Political Musings

The Canadian political follies continue. Defense Minister Art Eggleton has told two different stories about when Canadian troops had taken prisoners in Afghanistan. He says it was human error, not deceit. The Opposition suggests that Eggleton deliberately misled the House of Commons. The Speaker of the House has ruled that the procedure and house affairs committee is to determine which is true.

I also just started reading The Friendly Dictatorship by Jeffrey Simpson. His premise is that Canada is essentially a country run by the whims of just one man, Prime Minister Jean Chretien. Sure, we have the trappings of a democratic country, but Chretien holds more direct power within Canada than the leader of any other parliamentary democracy.

The Official Opposition is the Canadian Alliance Party, currently involved in a fratricidal leadership campaign. The Progressive Conservative Party, or Tories, self destructed after Brian Mulroney left office in 1993, and is still wandering in the political wilderness. These two parties sometimes discuss a merger, sometimes a takeover, and sometimes don't talk at all. It's much more random than the wind.

In addition to the leadership contest, all the parties are preparing for a by election in the riding where I live. Preston Manning, once leader of the Reform Party, which became the Canadian Alliance, has left politics. Each party has to determine who wins the nomination to represent it. This will affect the Alliance leadership campaign and relations with the Tories afterward because the people involved represent just about every possible faction in the larger struggle.

The Prime Minister has not yet set a date for the by-election. It could be up to a year from now, which will give all the nominees lots of time to shoot each other, or more likely themselves, in the foot. There's nothing like an election to complicate relationships between parties. I don't know when the nominees for the various parties will be decided. The Alliance leadership will be decided April 4, 2002.

The opposition parties are in such disarray that the Liberals will be running a candidate rather than a sacrificial victim. Alberta doesn't elect many Liberals and I don't think a Liberal has ever won this riding. It would be a major blow to the Canadian Alliance if the Liberals won. It wouldn't be quite so bad if the Tories won, but it would still hurt. If, as is likely, the election is after the Canadian Alliance leadership, the results will directly reflect on the leader.

If that leader is Stockwell Day, again, it will put him behind the eight ball as he tries to regain his credibility. The frightening part of the Alliance election is that Day could win it again. The vast majority of the people liable to vote for him in an election are already members of the party and will be voting for him to become leader. The problem for Day is that Canadians spent much of 2001 watching him self destruct, and won't see much reason to look at him again.

The major premise in a parliamentary democracy is that there is another party ready to become the Government by winning an election, or through complicated machinations under rare circumstances. One of the reasons the Liberals have won three consecutive majority governments, which is a rare thing in Canadian history, is that there is no national opposition party. Worse, the major opposition parties cannot co-operate to make the best of their situation, and end up splitting the vote in all too many ridings. Having Stockwell day win will not improve this situation.

The Chretien government is old and tired. Scandals are beginning to come out of the woodwork. Chretien just removed Alfonso Gagliano from Cabinet, and sent him to Denmark as a diplomat. Now the Government is blocking Opposition inquiries by a committee to investigate Gagliano's patronage abuses. For what it's worth, Chretien's lapdog, I mean the ethics commissioner, has cleared Gagliano.

Chretien himself has been, and may well still be under investigation by the RCMP for influence peddling in his association with the owner of a hotel that is right beside a golf course that Chretien once had an interest in. Last I heard Chretien still had part ownership of the golf course at the time of the discussions with the hotel owner. This is a complicated issue, and Chretien's stonewalling and changing of stories doesn't fill me with confidence that it's been sorted out. The ethics commissioner cleared Chretien on this as well. Once you know that Chretien appointed him, and could un-appoint him at any time, you'll understand why I don't have much faith in his pronouncements.

An effective opposition would go through the Liberal government like grass through a goose. An effective opposition would have probably won the last election, and would almost certainly win the next one. The Alliance are not an effective opposition now, and have probably begun their slide to electoral oblivion. The upcoming by-election will be the first sign of that. The Tories have a lot of history in Canada, but are also carrying a lot of baggage. I don't think Canadians are ready to trust them yet. The NDP are already irrelevant; only left wing fruitloops vote for them. The Bloc Quebecois only run candidates within Quebec, and they are having troubles of their own.

Where, oh where is a ballot marked "none of the above?"