Identity politics play bigger, dangerous role in elections
After covering politics for more than 30 years and watching what has happened to our political process over the last few elections, I now firmly believe Canada’s democracy is in serious trouble.
That’s because Canada is fast becoming a nation dominated by gridlock politics — or, identity politics — that is rife with hate, vitriol and uncompromising trench warfare.
This disturbing trend was evident in Monday’s election in which the Liberals won a second straight minority victory, but failed in their bid to form a majority government or to increase their popular support.
Where we were once a fairly united country, with a generally accepted set of ideas and norms, today we are increasingly a nation where Canadians on the political left and right consider politicians of opposite stripes, and their supporters, to be “enemies.”
Where we once generally respected politicians of all political parties and their backers, today growing numbers of voters are driven by sheer hatred toward other parties.
At the same time, for many partisan voters it doesn’t matter what your leader does — think of Justin Trudeau’s blackface photos or Erin O’Toole’s flip-flopping on guns and climate change — you stick with your party.
Adding to this toxic mix is the rise of the People’s Party of Canada. Although it failed to win a seat, the PPC signals a nasty new twist to the politics of the angry, anti-government, anti-establishment voter, similar to what we saw among angry Trump voters in the U.S.
The result here is an increasingly divided, deeply partisan and polarized electorate that could ultimately threaten our democratic traditions.
Importantly, Monday’s election outcome, with virtually no gains or losses for any major party, means another two to three years of highly partisan political fights on Parliament Hill, with the distressingly common pattern of noncooperation that has marked much of the last 15 to 20 years.
Sure, most parties worked together during the COVID-19 crisis to fast-track financial help to workers and businesses deeply affected by the pandemic.
But differences are stark and the desire for compromise sadly lacking on such touchstone issues as child care, gun control, climate change, immigration levels, pharmacare, Indigenous reconciliations, government spending and foreign affairs.
Clearly, partisan politics are not new. But the current level of gridlock politics is a new low.
The fact that all the major parties saw their results on Monday come in almost identical to what occurred in the 2019 election is a sign their support has become more hardened, more inflexible, more intensely partisan and more hate-fuelled.
Consider these recent patterns: three federal elections in a row where regional vote splits remain virtually unchanged; two straight elections in which party vote percentages barely budged, nationally or regionally; four federal elections where the urban-rural divide was as pronounced as ever.
In 2019, an Abacus Data poll for Maclean’s found that 25 per cent of voters actually hate their political opponents — and that polarized voters really hate Trudeau.
That pattern continued on Monday, with a survey released last week by the Angus Reid Institute finding 53 per cent of Conservative supporters were voting against Trudeau, as opposed to voting for O’Toole. At the same time, 35 per cent of Liberal backers were voting against O’Toole rather than for Trudeau.
Because of their passionate hatred of Trudeau, many voters railed about an election “that should never have been called,” an election “no one wanted,” and an election that at $610 million “cost too much” and was “a waste of money.”
Conservative talk radio and Postmedia columnists reflected those views without hesitation and without pause. I’m surprised some commentators didn’t complain about voter fraud and a stolen election, as Trump supporters did in the U.S., given the huge number of mail-in ballots and long lines on Monday at some key polling stations.
Sadly, absent a major change in how we treat political opponents, it’s hard to see how Canadian parties and their diehard supporters can find common ground to combat the worst of gridlock and identity politics that now threaten the country.