The Fragile Flower

The majority of Canadians are currently basking in the promise the new government holds, the promise of openness, transparency, accountability and progressivity, all notably absent from the enshrouded regime of the outgoing dictator. But while we all deserve to feel deep relief from the collective burden the country has borne for the last decade, I think it is also important to understand that this feeling of liberation will likely be quite ephemeral. The real work of democratic restoration has just begun.

Writing shortly before our election, John Izzo offers this view:

Unless the electorate is involved AFTER the election, the status quo will remain intact. Of course we Canadians should be familiar with this problem. When Harper first ran for Prime Minister he talked about creating a more open and accountable government, reforming the Senate, free votes for members of Parliament and so on.

Of course he broke almost all of those promises, created a fortress mentality and a tight run ship where no one stepped out of line and scientists were muzzled.

Izzo suggests we facilitated the process by which Harper so egregiously and quickly violated his commitments:

When Gorden Campbell, former premier of British Columbia, was running for that office the first time I heard him speak to a small group of entrepreneurs in Vancouver. He asked us a rhetorical question: "Why do politicians make promises and then break them?" Going on, he said, "Because you let us. After the election you go dormant and politicians get to do what they want to do or what those who are most interested in maintaining the status quo want them to do."

Izzo cites a powerful American example to illustrate his point. Despite the fact that the majority of citizens want tighter gun control laws, nothing ever changes

... because special interests like the NRA know that who gets elected is not nearly as important as who stays involved all the time holding politicians accountable. Special interests spend as much or more time, money and effort on lobbying and influencing leaders between elections.

There solution entails the hard work of real citizenship:

Getting engaged every four to five years for six to eight weeks is not what it means to be a citizen ....if we want our leaders to do our will on the big issues we face, a far greater majority of us have to stay engaged post-election.

How can we do this? Here are three commitments we can make. First, keep writing and calling our representatives in the days and weeks following the election. Let them know what YOU want and what you WILL hold them accountable to. Second, keep blogging, face-booking, meeting with friends and like minded people, to keep engaged in the process. Third, make it clear to whoever wins, that we know what they promised and we will be watching.

After almost ten years of oppression, we all deserve a respite. But if we want to maximize the chances of a healthy democracy and a responsive government, let's make sure that our hiatus isn't too long. The flower is too fragile to neglect.

On Faith Restored

This will be a brief post, as there are likely far more interesting things to read from the professional pundits, but I would like to offer a few reflections on the implications of last night's election results.

The past ten years have seen some very dark times for Canadians. Probably one of the darkest for me was when Stephen Harper achieved a majority government in 2011, a feat that granted him tremendous power to attempt to remake Canada in his own corrupt image. I remember the despair I felt that sent me into a three-week depression. Even though a minority of the electorate had given him this power, my faith in my fellow Canadians was badly shaken. Last night, it was restored.

I have lived long enough to know, and recent history has certainly reminded us of, the inherent dangers of majority government. Yet I choose to see the Liberal victory not necessarily as an unqualified endorsement of Justin Trudeau and his colleagues, but as a sound, deep and decisive repudiation of the terrible things the Conservatives represent. In this, I know I am not offering an original insight, but the magnitude of that rejection is what has restored my faith in my fellow citizens.

When I attended Word on the Street recently, I asked Bob Rae whether he thought we had been too debased during the Harper to recover to the point where a healthy democracy was again possible. He dismissed that as a likelihood, and last night proved his point, one that I did not really share. Given the emphasis on chequebook issues, the elevation of the individual over the collective, and the pronounced cultivation of division that took place under the Harper yoke, to say that I was dubious would be an understatement. I'm glad I was wrong.

We don't yet know the percentage of Canadians who voted, but my guess is it was higher than 2011. My hope is that greater numbers of young people also became engaged during this long campaign, and that that engagement marks the beginning of a new generation participating in what is still a grand experiment in nation-building.

I also hope that the massive trust Canadians have placed in the Liberals will not be abused, but rather acknowledged, respected and nurtured. If we have leaned nothing else during this past decade, let us remember that the democracy we have so long taken for granted is indeed a fragile construct that can be greatly compromised by men and women of ill-will. Let us all hope they have been replaced by people of integrity and vision.

We shall see. May the healing begin.

UPDATE: The Star is reporting the following:

More than 68 per cent of eligible voters cast a ballot in Monday’s federal election – the highest turnout at the polls since 1993.

That’s a jump of more than 7 per cent from the 2011 election.

Preliminary Elections Canada figures state that 68.49 per cent of eligible voters – or 17,546,697 people - went to the polls on Monday for the Liberal Party’s majority win.

Just 61.1 per cent of registered voters cast ballots in 2011.

That is wonderful news!

Decision Time

It has been, in the estimation of most people, an almost unbearably long campaign; its eleven weeks' duration likely tested the mettle of the most ardent of political junkies. Yet at the same time it has probably served at least one positive purpose for those who don't follow politics very closely: it has laid bare the true nature of the Harper regime. Contemptuous of democracy, willing to foster suspicion and incite racial, religious and ethnic tensions, the party's desperation has grown palpable. I am not sorry to see things wind down.

