Top Ten Things Nycole Turmel Could Do to Endear Herself to the Public

So the worst of the 'BQ storm' is over for Nycole Turmel now, I think. People half paying attention have moved onto other things to half pay attention to.

Still, let's face a reality - Turmel's star has definitely risen. Even if Jack Layton really does return, Turmel will still remain in the public eye from now on. So it's 'damage control' mode. Turmel really needs to find some ways to ingratiate herself in the minds of the Canadian public. By which, sad to say, I mean the people in the other nine provinces. And parts of Montréal too.

So in classic David Letterman fashion, let me present the top ten ways Nycole Turmel can endear herself to the nation as a whole...

• 10. Periodically turn to Bob Rae and call out in a schoolmarmish voice, "You're the weakest link! Goodbye!"
• 9. Buy at least one housecat for each year of BQ membership and allow yourself to be photographed with them as often as possible. Name the cats after former governers-general.
• 8. Play at least one musical instrument. Or at least sing. You're party leader now, hon. In Canada, this means you have to sing.
• 7. Inhale. Hell, light up in Commons. You're a New Democrat after all.
• 6. Scream, 'Mon pays, ce n'est pas un pays; c'est l'hiver', while jumping in a half-frozen lake on New Year's Day.
• 5. Prove allegiance to Canada by taking role as acting leader of the country's second largest federalist party.
• 4. Adopt a brood of children from far-flung corners of the globe. Name them after former governors-general.
• 3. Lobby the National Assembly to have Bonhomme refitted with a beaver's teeth and tail.
• 2. Switch seats in Commons every now and then with Elizabeth May. See if anyone notices.
• 1. Grow a moustache.

Straw Polls and Corn Dogs

Michele Bachmann currently looks like the Republican front-runner, based on... well, based on something called the 'Iowa Straw Poll', which apparently has something to do with eathing corn dogs. Because clearly fifty seperate votes for party leader just isn't enough... Michele Bachmann's ascendancy has to be good news for Stephen Harper, since it stands in such stark constrast to his own 'moderate lunacy'. Harper can get precisely as nuts as his haircut will allow over the next four years and still not even approach Bachmann-like levels of madness.

But the thing is that Bachmann barely even stands out from the crowd amongst Republican hopefuls. Amazing to think that even though there are only two parties in the United States, the best one of those two parties can muster up is this current crop (and after Obama, the best the other party can do is Joe Biden). After a vice-presidential candidate who merely was married to a seperatist, we now have a declared presidential candidate, Rick Perry, who was also apparently one too. Nycole Turmel must be shaking her head at the scant notice paid Rick Perry's previous dalliances with Texan seperation while guitarist for Aerosmith, but the thing is that seperatist dalliances on the right of the spectrum are okay, because they never really mean it. It's the conservative version of post-modernist irony.

It seems funny to think that Americans could even have seperatist movements, given how united they can all stand behind the act of chanting their three-lettered name at sporting events. Yet of course if any two states were likely to have independence movements (excluding states marooned in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, because they all vote Democrat anyway), it makes sense they'd be Texas and Alaska. After all (a) each of them happens to be huge anyway, and I refer not to girth, (b) they both used to belong to other countries anyway, so they know what it's like, and (c) they're not stuck in the middle. Imagine the poor dolt aiming for Kentucky independence who looks at a map and realises he'll be stuck surrounded on all four sides by his sworn enemy.

Ah, but who am I kidding? The sworn enemy isn't Kentucky's neighbours, is it? The sworn enemy is a tiny isolated city stuck between Maryland and Virginia. Or rather, it's that man in the big house downtown. The biggest fear I have regarding 2012 is that a certain amount of Americans will be so driven to defeat Obama at any cost that they'll vote for any old nutbar with a corn dog in her mouth.

Then it won't be so easy to laugh.

Maybe I`m wrong here, though. I mean, who knows what will happen? Election day 2012 is still a long way away (fully a year - a lifetime politically), and after all a 'straw poll' just doesn't sound like it's built to last, does it? If you're really looking for long-term repercussions, you might look into a wood poll next time out. Hell, even an adobe poll would have more staying power. All straw is good for is making fake humans to hang in fields to scare away crows.

Or do I misunderstand? Maybe it's straw like the thing you drink out of - like the GOP has cut different lengths of straw and held them in its hand, and America has just drawn the short one.

You know, the one labelled 'Bachmann'.

The Angus Reid Salt Lick

It's always useful to take polls with a grain of salt - and in particular you might want to steal a salt lick from your nearest cow to get through this one. After all, what does Angus Reid have to lose? They know it's years till the next election, by which time any information contained in this reports will be the quaintest of relics. They could use a sample size of precisely 'everyone who was in the men's room at the time', and it will withstand scrutiny, because... well, because who's going to scrutinise it, really?

Yet it's a nice document to look at if you happen to like the NDP. The overall numbers show no change whatsoever in any of the five party's numbers, which is strange as other pollsters are recording jumps and drops of as much as four percent. But it's what's going on at the provincial (or in fact 'regional' level) that intrigues. TO start, their punchline-worthy Alberta numbers show the Conservatives at 75% and the Liberals at 1% (meaning that there are 7400% more Conservatives in Alberta than Liberals), and Ontario has the Tories 18 points ahead of their neck-in-neck rivals. But after that? Well... if you believe Angus Reid, outside of Alberta and Ontario, the NDP are leading everywhere else in the country.

Leading?

