You thought lockdown was bad? Wait for the election.
On any given day, were you to ask Canadians which they would prefer as between (x) a plague and (y) an election, you might be surprised how many would — with astonishing speed at that — go for option x.
And consider they/we are currently in the (hopefully) fading grip of option (x). It’s not from ignorance people would prefer a rampaging illness to eight weeks of non-stop speeches.
A select few, some of the population’s more gifted thinkers, would make the case that there is, in fact, nothing to choose between the two. That a Canadian election, particularly one at this time, with the desperately mediocre and un-achieving national leadership, is an invitation to depression, withdrawal, loss of motivation and like symptoms. Politics deadens people, they say, strips the joy from their lives, and campaigns remind people of how awful some other people are.
Take the Green party, for example. It’s supposed to be the “good” party, full of courtesy and manners and principles. It elects a brand new leader. For the first couple of weeks Elizabeth May and everyone else who has any rank in the party (does anyone else have any rank in the Green party?) tell all Canadians what a breakthrough this is.
They point out their new chief is the first Black leader of a federal Canadian political party, and a female. She lives in a recognizable part of the country, not out on the very edge, and therefore doesn’t have to burn whole cauldrons of jet fuel every time — and it’s often — that she heads to Ottawa and back. They emphasize, correctly, that Annamie Paul is very smart.
Then having poured out more promotional material on her than Ford spent on the doomed Edsel, all of a sudden — and I won’t recap the details here, the story is all too familiar — they turn on her like a pack of canines. Her own executive board issues edicts to her, their leader. And Elizabeth May, mindful perhaps of Watergate, leaves the hapless Ms. Paul “twisting, slowly in the wind.”
Do you think Canadians will take inspiration or uplift from such a harsh spectacle?
And that’s just one small, sad, splinter of a political party. What will it be like when all of them, as we expect, hit the hustings together?
I have seen the picture of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the teddy bear.
Some people have suggested the photograph of him kneeling solemnly with the bear was staged and could be read as a subtle sign that election time is here.
I am ashamed we have such cynics in our midst. There are none of that crowd here at the Post I can tell you. The photo would, all the same, be a powerful election image, don’t you think? And, though it has nothing to do with that picture, an election does look to be coming.
The prime minister is on the move; money and soft words are flowing. The lockdown is, we greatly hope, near its end. There is talk of grand projects in central Canada, like a “high-frequency” train.
If then we are to have an election, let me offer the briefest of tips to help you through another period of misery and anxiety.
Platforms: Pay no attention to them whatsoever. The Liberals will promise everything for eight weeks then promptly forget and discard everything once elected. The Tories likewise, but you may safely ignore the Tory platform even more than you can ignore the Liberal one, because the Conservatives aren’t going to win.
Speeches: Same as above. Ignore them. They’re all glitter and chaff, signifying nothing. Most are very boring. All are written by someone other than whoever is speaking (the grammar of the majority is pathetic).
Candidates: This is the only area in which some small hope may be entertained. With well over 300 seats up for contest in the House of Commons, there will be at least three or four, in a good year even nine or 10, candidates who will prove upon election to be outstanding MPS, and even more, just outstanding citizens and people. I often think it is the small nucleus of talented or highly ethical people who do get elected that act as a kind of ransom or justification for the rest. A few good men and women.
Confident that my colleagues will give you a fuller, more detailed and informed analysis of the election-to-be, I’ll confine myself to a few small predictions.
The NDP will be made to pay for its purchased intimacy with the Liberals over the course of this Parliament — insomuch as there was a Parliament. They will suffer heavy losses. Their leader, Jagmeet Singh, will win the Tiktok vote, but sadly I cannot advise you on this, as I have no idea what it means.
The Conservatives are going to be mauled and by election’s end their leadership will take on almost all the characteristics of the current Green leadership. This is not a good thing.
Finally, we should not be having an election at all this soon. It is immoral. There should be a waiting period of at least one year to see the consequences of all the emergency spending indulged in during the pandemic. There should be at least a year to judge how many businesses and jobs have been lost, where they were lost and by whom.
There should be a year to review the whole management of the pandemic, from early warnings to the present moment. There is no justification — other than power and vanity — for shoving the country into a federal election while everyone is still staggering from the effects of the pandemic: the biggest, most comprehensive and far-reaching event to hit our country and every other one since the world wars. We need time and space to assess it.
A decent, responsible government would not exploit our scattered and battered attention by pushing a vote on us so soon. But then …
THE PRIME MINISTER IS ON THE MOVE; MONEY AND SOFT WORDS ARE FLOWING.