Ultimately, however, it has turned out to be personally valuable. As people get older, I am convinced that emotions like excitement and anticipation are harder to come by, time blunting the things that we so eagerly embraced in our youth. Yet it is precisely those feelings, along with some anxiety, that I am now experiencing as I anticipate the outcome of this election. This emotional state has also helped me realize more clearly than ever that there were largely two motivations behind this blog since I started it in 2010: a deep aversion to abuses of power, which I and so many others have written about over the years, and a deep love for Canada. It is the latter I want to discuss today.

Surely one of the most insidious and Machiavellian of the regime's schemes has been to relentlessly devalue and debase the notion of citizenship. While Harper's team was not the first to attempt this (here in Ontario Mike Harris gave it his best shot), they have had the longest opportunity to remake Canada in their own soulless ideology, one where the bonds that connect us to each other and the larger possibilities of society are slowly weakened until they break.

The low tax agenda, which erodes over time the ability to fund a larger vision, has been a centrepiece for Mr. Harper. And with it, of course, has come the inevitable extolment of the individual and the denigration of the collective. It is a formula designed to rip away our foundations as a nation, and one that people like former clerk of the Privy Council Alex Himelfarb and so many other progressives have been fighting back against. Himelfarb insists, for example, that tax isn't a four-letter word, warning that to embrace the neoliberal agenda means we won't be able to face up to our challenges and we will sleepwalk toward a smaller, meaner Canada.

But taxes are only a part of the Canadian equation that has been under consistent attack since the Harper ascension to power. The country I grew up in and love embraces so many qualities to which so many other countries aspire: acceptance, compassion, inclusion, peace are but four that have been put at grave risk by a government that regards them not as the virtues they truly are, virtues that need constant nurturing, but rather as impediments to the implementation of its marketplace mentality that knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing.

These are a few of the things about this country that I love so deeply, and I want them back to once more nourish our collective soul and enrich all of us. It is what guided my vote in the advance poll, and it is what I want to see rekindled throughout our land.

If all goes well tonight, the reign of Stephen Harper and his horde will be at an end. The healing and rebuilding of our country can begin. It is a task no particular party is up to alone, but I believe that all of us, together, can still accomplish great things.

“A Betrayal Of Conservative Values, And A Betrayal Of Canadian Values.”

That's how impassioned tech entrepreneur Frederick Ghahramani describes Bill C-51 in this interview with Power and Politics' Rosemary Barton. As you will see, he is willing to put his money where his mouth is:

On The Company You Keep

This kind of makes it easy to judge Harper, doesn't it?

More From Marg: Canada's Barbaric Cultural Practices Tip Line

Marg Delahunty reminds us of one of the many offences against Canada committed by the Harper regime:

Impending Relief?

For the millions upon millions of Canadians who have grown progressively more heartsick over Stephen Harper's systematic subversion of our country's traditions and values these last nine-and-a-half years, relief seems to be within our grasp. We can now quite realistically hope for the end of this hateful and divisive man's reign. However, those of us who have been around for a while know that upon his defeat, Canada will not magically revert to its former self, so radically has the domestic dictator altered our landscape. Neither Justin Trudeau nor Tom Mulcair have policy goals that radically differ from Harper's, as Thomas Walkom points out in his column today.

For me. however, the opportunity to start, if not anew, at least with someone other than Harper at the helm, is the basis for real hope and the opportunity to revive a sagging but hardly defeated Canadian spirit and resilience, a spirit that is more than amply demonstrated in letters published in today's Star.

Those multitudes of us with a deep love of our country are clearly ready for a partner who will reciprocate:

I am passionate about Canada. I am passionate about a Canada which stands for peace not war. I am passionate about a Canada which welcomes refugees based on need rather than wealth or religion, a Canada which values free speech, and holds in high regard our supreme court. I am passionate about a Canada where federation means a sharing of responsibilities, dialogue and consensus building.

I care about science, about receiving unfiltered information from our government scientists. I care about the plight of our disadvantaged, in particular native women and girls. I believe in the ability of Canada and Canadians to be leaders in the world when it comes to climate change, and world poverty.

I believe in the ability of Canada and Canadians to demonstrate to the world how a society accepting of divergent religions, races, and political philosophies can be the best of all countries to call home. By voting I express my passion for the Canada I believe in, in a material and positive way.

Gord Humphrey, Port Perry

A return to power by the diabolical Mr. Harper and his minions would further shred the tolerant, free and democratic fabric of this country.

Mark Goldstein, Mississauga

Letter writer Sybil Rowe is one of the millions of Conservatives who are ashamed of and turned off by Harper’s dirty, divisive, destructive politics aimed at winning votes by hook or crook. He has stooped to the lowest level of gutter politics. He does not deserve to continue to be the prime minister of the peaceful, united, cohesive, friendly, multicultural country like Canada.

I very am happy to know that more than 70 per cent of Canadians do not want Harper to continue for four more years because they know he will destroy Canada, which is envy of the world, by his extremely racist beliefs, attitude and actions.

More and more conservatives like Sybil Rowe are turned off by Harper, Jason Kenney and their conservative gang and are changing their allegiance to Trudeau who they know is a gentleman who, like his father, loves this country and would never ever do anything to destroy it.

Harper does not deserve to continue to be the prime minister of Canada. I appeal to Canadians to subject him to a crushing defeat and teach him the lesson of his life which, I hope, he will remember forever.

Girish Parekh, Burlington

Let this election be an exercise in restoring our Canadian traditions of kindness and tolerance and get rid of this wolf of a prime minister in sheep’s clothing.

John Fraser, Toronto