There is a holy mistaken zeal in politics

“There is a holy mistaken zeal in politics as well as in religion.”

- Junius 1769

One of the problems of being a political scientist is how can one be neutral yet objective when immersed into an ugly and unnecessary election campaign?

Looking back, one finds they are more likely to be in ‘opposition’ no matter which party forms the government of the day. Then there is history: for example, do you remember when David Peterson called an Ontario election for no apparent reason and the electorate got suspicious and elected the NDP? Will Harper suffer the same consequences?

Then there was Robert Stanfield campaigning on the need for wage and price controls and Trudeau went around saying, ‘Zap – you’re frozen’. Trudeau won the election and brought in controls within the year.

One wonders, given the fact that both Obama and McCain have talked about carbon taxes, if the Americans will have a carbon tax within a year and even if the Harperites win, they will have to implement a carbon tax within a year. In the meantime, Dion like Stanfield, is finding it difficult to explain his policy that the opposition have made the election issue.

One of the issues in any election is trust. Can you trust a leader who on three occasions has gone back on his word? Yet this is what Mr. Harper has done on Income Trusts, Fixed Election Dates, and vetting candidates for the Supreme Court of Canada. Incidentally, on the last point, Mr. Justice Tom Cromwell is an excellent and welcomed appointment. It is the fact Harper did not follow his new and improved process for permitting a Committee of Parliament to vet the candidates for the Supreme Court that is the issue that brings forward the question of trust.

Have the Liberals learned their lesson?

As for the Liberals, who needed time in Opposition to recharge and cleans their batteries, one must ask if they have learned their lesson from the excesses of power they exhibited while in office? Unlike the Conservatives who are a one-man band, is there a Liberal team that can work together to produce policy or are they too a one-man band? The word around Ottawa is that the Liberals are not a cohesive unit. To be successful they must quickly become a united team in full support of their Leader.

The great hope of both the NDP and the Greens is those voters who, for various reasons, distrust, dislike or abhor the two ‘old-line’ parties’ will for this election ‘park’ their votes with one or the other of them. Incidentally, the contest between these two will be interesting to watch as the NDP will do their utmost to prevent their supporters from forsaking them and going Green.

For evidence just look at the NDP’s as well as Harper’s attempts to keep Elizabeth May from participating in the televised debates. One wonders what might have happened if she was a member of ‘the old boys club’.

In Quebec, the Bloc may be rebounding and if they are, who will it hurt: Conservatives or the Liberals? As Jean Charest leads a minority government, one suspects he will remain neutral during this campaign.

Historically, Quebec has voted for a ‘native son’. In spite of the current polls, will they in the end do so again and, if so, which one: Dion or Duceppe?

Not the time for serious policy debates?

Both Kim Campbell and John Buchanan in the midst of campaigning remarked that elections were not the time for serious policy debates. Campbell was trounced, but Buchanan won.

One wonders what will happen this time as the Liberals attempt to have a serious debate on the environment while the Conservatives are doing their utmost to stay away from debating major issues including the environment, health care, Afghanistan, the economy, and national unity. True, the Conservatives are prepared to discuss the Arctic, which is a change from previous elections, and to reform the Senate.

Our elections have become excessively ‘leader dominated’, as if we were electing a President, which we are not. This has meant that many good candidates have been defeated because of their leader and/or their policy, or lack of charisma.

In this election where one would give all the leaders very poor marks for their past performance, one should take time to look at their local candidates and determine which one would be the best representative for their constituency regardless of party affiliation. If one looks at the last House, they can see excellent members on all sides of the House. Members such as Peter Stoffer, Diane Ablonczy, Ralph Goodale, Yvon Godin and Bill Casey come to mind immediately.

As a result of this election, we may well have another minority government, thus the election of mature, level-headed candidates is very important. When one compares Canada with other democracies including New Zealand, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Ireland, Germany and the United States, it boggles the mind that these democracies can make ‘minority’ and/or divided government work yet we seem to produce a House of Commons that makes a senior kindergarten class on the eve of Halloween look like a mature group.

Good local contests

We now have five parties, all of which are financed by our tax dollars. The odds of electing a majority government are not what they were even 10 years ago. Incidentally, the fact we the taxpayers finance the Greens is one reason the public demanded they be included in the debates.

Locally, one suspects the best races will be in Southwest Nova and Halifax; both of theses seats are vulnerable for the defending party. Bill Casey should be easily re-elected as an independent in Cumberland Colchester. The Conservatives had to parachute their candidate from Ottawa. It was odd the Conservatives rejected local democracy and parachuted a number of candidates locally.

Perhaps, the greatest issue in this campaign is the ‘turnout’, which has been shrinking for some time. One hopes that our participation rate will be better than the Americans in November, but it may not be given the Obama-Palin factors and their apparent charisma. One suspects Canadians are going to look enviously across the border as they compare the American election, including the leadership candidates with our own leaders and their campaign. Junius will be correct once again.

A victim of this national campaign is the Nova Scotia municipal elections Oct. 18. Hopefully, as ‘all politics are local’, we will remember the municipal campaign and participate in it!