Again, give that salt lick a slurp or two. But yes. Their Québec numbers show a drop from astronomical to merely sky-high (35%), which allows bumps most everywhere else to get masked. But they somehow outperform the Conservatives in BC and in the four Atlantic provinces by a remarkable one percent each (38% to 37% in BC, and 35% to 34% in the Atlantic), and have a not-insignificant four percent lead over the Tories in the Prairie provinces (44% to 40%).

It's tough to know quite what to think of this. After all, you don't figure that 'former Bloc ties' would really fly in the Prairies, for example - especially where seemingly little has been able to. Certainly there's an aspect of Jack-sympathy in the numbers, though who'd have thought that someone who resisted the 'orange wave' in May would subsequently be won over by a health scare. Unless, of course, it's fear for the health of the Liberal Party, a rather undocumented phenomenon that's bound to be happening in certain parts of the country (like hey! Alberta). I can't see 'the NDP are leading in 8 in 10 provinces' as actually being a realistic sentence, largely given that I can't see them leading in PEI or Newfoundland... but then again, perhaps it took stark election results to finally convince those two provinces that one votes NDP to oppose the Conservatives in 2011 (give them a break; they're islands). And also, sadly, I can't see Saskatchewan actually putting the NDP above the Tories - which suggests that NDP numbers must be pretty-damn-good in Manitoba.

Most of these numbers are well within the bounds of statistical error. Swing them a percent or two the other way and magically you've got 'Conservatives leading in every province except Québec!' - a sentence likely to be equally fallacious.

What the numbers currently mean, in all probability, is that no one can really be bothered at the moment to state on a telephone who they presently endorse. And why would they? After all, didn't Harper promise us that a majority would rid us of the pestilence of politics?

Some of My Top-Rated Reddit Comments, Without Context

The headline's explained it. There's not much I can add... Without context, some are still perfectly comprehensible. Others, well, aren't.

1. Yes thank you Québec. You are the future of our country.
2. She is ^NOT Parliament's most ethical MP.
3. The article makes no mention of the obvious fact that the Greens suffered at the NDP's expense - that a Green vote is in many ways 'a vote against the status quo', and this time out, the 'orange tide' seemed to encapsulate that a lot. In fact, now that we've got a Green Party comprised mostly of environmentalists, a BQ comprised mostly of separatists, and a Liberal Party comprised mostly of centrists, these parties can get back to their 'core principles' and figure out where to build from here. That's no bad thing. ¶ Anyway, I've seen interviews with several other GPC members that indicate that they were aware that this time out they were entirely sacrificial lambs for the May personal campaign, and that they felt that in the long-term best interests of the party, it was the right thing to do. ¶ I'm not a Green supporter but I tend to agree with that analysis, though it increases the problem that every Canadian party except the Liberals now has, and that's how indistinguishable their brand identities have become from their leaders'.
4. I don't tend to scream "YES!" at the best of times, but you're right. Positive electoral reform is worth celebrating, whoever it comes from. ¶ Obviously I'm not happy about just how Conservative the areas that stand to benefit currently are, but democracy is a virtue, even when it favours your opponents.
5. Ya know when you talk with Canadians you have to use Celsius, eh?
6. True. With Conservatives, instead of unknowns who might be incompetent, you get people who have proven their incompetence - and yet people continue to vote for them anyway.
7. We've got the best political theatre since Bush/Gore due to happen tomorrow night. Who else is going to be tired as hell Tuesday morning?
8. There's a balance required here that I'm not sure how to strike. Rep by pop is a good thing and all, but we're a federation for a reason, and it's not entirely fair to let smaller provinces be completely swamped by larger ones. ¶ I mean when it comes to northern ridings, their populations are smaller. But you could argue that that allows them to represent their divergent interests better. The city of Toronto might warrant 23 MPs (or more, I suppose), but you'd have a hard time arguing that the interests of, say, Don Valley West are very different from, say, Don Valley East - but Labrador or Nunavut clearly have distinct voices and as such need to be represented distinctly.
9. A taste of what the next four years will be like: the MSM makes a Really Big Deal about the NDP's stance on the Clarity Act, while the Conservatives are to debate about whether or not to be completely batshit or only partly batshit, and nobody bats an eyelid. ¶ If Harper can actually stand up and say 'vote for me - don't worry; I won't reopen the gay marriage debate' then it means either (a) he's lying or (b) his party de facto accepts gay marriage. If the latter is the case, then the language of the party needs to acknowledge that. Otherwise, we must conclude that it's the former.
10. Well, there's still the 'court of public opinion'. Private member bills will presumably still be open votes. But yes, if a bill is whipped, the outcome will be predetermined.
11. I've never really understood why the idea of keeping the LCBO but letting it compete with private interests is never discussed. I mean it worked for years with Petro Canada (until politics determined that it shouldn't). The LCBO should remain a licensing and controlling board for all alcohol sales in the province wherever they occur, and in addition to that should also operate retail outlets that sell liquor, and also wine and beer if they want.
12. Chantal Hébert has, obviously, a rather vested interest in one side of the sovereignty debate over the other. But the lacklustre performance of both Liberal parties in the province (that the PLQ is winning doesn't really mean anything; that 40% are willing to abandon both parties for a party that doesn't even exist yet says more) indicates that federalism is on life support too. I think what's really happening, and why Layton and Legault are sneaking down the middle, is that people in Quebec are just sick of identity politics - or rather identity politics obscuring the actual politics beneath them. They must be sick - they have every right to be - of every federal and provincial campaign being waged on the topic of 'the national question' and then leading to governments behaving in unpredictable ways on the 99.9% of matters of state that have nothing whatsoever to do with identity politics. ¶ The implication prevalent in RoC media that 40% of Quebeckers voted for the NDP because of Layton's infectious smile and charming Joual is highly insulting - the NDP led, and continue to lead, amongst all demographics in Québec - Francos, Anglos, Allos, Montréal, Québec City and the rest of the province. If such a poll were carried out, you'd probably find the NDP leading among federalists, seperatists and sovereignty-associationists too. Québec is speaking with one voice at the moment, united in a way its traditional politics would never allow it to be, and while it's satisfying to see traditional seperatist parties humbled, federalists shouldn't declare victory just yet, because they're in no better condition.
13. I'm happy to defend her - not because she's the best person for the job but because she's currently a sacrificial lamb for a media eager to make the NDP, and the people of Québec, look like fools. ¶ Your comment brings it back to what this is really about - class. The issue is that she's an 'assistant bar manager'. How dare she try to take a seat in parliament alongside her betters, right?
14. Yes but there are two things to note: (1) an increase of 2% (two percent!) takes the Conservatives from can't-get-anything-passed to can-do-whatever-they-want. It is certainly a strange system that walks on such razor-sharp tightropes, isn't it? and (2) a vote for the Liberals, the NDP, the Bloc or (arguably) the Greens was to a much larger degree an 'anti-Harper' vote this time out. You can't really argue with that: Harper himself was drawing the 'us and them' lines just as deeply into the sand as anyone else. Harper lost by the terms of the election defined by him, that a vote for anyone but the Conservatives was a vote for instability. Since he's walking around right now talking about how Canadians have rewarded him with a majority for his stable helmsmanship, it is certainly worth noting that 60% of Canadians disagreed with the dichotomy as he presented it. ¶ Harper's majority is predicated upon quirks in our democratic system, not the democratic will of Canadians. I don't begrudge him success at exploiting the system to its fullest extent, but to call it 'insipid' to point that out is, well, insipid itself.
15. For those who are critical of the G&M or the Star for making any kind of endorsement at all... here's a growing list of 2011 newspaper endorsements. ¶ Notice that the vast majority of newspapers, who have over the past month been gated behind steel bars, fed false information, drowned out, ignored and humiliated by Stephen Harper and his Conservatives, still are throwing their weight behind Harper and his party - something which hardly bodes well for journalistic access in the future. The Hamilton Spectator, a TorStar paper in an overwhelmingly NDP city, is stumping for the Tories. The Montreal Gazette, in a city where the Tories are perhaps polling at 10%, wants a Tory majority. The Economist, which is not even Canadian, endorses the Tories.
16. I'm 36 and have a one-year-old daughter, and I think I'm actually moving further to the left as a result. Having a child makes me realise more clearly the importance of having a viable safety net to protect all of us, and the importance of fighting manmade environmental destruction. Perhaps having a child just accentuates a belief system you already have.
17. If he ever gets a chance to rise up in the HoC and scream at Harper, 'you will pay... for your BARBARISM!', I'll pay him $5.
18. In the past you have voted for a party with a proud tradition of honourable public servants. Hopefully you have shown the current leaders of the party that they can't take people's votes for granted. Have faith that after Harper and his yes-men have been cleared from the ranks, you will get your party back, and Canada will be the better for it.
19. Ironically one reason people tend to get more conservative as they get older, at least socially, is because of the success of progressives - as the years go by the entire paradigm shifts. Somebody who in the 1960s was progressive on, say, race relations is now merely 'in the mainstream' on race relations but has since found that, for example, his position on homosexuality that in the 1960s was 'mainstream' is now 'conservative'. To a degree, his opinions haven't shifted, merely the bar has. ¶ But it's really weird to consider it a success for progressivism that the more we succeed, the more conservatives we produce.

