Proroguing the fall out...

I took the time to read my local newspaper last night. No, it wasn't the Globe and Mail or the New York Times, just a lowly, local rag. There was good news and bad news. The good news is that finally, Canadians are passionate about Canadian politics - this truly is new considering we had the lowest voter turn out ever in our last elections! The letters to the editor took up two whole pages and dealt exclusively with the political situation.

The bad news is that once you get Canadians passionate about anything (and, believe me, our passion threshold is pretty high - it takes a lot to override the calm, civilized, diffident, hey, let's be frank, boring, demeanour, we are noted for, eh?), whether it is hockey, NFL football, a great bargain, or, in this case, politics, rationality seems to flit conveniently out the window. Perhaps we are so unused to passion that we aren't that good at tempering it with reason.

Actually, let me amend that slightly, and I am trying my hardest to be fair about this, but those who wrote in to the newspaper opposed to the coalition and pro Stephen Harper, were vitriolic in their prose, failing to back it up with much - it seemed like they had swallowed Stephen Harper's rhetoric, hook, line and sinker, and were churning it back out with a lot of emotion but not much thought. Most distressing was one writer who obliquely threatened armed revolt if the coalition went through!

On the other sides, and there were at least two, some semblance of basing your statements on facts did come into play. There was middle ground, covered by the professor of political science who explained that, within our constitution, a coalition government was not illegal, nor was it undemocratic as those participating were duly elected and represented more than half of the electors. On the side of the coalition, the tone was much more of a, "come and let us reason together". Equally adamant about their stance, but without the divisive bitterness and much more conciliatory.

Almost as distressing as the angry tone of the letters, was the obvious ignorance about our parliamentary system of government. Many pro-Harperites seemed to believe that a coalition government was "undemocratic" because Stephen Harper had been elected Prime Minister in the recent elections! This is flat out incorrect - wrong, wrong, wrong. They are seeing Canadian politics through an American Presidential election filter. The way it works, my friends, is that we the people elect those we want to represent us. The party with the most MPs gets to "form a government", but in order to rule, it must negotiate with those other MPs, of a different political stripe, who also have the right to be there, make decisions, and rule. It's all about sharing power - especially when the Prime Minister's party did NOT win a majority of the seats in parliament, as is the case with the Conservatives.

Most disturbing of all, was the divisiveness that came across in the pro-Harper letters, they reflected what I had heard in Stephen Harper's speeches. There was no room for negotiation, no admission of any failure on Harper's part to engage the opposition parties. It went so quickly to an us/them mentality that is frightening. It does not bode well for the hard times ahead where we will need everyone on board if we are to survive with our civilization, not to mention our civility, in tact.

And let us not take these things lightly. Before the horrors of Naziism, Germany was considered a highly civilized society, but the hard times of the depression and the punitive measures imposed after World War I created a breeding ground for vile thoughts later birthed as even more vile deeds. An atmosphere of us / them, of blame and of finger pointing and fear prevailed.

When the leader of our country vilifies one part of the country he is supposed to be leading, this can increase divisiveness. When SH points at the Bloc and says outright that they are unCanadian, that the coalition is setting the stage for Canada's destruction, that it will pull all the money from the West and pour it into Quebec, he is setting the stage for the kind of divisiveness, and suspicion that precedes outright hatred. Is he purposefully playing into the Quebec and / or Western separatists' / sovreignists' hands? What more evidence is needed by the majority of Quebecers who voted for the Bloc that the rest of Canada does not want to hear them, that they have no voice in Canada?

Now that Harper has been given his "get out of jail free" card, let's hope he puts the time to good use and tries to undo some of the damage he has done to Canadian unity.