ECHOES FROM THE MORE PRIMITIVE DAYS OF CANADIAN POLITICS
In the grand old days of Newfoundland politics — when Joe y Smallwood held t he reins, owned all the horses and wouldn’t even let anyone else near the barn — campaigns were simple affairs. Smallwood was the El Supremo of our small isle. He waved his wand and all was as he wished. Did Smallwood wish you to be a candidate in some election? Then you were so. Did he wish you were not? Then, you were not.
The Liberal party was Smallwood, and Smallwood was the Liberal party. There was a PC party in those days, and there were a few sullen outposts ( mainly in St. John’s) that occasionally dared to elect them, either provincially or federally. But from Smallwood’s viewpoint, these were just political curiosities, havens of unenlightened ne’er-do-wells or vile political heathens lacking either the sense or decency to acknowledge the benign, heaven- appointed favour of his rule. He pitied them almost as much as he scorned them. And he scorned them very deeply indeed.
It was characteristic of Smallwood’s empery that it held all politics within its adamantine clasp, not just those in the provincial domain. Federal Liberal politics were his, as well. Anyone looking to put his name on the federal ballot had to first make a pilgrimage to the 8th floor of the Confederation Building, the Vatican chambers of El Supremo himself, to receive the baptismal waters from Smallwood. There, amid the low fogs swirling outside, one got the nod, or the boot. It was a simple liturgy, remarkable for its emphatic clarity.
Smallwood regarded federal MPs much like the Sultans and Khans of even older empires regarded their eunuchs and satraps — as mere emissaries and stand-ins of himself, with as much agency as pins on a map and, as occasion demanded, as easily changeable. And there were moments when he entered the fray of municipal politics, as well. It was he who coined the term that municipalities were “creatures of the provincial government.” Vote the wrong way and the road- paving machines would depart to more compliant fiefdoms, never to return.
As with the first Eden, this paradise was fated to fall. The charm of one man bundling up all polit- ical expression in his own person would eventually exhaust itself. ( And, though but a minor point, when dealing with characters like Smallwood, exhaust the voters, too.) There came a time in Canadian politics when a new man emerged and, among other allurements, offered to renovate the instruments and functioning of our politics. The phrase “participatory democracy,” though sullied by its proximity to redundancy, was a slogan of his, and one of its promises was to break up the “ownership” of the system.
Voters should be given clear lines of understanding on their various levels of government. Federal politics should be unhooked from provincial, and vice versa. Voters should vote with a clear idea of which government is responsible for which policies. Federal parties should run on federal issues; provincial parties on provincial issues. And, in so far as it is possible, ne’er the twain should meet.
The new man was, of course, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, and this idea of each level of government being distinguishable from one other, was one of many refreshing ideas expounded in his essay titled Federalism and the French Canadians.
The boundaries, of course, will never be perfectly clear, and exceptional times may call for a mix of federal and provincial forces. But in ordinary times, the homespun proverb holds: politicians should stick to their knitting.
Which brings me to the Thursday’s byelection in Ontario, which, incidentally, the provincial Progressive Conservatives won. What was our current prime minister doing campaigning in an Ontario byelection? Was there a federal issue in the riding of Whitby- Oshawa that demanded prime ministerial intervention? Was some item of constitutional significance at play? Or was Prime Minister Justin Trudeau merely scratching Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne’s back after she campaigned for him in last year’s federal election?
Whatever the reason, it was unseemly. Wynne’s voters should surely have had the choice of making their political judgments on her and her candidate without the obscuring and distracting presence of a sitting prime minister making the rounds during a byelection. It took a lot of effort to get the lines clear so many years ago. It seems a pity, even if it’s only a oneoff, to summon echoes from the more primitive days of Canadian politics, as they were practised when Smallwood held sway.
WE HAD LEFT THE DAYS OF PARTIES CONTROLLING BOTH FEDERAL AND PROVINCIAL POLITICS. APPARENTLY TRUDEAU AND WYNNE DIDN’T GET THE MEMO.