The GoToQuiz Political Spectrum Quiz in Full: Part Four

Finally, the fourth and last installment: what I believe, in a very large nutshell. Or: say it loud, I'm lefty and I'm proud.

40. Gay equality is a sign of progress. Agree strongly: Absolutely. As much as anything else out there, really.

41. The state should be able to put a criminal to death if the crime was serious enough. Disagree strongly: Nope. No exceptions. Capital punishment is never acceptable.

42. The military budget should be scaled back. Agree strongly: Both in the out-of-control USA, for whom I imagine this quiz was designed, and up here too, where military spending has been on the rise as other things are being slashed.

43. Economic competition results in inumerable innovations that improve all of our lives. Agree: It also results in many horrid things that hurt us all. But I won't deny that competition has enabled progress in certain ways that might not have occurred without it.

44. It is not our place to condemn other cultures as backwards or barbaric. Agree: Phenomenally loaded question. I am up for criticising other cultures - or perhaps to put it better criticising other societies. I think you can establish benchmarks and then according to them 'rate' the countries of the world. But obviously 'barbaric' is not a useful word. And neither is 'condemn'.

45. When one group is slaughtering another group somewhere in the world, we have a responsibility to intervene. Agree: I do agree. Death matters, whoever it's happening to, wherever in the world. I haven't looked up 'intervene' in the dictionary to see if it refers solely to military measures. But I tend to think that the word can apply to things other than guns a-blazin'.

46. We'd be better off if we could just lock up some of the people expressing radical political views, and keep them away from society. Disagree strongly: This is just patently ridiculous.

47. Unrestrained capitalism cannot last, as wealth and power will concentrate to a small elite. Agree strongly: I think this is currently happening, to a rather shocking degree. The fact that some of the world's richest have a philantropical bent doesn't really change all that much - at the moment, worldwide the gap is increasing at a shocking rate, and sooner or later it has to give.

