters don't care about the same things economists and political scientists do. Sure the NDP said no more deficits, and skeptical economic think tanks nodded, but did the voters care? The election says “no”.
The public care about the things the government does for them. They want jobs created and if they lose their job, they want to know there's unemployment to collect while they look for a new one. They care about having nice parks and clean lakes; they care that their garbage gets picked up off the curb every week and their kids have schools they can walk to with well-trained teachers. They don't care about abstract numbers and concepts like gross domestic product or national deficit or hearing about why the falling Canadian dollar is supposed to be good for the country but makes citrus fruit and holidays down south in winter more expensive for them. Trudeau picked up on that and promised change now.
It will be an interesting four years in Canada seeing how he can implement the changes he's promised. I wish him luck and hope he can make the country greater. And it will be interesting to watch this side of the border and see if any of the candidates take note of these points... because as Depeche Mode say, “people are people.” There are cultural differences between Texas and Toronto, between the Gaspe and San Francisco Bay, but when it comes to basic things like accountability and fresh ideas, voters are all pretty much alike.