Opposition Leader Thomas
Mulcair is a classic parliamentarian. He’s not out on the road pitching for the
leadership of the Liberal Party or, like Stephen Harper, half-listening for
trouble and half-thinking about a fascinating file on his desk. He’s a "House
of Commons man"—and that, if he doesn’t give himself a good shake, is going to
be his political epitaph.
Numerate pundits who look in
both directions note that the Harper Government has reached that tricky
midpoint. Harper is now almost exactly as far away from his last appeal for
re-election as, necessarily, his next. This is a time when people with power
are most tempted to relax, to feel at home in Ottawa and in offices full of
clever, civil, and tenured professionals.
The dangers for Harper are
being thoroughly spelled out.
This, however, is also a
dangerous midpoint for the House of Commons, a time when it also gets a little
high—when its sense proportion, its language, and its obsessions make sense to
its members, social network followers, and ravenous journalists—and less and
less to us.
The danger of going a little
crazy about not being in the team
going a little crazy with power, of course, is concentrated in the Official
Opposition, with Thomas Mulcair and the very people who treat Parliament as
their primary job.
Mulcair’s language problems
in Washington recently are symptomatic.
Critics in Ottawa easily
refer to the Harper Government with terms like “gutting” environmental laws,
“politicizing” regulatory processes, and “ignoring” the provinces and First
Nations—and as easily they promise to “restore” democracy, transparency,
heart, and “evidence-based” decision-making to Canada.
If you were visiting from
Milwaukee and hadn’t been briefed on Canada’s constitutional safeguards and temperate
traditions, you’d think that Venezuela —not Canada—was the reliable ally with
dirty oil.
Within Ottawa and on
political networks, there’s a "truthiness" to extravagant opposition insults
that slips into the vocabulary of normal, intelligent people. It doesn’t
destroy their careers—it just doesn’t play that well out of town.
Mulcair’s simply performed as
a “House of Commons man” when telling Washington audiences that Canada’s
government was “making a fool of Canadians" and was “gutting” environmental
laws. He was being himself in a friendly city.
Setting aside the unvarnished
untimeliness of arming one side of a pending decision that could restrict
Canada’s competence to make its own decisions—to meet obligations that Americans
insist on meeting on their own terms—he used language that will soon limit his
reach within Canada.
Mulcair and fellow
Parliamentarians have at least 2 years to start talking credibly to the rest
of us.
Harper’s government isn’t
really that radical. His opponents don’t have to invent a new vocabulary. There are plenty of quieter accusations that
worked in the past: "secretive," "out of touch," "centrist," "tired," "academic,"
and "divisive," for instance. Try promising to “do better” and “renew” interest in
the future.
No comments:
Post a Comment