48. It is a problem when young people display a lack of respect for authority. Disagree: Not really. Perhaps I'm not yet old enough to get upset about that.

49. When corporate interests become too powerful, the state should take action to ensure the public interest is served. Agree strongly: What else is the state for?

50. A person's morality is of the most personal nature; therefore government should have no involvement in moral questions or promote moral behaviors. Neutral: I'm not neutral about this at all, but I'm undecided. I think that a government has a very real role in promoting tolerance, for example. They should be doing whatever they can to change bigots' minds - shy, of course, of active coersion. I suspect that this question is designed to make people think of the opposite - of 'legislating morality' by, for example, criminalising homosexuality. While that's reprehensible, I don't think I can quite make the blanket statement that the questions wants me to, though.

51. The state should not set a minimum wage. Disagree strongly: I'm shocked that this actually exists as a cause for advocacy. Or rather I'm not actually as shocked by it as I wish I were, but there's really no argument for repealing minimum wage legislation beyond 'we can work them as slaves and no one can stop us!' Not to sound even more old-school lefty than I genuinely am, but I have a sad and uncomfortable feeling that workers' rights are being seriously trampled on, to a degree unseen for a century perhaps, at the present moment, and no one really seems to give a damn about it. It really saddens me.

52. A nation's retirement safety net cannot be trusted to the fluctuations of the stock market. Agree: Well, it's tough to argue with this, one would think. 'Sorry grandpa, but it's Ramen noodles for you this month; RIM underperformed.' But the world never fails to surprise me.

53. Offensive or blasphemous art should be suppressed.: Disagree strongly: Only if 'suppressed' means 'encouraged'.

The GoToQuiz Political Spectrum Quiz in Full: Part Three

And here's part three. Once you get me started, I never shut up.

27. People with a criminal history should not be able to vote. Disagree: Seems there are people out there all too willing to take away other people's right to vote. Either voting is something that every adult citizen can do or your country is not a democracy. Besides, where do you draw the line? A lot of people are arrested for minor infractions, or for laws that are later overturned. If a governmnet has introduced an unjust law, shouldn't people be allowed to penalise that governmnet by voting them out of office? WHat if that government just arrested all its opponents?

28. Marijuana should be legal. Agree: A lot of people get really passionate about this. I find that I don't. On the question itself, I am pro-legalisation, but I don't really worry that much about it at all.

29. The state should fine television stations for broadcasting offensive language. Disagree strongly: I could care less about so-called 'four letter words', if that's what this refers to. If it's about hate speech, that's different.

30. It does not make sense to understand the motivations of terrorists because they are self-evidently evil. Disagree strongly: Denying yourself a valuable tool in dealing with terrorists just seems almost comically counterproductive. Plus, terrorist actions are evil, but on the level of 'justification' you can often find hard truths worth confronting.

31. The lower the taxes, the better off we all are. Disagree strongly: There are no limits to the good we can do if we all work together, through the agency of the government.

32. Minority groups that have faced discrimination should receive help from the state to get on an equal footing. Agree: This seems like an obvious one to me. It's merely a question of righting historic wrongs. No point in saying, 'get over it', if the previous discrimination has been so thorough that it's left people severely disadvantages. See, for example, on-reservation Native Canadians.

33. It is wrong to question a leader in wartime. Disagree strongly: Ridiculous. Sometimes I wonder about the mindsets of some people, like who would even entertain agreeing with this.

34. Tighter regulation would have prevented the collapse of the lending industry. Neutral: I don't really know enough to say either way. My gut tells me probably 'yes', but I don't actually know, so on the fence I remain.

35. It makes sense and is fair that some people make much more money than others. Disagree strongly: To a certain extent, I realise I probably have to come to terms with accepting that economic imbalance is perhaps to a certain degree inevitable. But to call it fair is no more than a malicious distortion of the word 'fair'.

36. Toppling enemy regimes to spread democracy will make the world a safer place. Agree: Probably the biggest dilemma for me. I do believe that the people of the world have a right to good governance, and that an African grappling with corrupt government is no less of a tragedy than a European doing the same. And I don't fall for the trap of moral relativism, the 'who's to say democracy is any better?' cop-out. I do believe that right is right, and that tyranny is wrong. But the idea of interventionism makes me uncomfortable, and I retain a knee-jerk opposition to war. I also think 'enemy' is a stupid word here, and that we have a horrible habit in the west of using tactics so heavy-handed that any sense of 'liberation' is lost and the end result is more destructive than allowing the tyrant to remain. Still, though... I wish people didn't have to deal with megalomaniacs, and since this is a question about our opinions, there's my answer. Equivocal though it may be.

37. The state has no business regulating alcohol and tobacco products. Disagree strongly: Does anyone really believe that?

38. If an unwed teen becomes pregnant, abortion may be a responsible choice. Agree strongly: This is a loaded question, taking the issue from choice to merely choosing. But being pro-choice means acknowledging that abortion is a legitimate choice for some women, and if you're pro-choice but somehow uncomfortable about the actual reality of abortions, then you have a dichotomy that needs resolving.

39. International trade agreements should require environmental protections and workers' rights. (meaning: no free trade with countries that lack pollution controls or labor protections) Agree: This is not exactly easy. I think that the anti-globalisation tendencies that exist on the left, sometimes not far from protectionism really, are based on the notion that such caveats are impossible to get or maintain, and as such shouldn't even be bothered with. Realistically, there's probably a reason why our trade treaties are so excessively laissez-faire. But the idea of tied trade, where the tie is noble in intent, is a good one. And again fears of 'interventionism' can be cast aside in favour of 'improving the lot in life of people abroad' - which has to be a noble goal, however troublesome the process of attaining it might be.

