Canadian politics? Not too divided, just extremely small

Canada is a delight for landscape artists, bank regulators, and fans of wellness and urban statistics. It is—as it is—a very good place. Why, just this week, the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune declared “Canada Cool.” Is there anyone alive who’s ever read an editorial as extravagant and as uncritical of the US of A?

Yet, it doesn’t make me feel better.

If you have significant complaints, see that political action elsewhere can lead to genuine change, and believe that the world needs effective nations as well as smart cities, then Canada still feels small—even as the days grow longer.    

Even the way proud Canadians respond to flattery is demeaning.

Canada’s oldest progressive paper, Toronto Star, responded to the Tribune’s flattery with the headline: “Top 10 reasons Chicago Tribune loves Canada.” It emphasizes possibly the weakest cliché:

“In calling our country a ‘rising star’ among nations, the editorial says that ‘the tail is wagging the dog in North America’ in economic activity, although it is good for both countries.”

It didn’t go on to acknowledge that that busy "tail" is attached to a commodity boom—a fickle puppy, to be sure.

And, most revealing, it didn’t go on to quote the part of the Chicago Tribune’s editorial that could be of some (dare I say?) political value.

“A lingering frustration is the Obama administration's opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline, an important cross-border infrastructure project needed to move oil from Canada to U.S. refineries and beyond.”

While telling Obama to get on with it, the Chicago Tribune noted that Canadians “can take solace” in the National Hockey League’s return to the ice.

There you have it: In Canada, when your dog can’t sit still, it can chase a stick. The proud Star missed the point.

Canada does many things very well; parts of Canada are more successful than many parts of the United States. It raises and rewards first-rate writers, creators, regulators, and athletes. However, as a political actor on this continent, Canada hasn’t had a new idea since the 19th century. It makes no demands of its neighbor and asks relatively little of itself.

When we’re reminded that we’re stalled on an array of social justice indicators, we tell ourselves that the US is getting old, too.

“Small Rump”: Harperland and America, with Israel

Political outcasts often attract insulting labels—Great Britain was called “a chicken” in 1940; the nationalist wing of Canada’s socialist movement was called “The Waffle” in the late '60s. Slurs can be telling, yet they can end up being embraced with pride by their intended targets—if the targets survive. (See “Obamacare,” which may soon haunt its Republican authors.)

Globe and Mail reporter Campbell Clark's description of the diplomatic alliance of Canada, the US, and Israel—the only significant votes against the immediate recognition of Palestine as an associate member of the UN—as a “small rump” deserves closer attention. It rings true in political circles in Canada, and most likely in Europe and across the Middle East as well. But, more importantly, it may stick because it expresses a genuine fellowship.

Harper and Obama were compelled to stand in isolation with Israel because of the exceptional nature of their alliance. Americans, Canadians, and Israelis are not of one mind about the tactics of the government of Israel. However, on questions related to the survival and final recognition of the State of Israel, they have each other’s backs on the floor of the UN General Assembly.

The ideals of these three upstart liberal democracies are behind their isolation at the UN, not diplomatic ineptitude.

The United States, Israel, and Canada, especially Western Canada, are breakaway societies. They see themselves as new societies, literally as nation-builders. Their forefathers were the malcontents, the adventurers, and the victims of the Old World. Good Europeans have been complaining about American roguery and vulgarity for over 200 years. Annoyance toward Western Canadian and Israeli success has been more recent.

No people likes to be alone and, of course, should do their best to avoid it. However, for Israel to be isolated in Europe yet again and still alone in the Middle East is hardly an offense against nature in Harper’s Canada or in the United States.

Critics, of course, will not grant Stephen Harper the compliment that he’s actually representing Canada and is not, as Liberal leader Bob Rae implies, crudely driven by “polls and short-sighted partisanship.” As if you can’t hold power in Washington and Ottawa without pleasing Palm Beach in Florida and Forest Hill in Toronto.

Rae and smart circles in Canada are extremely ambitious for Canadian diplomacy. That’s fine. It would be neat, if it was possible, to stand beside the American power broker as an honest broker in the Middle East. However, let’s not confuse ends and means.

