Civil disobedience and postmodern politics in Canada

In the midst of the presentation of the Speech from the Throne, among Canada’s freshly elected politicians and most senior officials, a 21-year-old Senate page named Brigette De Pape stepped into the only open space in the Senate chamber and raised a small cardboard sign declaring “Stop Harper.” The Governor General talked on; security staff wordlessly escorted her off of Parliament Hill. And by the end of the day, Ms. De Pape had lost her job and had issued a press release to help the media flesh out her message.

Classic deadpan civil disobedience: a neat sign, no redundant exclamation mark; a calm presentation; and obvious appreciation by Ms. De Pape that her insolence would cost her future career prospects on “The Hill.” Fifteen minutes with Michael Moore on the celebrity machine and, as likely, a new life for Ms. De Pape.

“The Hill” spoke as one in its indignation: her behavior was disrespectful. The reading of the Speech from the Throne is the one occasion the Sovereign’s advisors all feel on the “inside,” when politics and political change is their privileged business.

There’s much that is reassuring about Ms. De Pape. In Canada, despite its almost narcotic good fortune, there are still individuals with the competence to disrupt the status quo and the conviction that change can be precipitated without waiting your turn.

Acts of civil disobedience, inspired even by petty or outlandish motives, can provoke others to look more critically at their circumstances. The Arab Spring was launched in Tunisia by a vegetable peddler who had been hassled once too often by corrupt officials. Mohammed Bouazizi dream was simply to be allowed to make enough money to be able to buy or rent a pickup truck. His personal dream will not be cut in stone—but his grievance was real. It connected directly to a genuine universal aspiration: to be respected as an equal.

Ms. De Pape’s personal dreams are likely more ambitious. However, her message is distracting and cringingly derivative. Her grievances—including wasteful defense spending, weak environmental regulation, and inadequate health care—are utterly mainstream. In elaborating on her overarching theme, “Stop Harper,” she repeated in her press release almost word for word partisan complaints that will soon fill opposition speeches in the House of Commons.

There is something significant and disappointing about this incident. Civil disobedience is a precious tool; people risk their careers and lives to employ it. However, Ms. De Pape’s cause doesn’t justify its use. The grievances in her press release are not radical or universal, nor do they need to be addressed outside existing avenues of political expression.

Her coolly executed initiative was built on—and surpasses—the extravagant and extreme protest rhetoric of much of contemporary North American politics.

We just had an election in which the social media was filled with blogs urging young Canadians to “resist” the Harper government, with a lover of words leading the Liberal Party parroting Bruce Springsteen with the cry: “Rise up, Canadians.” In the United States, George Romney, a management consultant and front runner for the Republican nomination claims the free market is within inches of being crushed. Factions pray not for enlightenment, but for better weapons.

Using extreme language increasingly seems to be an alternative to fresh thinking. Is postmodern politics merely an entertaining substitute for the politics of change?

A Trudeau Liberal equivocating on electoral reform?

“In April, the Conservatives announced with great fanfare Bill C-12, which would add 30 seats to the House of Commons, taking it to 338 from 308, to address severe underrepresentation among Canada’s fastest-growing provinces.

Under the legislation, Ontario would have received 18 new seats, British Columbia seven, and Alberta five, bringing all three provinces up to the level of representation in the House warranted by their populations.

Democratic Reform critic Carolyn Bennett, from Toronto, said her party was not ready to support the bill “without robust consultation with the provinces.”

“This is no way to run a federation,” she said. “Where is the consultation? Where is the first ministers’ meeting? Where is any understanding of how this country is supposed to work?”

When asked whether she was concerned about the underrepresentation of visible minorities, Dr. Bennett said it is equally important to “make the rest of Canada more inclusive for people choosing to come to Canada.”

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/federal-parties-agree-to-scrap-bill-to-correct-voting-inequalities/article1823068/

            In Canada, a Liberal is at his or her best in power. In opposition, they equivocate. Imagine Pierre Trudeau not being able to decide whether Members of the House of Commons should be elected on the basis of representation by population. One sure reason Dr. Bennett was attracted to the Liberal Party, back when it was in power, was that it had a leader who could make decisions without the permission of the provinces. Indeed, Trudeau threatened on numerous occasions to patriate from Great Britain Canada’s federal Constitution, without the consent of the provinces.

Today, Liberal Party that won majorities branding their opponents as lackeys of the provinces can’t seem decide where to stand on the basis of a simple liberal principle—each vote should count equally—without provincial consultation.

There is no precedent or common-sense basis to ask the provinces to agree on how the House of Commons should fairly represent the shifting citizenry of Canada.

The brutal choice for Dr. Bennett and her partisans is to be guided by the liberal logic of representation-by-population or let the loudest voices take more than their proper share of House of Commons seats. 

Restoring two-party parliamentary government

Canadian politics should be crackling. Unaddressed issues should have the Harper government on the ropes. And at least one national leader should be offering a way to restore effectiveness and accountability in our national politics.

Yet, the outstanding question is for us: after 143 years, do we still have enough confidence in our democracy to decide clearly who will govern? Whether nationalists in Quebec, environmentalists on Vancouver Island, industrial workers in Hamilton, or entrepreneurs in Surrey, do we want to elect a majority in national elections?

Policy piles up and is written everywhere—in government, in think tanks, in the mainstream and social media, and, intermittently, in political parties. Establishing a new policy or venture doesn’t need an autocrat or high polling numbers. Change, however, often does require audacious leadership that is able to renew the architecture of decision-making, the task of making tolerable solutions the law of the land.

For some time, interest in the old norm of majority government has been replaced by calls for proportional representation and the far-off European virtues of coalition government.  Each favours representativeness over effectiveness and insists that’s more democratic. North America’s great accomplishment in governance—very large, diverse, and representative national parties—would be outsmarted by a system that would include both winners and numerous losers in daily governance as well as in legislative deliberations.

However, political competition—without clear-cut winners and clear-cut losers—may not best serve our circumstances. When it comes to the price of carbon and new initiatives to balance the budget, we ask not only whether the proposal reflects our interests but whether anyone can get it done.

In a representative democracy, dissent is recognized; it needn’t be jailed or bribed before we move forward. The opposition in the House of Commons is free to oppose and strive to bring the winners to account. The losers are respected and put to use. As important, with two competitive national parties, we find out which ideas are broadly acceptable and, crucially, who won.

The Bloc Quebecois didn’t prevent the election of three majority governments and needn’t now. Today, its appeal as a safe harbour for regional ambitions stands, largely, on being inside the system, as well as being outside trying to bring it down. The wisdom of voting regionally will only successfully be challenged when federalist parties again can assemble national majorities—can govern without the daily consent of a special interest caucus.

In part, tolerance for minority government is borne of fear for what a strong majority government might do. Yet, the status quo makes marginal parties, not moderates, the king makers. A two-party system would keep both national parties—and their leaders—in the center, busy attracting and then holding the support of an increasingly pragmatic electorate.