Angry in the Great White North

In my last post, I discussed how the Liberals need to avoid triggering an election because an election right now would not help them pursue their two most imporant goals:

1. Power
2. Money

The Liberal Party has no higher calling, no vision, no soul. It is made up of individuals who care only to rule, and to enjoy the perks of ruling.

The Liberal Party is bad for Canada. In Canada we think of the two parties in opposition to each other -- the Conservatives and the Liberals. But that's not really true. Warren Kinsella observed that too, and it was quoted in the comments to my last post:

Heres Warren Kinsella weighing in on what it means to be a Liberal from his blog on June 21, 2006. Ties right in with Steves analysis.

Conservatives' ideology is their ideology: tax cuts, law and order, and so on. That kind of stuff.

The Liberal ideology is, to be blunt, winning. Grits like to win, and they've had a lot of practice at winning. They're good at it. Right now, they're miserable, sure, because they LOST. But there's no better motivator for a Liberal than a loss. It gets them to where they most like to be: with their foot on a Conservative or New Democrat windpipe, watching them gasp for air until Election Day. That's when Liberals are happiest. It makes them smile.

Now that's coming from a Liberal.

Notice the imagery -- beating up on the Conservatives and the NDP both. That's because the Liberals are not in opposition to the Conservatives, but are in opposition to everybody, because any other party, by its very existence, is a threat to the Liberal twin goals of power and money.

For a conservative, a liberal serves the purpose of contrasting his views and highlighting to the voter the potential futures at stake. The same goes for the liberal. An honest liberal or conservative would admit that, once in a while, the other side has a better take on an issue, or at the very least, is offering up something worth considering. But for the Liberal Party of Canada, other parties serve no purpose, because as a party without vision, the Liberal Party doesn't require contrast. How can the other parties have a better take on the issue of the acquisition of power and money by the Liberal Party? It makes no sense when those are the only issues that matter. The Liberal Party doesn't need opinions, all the Liberal Party needs is votes when an election happens. Best if these other parties were gone altogether in order to make the elections simple. The choice to voters: confirm the Liberal Party's position of power or...well, nothing else, really.

The two parties with truly different visions of Canada are the Conservatives and the NDP. Liberals have no vision of Canada. They have a vision of themselves, with Canada providing inspiration for decorative landscape painting for their offices.

Thomas Mulcair, the NDP candidate who thoroughly thrashed Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion's handpicked candidate Jocelyn Coulon in the recent by-election in the Quebec riding of Outremont, perceives this as well:

For the NDP, Mr. Mulcair sees big openings in Montreal, where he maintains the Liberals are vulnerable in up to a dozen seats, and in the Quebec City area, where the NDP is targeting four or five constituencies. The party will soon be announcing candidates who, he says, are known nationally.

Some observers see the province, which has been the most statist in the nation, as moving to the right. That, says the Ottawa-born lawyer who has been named his party's finance critic, is false. People want progressive change and "we are positioning ourselves as the progressive option to the Conservatives."

Strip away the partisan talk about all of Quebec being truly NDP, and you see that Mulcair is just about right. With the Bloc Quebecois and the Liberals fading fast, the old federalist-sovereigntist divide is no longer relevant. Federalists and sovereigntists are now judging parties with regards to their vision of Canada. Lower taxes? More services? Strong armed forces? Deferrence to the UN? Kyoto? Economic growth? In Outremont, a plurality found that the NDP spoke to their views. In Roberval-Lac-St-Jean, the Conservative view prevailed. In St-Hyacinthe-Bagot, the Bloc Quebecois held on, but only barely, with a massive shift to the Conservatives coming within spitting distance of taking that riding too.

In a fight about vision, the Liberals barely registered.

This is good.

This is healthy.

And not just for Quebec, though perhaps Quebec will benefit the most. Across Canada, voters will start to see real options for this country in a normal left-right dynamic. While the Liberals ruled, it was the Liberals vs the Not-Liberals. And that didn't make any sense.

Here's what I hope will happen. The Liberals will disintegrate. They're usefulness to the country is at an end. Indeed it is debatable if the Liberals were ever good for Canada (maybe once, long ago, before a lot of us were even born, but certainly not in the last several decades). Former Liberals, like all other Canadians, will look to see where their natural inclinations take them. Some will find a home with the Conservatives. I expect a majority, though, will gravitate to the NDP. The NDP will undergo the most change, expanding dramatically towards the centre in order to accomodate these former Liberals. Some to the NDP's farthest left will probably leave this less radical NDP, joining with the Green Party and other fringe groups.

Like the United States, Canada will have two truly different parties, each rooted in a firm ideological vision. Smaller parties and interest groups will move to one of these two poles, adding their views to the mix, as well as moderating their own views in order to connect with one of these two parties.

I think that's a good thing for Canada. I think Canada will actually enjoy the opportunity to grow in different directions, instead of being smothered by the Liberal Party and it's everything-is-fine-just-vote-for-us view of things. Moreover, corruption like we saw with the Sponsorship Scandal will be less likely to happen, because I do believe that the Conservatives and the NDP are more likely to be ethical in the way they approach politics. That ethical sense comes from believing in something bigger than themselves. The Liberals believe in power and money for Liberals, and you can't construct an ethical compass from that.

We have a right-of-centre party with a strong ideological foundation. We need a similar party from the left-of-centre. The NDP has the potential to fulfill that role. It has shown that it can make a breakthrough in Quebec. It can absorb a large portion of the Liberal Party vote. It can dilute the influence of it farthest left members, or shed them altogether.

And Canadians can have a real choice, perhaps for the first time ever.

All it needs is for the Liberals to get out of the way.

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