The GoToQuiz Political Spectrum Quiz in Full: Part Two

Here's part two. Check out part one for details, which I can't be bothered to write out in full a second time.

14. If our leader meets with our enemies, it makes us appear weak. Disagree strongly: How could someone confuse intransigence with strength?

15. We must use our military from time to time to protect our supply of oil, to avoid a national crisis.: Disagree strongly: Brazenly using the word 'oil' almost makes this look like a joke. But I know some people still said they agreed.

16. Strong gun ownership rights protect the people against tyranny. Disagree strongly: Absolute nonsense. Strong gun ownership laws protect the people against gun crime. It's a proven fact.

17. It makes no sense to say 'I'm spiritual but not religious.' Disagree strongly: It makes no sense to say what makes sense and what doesn't about another person's view on matters spiritual.

18. It is not government's responsibility to regulate pollution. Disagree strongly: Who else is going to do it?

19. Gay marriage should be forbidden. Disagree strongly: In addition to health care, the other thing I feel most strongly about. That we're still talking fundamental civil rights in 2011 is mind-boggling.

20. It should be against the law to use hateful language toward another racial group. Agree: I do believe this, though according to American logic it makes me 'authoritarian'. But America is the land where an irrational dedication to individual rights is allowed to override any sense whatsoever of civic responsibility. It's also the land where people will defend the Westboro Baptist Church's right to spout their garbage wherever they want. Not me, sir.

21. Government should ensure that all citizens meet a certain minimum standard of living. Agree strongly: I can't see why we even have a government if we don't think this is what a government ought to be doing.

22. It is wrong to enforce moral behavior through the law because this infringes upon an individual's freedom. Agree: I think there's a matter to be discussed regarding moral behaviour and their effects upon others. I think that gay marriage and marijuana use are qjuite different from gun ownership and hate speech. I'll go to the wire to defend freedoms that don't inringe on others' freedoms. But I don't really have any tolerance for people who will use a sense of 'freedom' to break down the bonds we have in society to one another.

23. Immigration restrictions are economically protectionist. Non-citizens should be allowed to sell their labor domestically at a rate the market will pay. Disagree: Not strongly, though. I think we do have some horribly protectionist immigration laws.

24. An official language should be set, and immigrants should have to learn it. Disagree: I almost agree with this one, actually. I think having a set national language - or languages - is only a logical thing to do. I have no problem with some kind of linguistic requirement for 'economic immigrants' - I don't think it's especially necessary, since an economic immigrant will de facto have to learn the language, but making it a requirement is fine by me. What makes me say 'disagree' though is the fact of relatives: I think an immigrant from, say, Vietnam should be able to bring his parents over. Requiring those people, who may be senior citizens, to grapple with English or French seems pretty pointless to me.

25. Whatever maximizes economic growth is good for the people. Disagree: Again, it's the absolute way in which the question is worded. I'm not entirely against free-market economics; I think they merely need to be grounded in a respect for humanity. Which is why I put 'disagree' - there are plenty of ways to maximise economic growth that ultimately hurt individuals, society or the environment. Whenever that happens, economic growth matters less than rectifying the problem.

26. Racial issues will never be resolved. It is human nature to prefer one's own race. Disagree strongly: Ridiculous. There are millions of people who are living proof of the falsehood of this statement.

The GoToQuiz Political Spectrum Quiz in Full: Part One

So, briefly - I found a site that hosts one of the many quizzes out there that purports to place you on a political spectrum. I've already forgotten where it put me except that it called me 'classically left-wing' (I think), and more centrist on libertarian/authoritarian than I tend to be. Anyway, what I thought I'd do is expand on my answers to each of the 53 questions it asks, providing a bit further discussion. And I'll present them over four parts. So here's part one, the first thirteen questions it asks (verbatim), my answer (from 'Agree strongly' to 'Agree' to 'Neutral' to 'Disagree' to 'Disagree strongly') and a bit of explanation. It also asked you to rank the importance of the issue. I did, but I don't care enough to include that here.

1. Laws should restrict abortion in all or most cases. Disagree strongly: I'm very strongly pro-choice and have nothing really else to add to this. I'm even offended by the idea that a father should have some say in the decision.

2. Unions were indispensible in establishing the middle class. Agree strongly: We owe so much to the unions that it's a crying shame they've been demonised so successfully down the years. I think they'll probably be crushed, more or less, within the next generation.

3. In nearly every instance, the free market allocates resources most efficiently. Disagree: I didn't put 'strongly' because I can concede that at times the free market can do this and certainly that inefficiently run state monopolies in practice frequently don't. But the simple fact remains that when a company's goal is funneling profits to the top in as large a volume as possible, it's quite impossible for the allocation of funds to be described as 'most efficient'.

4. Public radio and television funded by the state provide a valuable service the citizens. Agree strongly: I think this is a great example of where the public and private sectors can 'compete' by not quite stepping on each others' toes. Let the for-profit channels show Simon Cowell programmes, but retain a broadcasting service whose primary goal is something loftier than kowtowing to Kraft and General Motors.

5. Some people should not be allowed to reproduce. Disagree strongly: Eugenics rubbish. I wonder how many people say yes to this.

6. Access to healthcare is a right. Agree strongly: There are few things I'm more passionate about. The idea that society can be comfortable with some citizens not having access to health care boggles my mind.