Canada’s support for Israel is not one side of an equation. It stands whether its anti-Semitic neighbors are elected or not. Canada’s foremost interest is not to be front and center in a peace process, but to help establish Israel as a safe home for Jews in the Middle East.

Canada’s Keystone Pipeline Project: Al Gore’s “Big Bird”

It used to be easy for Republican politicians to warn that runaway government spending would destroy the American Dream and global progress too. Then, along came the awkward elections of 2010 and 2012, when the whole country started to take them seriously. Churchillian rhetoric found itself at war.

During his first debate with that appeaser in the White House, Romney announced with fatherly finality that he’d fire “Big Bird.” An illusion of children and a yellow body costume would have to be sacrificed.

In not asking anything from voters with any propensity to vote Republican, he trivialized his campaign and made fiscal probity a laughing matter.

Stopping the Keystone Project that proposes to transport crude oil from Alberta’s oil sands to under-utilized Texas refiners is the environment movement’s “Big Bird.” Opposing the project generates great visuals, but it offers no strategic value in the fight to stabilize greenhouse gas emissions.

On behalf of the young science of climate change, the project’s opponents ignore nearly three centuries of science on how economies work. They insist the globe’s health is at risk and then aim their guns at Canadian enterprise that won’t alter global prices or fossil fuel consumption, neither globally nor in the US.  They single out a high-cost producer of fossil fuels rather than the cheaper sources of oil that actually allow for excessive consumption.

They say politicians have to start acting globally, in concert, while lobbying the President to divide the continent’s energy market and, in effect, abrogate trade agreements with Canada. They say corporations are polluters and that the middle class is innocent, while complaining that their adversaries are ideological.

They tell Washington politicians to take extreme action against Canadian interests and Albertans who can’t vote and look the other way as US swing states undertake a “renaissance” in fossil development.

There is nothing wrong with playing politics to save the world or, for instance, just a piece of Western civilization. Al Gore and the chief strategists of the climate-change movement, however, appear no smarter or more sincere than Mitt Romney.

Ultimately, we’ve got to do something about entitlements, hard-faced Republicans insist. But first let’s cut off PBS. Ultimately, we have to put a significant price on carbon, Al Gore concedes in the Guardian. And first let’s threaten to burn Barack Obama in effigy if—after all the proper environmental reviews are complete—he doesn’t kill the Keystone pipeline project.

Cynicism doesn’t make climate change or public debt smaller problems. It can, however, crowd out constructive discussion and serious problem-solving.

Harper’s advice to Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu

Next Friday, Benjamin Netanyahu will be meeting Stephen Harper in advance of his visit to Washington for further talks on Iran’s nuclear program.

Israel, the United States, Canada, and their western allies are trying to bully Iran into giving up its efforts to become a military nuclear power. The bullies are not always of one mind, and their collective success requires a high degree of uncertainty in Tehran about how far they will go. Consequently, many scary things get said and many difficult meetings must be held.

Matters must be coordinated because things can’t get out of hand—for instance, an unintended war. The US cannot afford to conquer Iran, Israel cannot secure the peace alone, and none of the politicians can get re-elected if they crash the world economy.  

After watching Republican presidential candidates (excepting Ron Paul and his billionaire bagman) saber-rattle last night, it’s clear what Harper should say to Netanyahu:

—Taking military action now, without US government support, would be indefensible.

—The alliance and the sanctions that the United States has put together have Canada’s full support. As the sanctions tighten, diplomatic opportunities and change will emerge in Iran.

—Acting as an alliance allows for future vital cooperation with Russia and possibly even with China. Unilateral action, however, will isolate Israel.

—If Harper doesn’t want to sound like an old softy, he can get personal: “My closest political ally is Barack Obama and if you go to Washington and embarrass him again I’ll be disappointed.”

—If Netanyahu pulls out a Wall Street Journal clipping about the delay of the Keystone Project, Harper can, in truth, say, “If you screw up Obama’s economic recovery and re-election chances by unilaterally bombing Iran you’ll not have a tinkle of support from Canada, your new best friend.”

After the meeting, Stephen Harper, prime minister of the country with the world’s best listeners, will call Barack Obama to tell him what he may expect.