7. The rich should pay a higher tax rate than the middle class. Agree strongly: I think this is self-evident, really. 20% is much more of a burden for a wage-earner than it is for Mark Zuckerburg. From each according to his abilities to each according to his needs, right?

8. School science classes should teach intelligent design. Disagree strongly: Science classes should teach science. Not rubbish.

9. Marriage must be heralded for the important role it plays in society. Neutral: I don't really even understand this question. What does 'heralded' mean in this context, exactly?

10. Sometimes war is necessary, even if it means you strike first. Disagree: War is one of the main issues I'm most torn on. I fundamentally believe war is wrong and needs to be avoided. But one thing I think I share with people whose views I'm otherwise diametrically opposed to is a sense that right and wrong are not relative - that 'evil' (though I connsider that a meaninglessly loaded word) exists and needs to be prevented. So in practice, while I'm highly uncomfortable with us being at war in Libya, I think walking away and allowing Gadhafi to continue to terrorise his people would also be unconscionable. I think that ultimately what I'm starting to believe is that in lieu of other options, preventative war might be a necessity. But (a) those other options need to be considered as thoroughly as possible, and (b) don't expect me to be holding a gun, whatever the situation.

11. Patriotism is an overrated quality. Agree strongly: I have not a single good thing to say for patriotism. Last refuge of the scoundrel indeed.

12. Radio stations should be required to present balanced news coverage. Agree: I can't say I'm passionate about it enough to put the 'strongly' in there. But we were up against a similar situation in Canada recently, where apropos of nothing the law we currently have was going to be changed to, in effect, allow news sources to lie... er, stretch the truth. Now I think that so far in Canada we've been able to avoid the complete descent into propaganda that has happened in the USA largely because we have stronger laws. But I'm not against a news source having a viewpoint. I merely think they need to report the news factually, and make a clear distinction between when reporting stops and editorialising begins.

13. Government should do something about the increasing violence in video games. Disagree: I could care less about violent video games. It's such a non-issue.

Across The Political Divide

I recently read something rather bizarre - that apparently while speaking to someone, you can tell their political persuasion merely by looking at something else while speaking. Apparently, the leftist will follow your gaze to see what you're looking at while the conservative will carry on unfazed.

Probably dodgy pop psychology at its finest. But it resonates with something that has been crossing my mind a lot lately - that a left-of-centre mindset and a right-of-centre mindset are merely incompatible mindsets that most people, some 'swing voters' in the centre notwithstanding, more or less subscribe to wholesale. That entire political philosophies can, in many cases, spring fully formed as a result of basic, fundamental approaches to the individual's place in society - approaches that are probably formed at a very young age and are more or less immutable, the rightward drift associated with aging notwithstanding.

Or let's look at it this way: when a leftist exasperatedly exclaims, 'I can't understand conservatives at all!', that's probably not mere hubris: it's probably the truth. Because complex political philosophies spring from simple perspectives on life, there probably is a fundamental disconnect between 'how lefties think' and 'how righties think'. Never the twain shall meet, except of course for those centrists, God love them, who can be persuaded one way or another.

If this is true, the implication would seem to be to 'draw battle lines' - most starkly of course in the resolutely bipartisan United States of America, where lately partisans on both sides are inclined to view politics as a battle between good and evil.

You could argue, though, that the opposite should happen: that one result of an incompatibility of ideology could be to put down weapons and learn to embrace difference. After all, if we have no chance at all of 'converting' a certain segment of the population - not due to stubbornness but merely due to this 'difference in mindset' - then we would do well to learn to accept them, to figure out how to accommodate 'both sides' to the extent possible. After all, 'they know not what they do' - people on both sides of the line are driven by a sense of righteousness that they believe fully in their hearts: it's not a lack of empathy that prevents them from walking a mile in the other side's shoes so much as a simple inability to make their minds grasp the fundamentals of the other side's philosophy.

I consider myself a perfect example of this. Conservative politics seem absolutely crazy to me - really. I've given a lot of thought to them and I can't for the life of me understand why people embrace them. And yet they do - intelligent, honest, decent people somehow manage to come to radically different conclusions about man's relationship to man and the importance of the individual in society than me. I get frustrated that people seem unable to see the world as it appears so crystal clear to me, and I gnash my teeth at what seems like a usurping of power whenever enough of the populace cast their lot with conservatives that they are able to form a government at one level or another.

Which, of course, is ridiculous: our winner-takes-all system of government not only is entirely the wrong system if people's political outlooks are more or less encoded within them in stone but additionally is probably the root cause behind the adversarial way we view politics.

Political outlook can't be 'genetic': people's politics change with time, and with geography too, in that some places are resolutely left-of-centre and others incurably right-of-centre. So there is a 'learned', environmental aspect to it. And it stands to reason that people can be swayed - gradually, over time. But it seems that the best way to sway someone's mind is by engaging with them, not by shouting at them over an insurmountable gulf.

After all, there's nothing wrong with conservatives or with progressives: they merely are who they are.

Québec the Strange

I've been looking at election stats. I do that a lot. Two bizarre things I've learnt tonight about Québec and feel like sharing:

• While we know the name 'Papineau' from Wee Justin Trudeau, Liberal MP of the federal riding located on the island of Montréal straddling that island's linguistic divide, it turns out that provincially there's also a Papineau riding. That in and of itself isn't noteworthy - except that the provincial Papineau riding is in the Outaouais, bordering Gatineau and nowhere near its federal namesake.
• Richard Holden was a provincial MNA who sadly committed suicide in 2005, first ran for office in 1962 as an independent. He finished second, and also finished second as a Progressive Conservative running federally in 1979. His first - and only - electoral vicotry was provincially in 1989 when he won a seat in the National Assembly for the Equality Party - a federalist party devoted to English-language rights in Québec. What's truly bizarre is that Holden then crossed the floor - to the Parti Québécois, the primarily francophone seperatist party. This about-face was so controversial and bizarre that even his brother stopped speaking to him.

As I discover more bizarre things (the ADQ's amazing flash in the pan comes to mind), I might add them. I might slowly turn it into a 'Lust for Lists' entry - who knows?

The Political Compass: Parties Across National Borders

During the election, I took a few moments to look at the Political Compass website, which attempts to look past parties' self-identifications and plot their actual locations on a two-dimensional 'political compass' diagram, with an axis for economic matters and one for social ones. It uses the same criteria across countries (though there are only a few countries they've looked at in any real detail), which is useful for seeing if, say, the Conservative Party of the UK has anything to do past its name with the Conservative Party of Canada.

The answer, of course, is yes. Though 'parties of the right', 'parties of the left' and 'green parties' differ from one another quite a bit more than you might expect. The graphs we're about to look at were made by me based on the information contained on the Political Compass website.

This first graph represents the 'conservative' parties of several different countries. The Political Compass gives the Conservative Party of Canada (2011 model) a rating of +7.0 economically and +6.0 socially. The Liberal Party of Australia (2010 model) tops the Canadians in both measures, with a +7.75 economic and a +6.75 social. Of course, they're one of two parties in a largely symbiotic 'coalition', and I was surprised to find the Nationals ranked further to the left on both fronts, but as the Liberals are the dominant party in the coalition, it's theirs I went with. The UK's Conservatives (2011) manage to be further to the right of the other two economically (+8.0) but equal to the Canadians socially (+6.0). Based on the reputation New Zealand has, it's not surprising to find the National Party (2008) more or less equal with the crowd economically (+7.0) but far away from the rest socially (+4.0). The only non-anglophone country Political Compass plots is Germany, and its data points are just too old. That leaves Ireland, whose parties are so mercurial that it's not really valid to talk about them in classical spectrum terms. And for the USA, they plot individuals, not parties. So my data points are for John McCain, as leader of the Republicans in 2008: surprisingly, he comes out as more moderate economically than any of the others here (+6.5) and in the middle of the crow socially (+6.25). I find that a bit tough to believe. Sarah Palin, incidentally, is also ranked. her +5.75 ecomnomically is bizarrely centrist by American standards, but it's her +7.75 socially that marks her as a true conservative.

The perceived 'left' of the spectrum is a bit tougher to pin down. I've decided not to make a 'left' chart and a 'centre' chart. Instead for the UK and Canada, I'll put two points: one for their so-called 'left-wing' party and one for their so-called 'centrist' party. I'll leave it to you to decide which is which. Getting things started, then, Political Compass identifies the Canadian Liberals (shown as Ca-L) as moderately right-wing: +3.0 economically and +3.0 socially. They rank the NDP (Ca-N) as pretty much completely centrist (-1.0 econ, -1.5 soc). The strangely-spelt Labor party of Australia is further to the right in both directions (+3.75 econ, +3.75 soc), suggesting that the entire Australian spectrum is to the right of Canada's. I can't help feeling that perhaps the author of Political Compass bears a slight grudge against the Labour Party of the UK, though, giving them a believable score of +4.0 economically but a rather amazing score of +7.0 socially, making them more socially conservative than any other major party in these five countries, conservative or not. They put the Liberal Democrats (UK-D) in an interesting place, though, slightly on the right economically (+3.0) but slightly to the left socially (-1.0). This is the quadrant associated in most English-speaking countries with the word 'libertarian'. The Labour Party of New Zealand is near them, though, being about as 'centrist' as you can get: +2.25 economically and dead on 0 socially. Barack Obama, interestingly, comes off as quite moderate - a far cry from the 'socialist' his enemies paint him as, but still nearer to the centre (that ism, to the left of most of the parties we've discussed) at +2.25 economically and +3.0 socially. You'll have a hard time convincing me to put Obama to the economic left of the 2011 brand Liberal Party of Canada, mind you.

Lastly, the Greens. As, theoretically, a single-issue party devoted solely to the environment, it should be difficult to pin them down on a left-right spectrum. Yet Green parties tend to have comprehensive platforms. I'd like to include Germany, the king of the global Green movement, but again the numbers are too old. Much has changed with the German Greens in six years. Anyway, the Green Party of Canada is apparently as centrist as you can be: dead 0 economically, and +0.5 socially. As we'll see, though, 'centrist' by the definition of Political Compass means 'rightist' by the standards of international Green Parties - a reputation the Canadian Greens are aware of. At -2.25 economically and -2.0 socially, the Australian Greens are distinctly left-of-centre (indeed, they are by far the leftmost major party in Australia). They pale compared to the UK Greens (I have to presume this is the English and Welsh Greens, who are distinct from the Scottish Greens) - with a remarkable -4.0 economically and -5.0 socially, they are far to the left, in fact the leftmost of thirteen British parties on the Political Compass website (if the social component and the economic component are given equal weight). At -4.0 economically, the New Zealand Greens tie their UK counterparts, but at -2.75 socially, they lag behind. As the Presidential candidate for the American Greens, Cynthia McKinney's -3.75 economically and -2.75 socially put her well in the range of these other parties - and well to the left of the big two. With the Greens, I'm happy to put Ireland on the map as well, since whatever else is happening dometically, a Green Party is still a Green Party. At -1.0 economically and -2.0 socially, this makes the Irish Greens one of the more moderate Green parties. And indeed by the more left-leaning standards of Ireland, moderate is exactly what the Greens are.

Vote Moustache

Just a quick plug for a blog entry I did on another blog of mine (I've been so neglectful of the poor darlings), "A Lust for Lists". It's about political moustaches like the Big Man himself, possibly cruising to the PMO with a face full of fur. Strange times!

Here it is: Ten Political Moustaches

Sooner or Later, Canadians Will Have to Make Up Their Minds

"Sooner or later, Canadians have to make up their minds."

This is Harper on why Canadians should give him a majority. It's another of those annoying comments that are out there everywhere that either intentionally or through sheer ignorance misrepresent the voting intentions of Canadians. The talk around town is that 'this election won't change anything', that we'll return another Conservative minority with much the same seats as before। I mean, after all, look at the current polling stats (I've taken them from threehundredeight because the amalgamated numbers presented there seem a useful 'average' of current trends and I don't want to cherry-pick polls).

• Today: CPC 38.9%, LPC 28.2%, NDP 16.8%, BQ 8.8%, GPC 6.0%


• 2008: CPC 37.7%, LPC 26.3%, NDP 18.2%, BQ 10.0%, GPC 6.8%


• 2006: CPC 36.3%, LPC 30.2%, NDP 17.5%, BQ 10.5%, GPC 4.5%

I mean wow. That's static, isn't it? Something might happen over the next two weeks to really shift these numbers. And of course it's not the overall numbers that matter so much as the particulars of where they're located - and we can't know yet how much that's shifted.

But wow. People are right when they complain that this election won't change anything. The fact is that voters continue to return the same mandate, and parties in parliament continue to misinterpret that mandate.

Put it differently: Canadians have made up their mind. In huge numbers. The overall lack of change from year to year suggests that the vast majority of Canadians have chosen their horse and are running with it, barring huge fundamental paradigm shifts, none of which we've seen recently.

Harper sees a mass: a single entity that appears unable to commit to any one party. I see fifteen million indiciduals, and then I see very high levels of commitment indeed. This appears to be what Canadians want. Those who have to make up their mind are the MPs. They need to find a way to make this, the mandate they are repeatedly given, work. Clearly it is not working, but you can't blame the people for that. Those who sit in the House of Commons have nobody to blame but themselves.

The Parties Show Their True Colours

So about eighty percent of the world has brown eyes. Obviously the number of Canadians with brown eyes will be slightly lower than that. But what... 60%? The stats just aren't out there. But since a supermajority of humans have brown eyes, it's got to be at least a bare majority of Canadians, right? So anyway, let's look at five eyes:

What do those five eyes have in common? None of them are brown, to be sure - so they belong to humans that belong to a distinct minority of humans, and almost assuredly a minority of Canadians as well.

Yet these eyes belong to the leaders of Canada's five main national parties.

Now, certainly if any position ought to be meritocratic, it's that of Prime Minister - and, by extension, that of 'candidate for Prime Minister'. I'm certainly not condemning any of the five parties for nominating a blue-eyed white person. True meritocracy doesn't disqualify anyone, certainly not those who belong to groups that have held the reins of power since... oh, since confederation.

But even if you raise the percentage of Canadians who have lighter-coloured eyes all the way to the improbable level of 50%, then the odds of all five leaders having lighter-coloured eyes is a paltry 3.1%. And that's if only 50% of Canadians have brown eyes.

I don't really have anything to say. Except, of course, that if Canadians are looking to Ottawa to pay lip service to diversity, they'll be well satiated. But if they're looking to Ottawa to embody diversity... well, they might not find much.

This is All Your Fault, Michael Ignatieff

So as we grind inexorably toward another election, with the vast majority of the citizens of the country convinced that by and large the make-up of the House of Commons will stay the same, I find myself being forced to listen more and more carefully to a little nagging voice that's been in my head for the past year or so.

I'm speaking about the little voice that appears every time I seem Michael Ignatieff speaking on TV. The voice that says "I don't want this man to be my prime minister".

It's there; I can't deny it. I have seen this man speak, in full or in soundbite, on countless occasions. And yet not once have I ever gotten the slightest sense that I was watching a prime-minister-in-waiting, someone that I could ever feel comfortable calling 'my prime minister'.

This is not to say I feel comfortable at all calling Harper that. I think I'm one of perhaps, all told, an outright majority of Canadians who want neither Ignatieff nor Harper to be Prime Minister. And since we're currently stuck in the middle of one of history's most unfortunate false dualities - the media-fed notion that we have only these two figures to choose from as PM - I'm not surprised that larger numbers of Canadians are joylessly turning to Harper and his Conservatives as the 'devil we know', the less offensive of the two man.

Is Harper less offensive than Ignatieff? Not at all. Policy-wise he remains one of the most offensive politicians in Canadian history, and as a person he has had only the mildest sparks of personality and humanity down the years - though again that's more than you can say for Ignatieff. Plus, bad ones though they may be, Harper has ideas. Ignatieff does not appear to have any at all. None of his own, at least.

I have a theory - far-fetched though it is - that Ignatieff takes his current job description extraordinarily seriously, even to the detriment of himself and his party. While within a question of days he might be a candidate for Prime Minister, at the moment he's Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition, sworn to provide an opposition to the government of the day. In theory, this is an extraordinarily valuable function in a democracy, a bulwark against dictatorship-through-yesmen - it's a position, defined that way, that a true believe in democracy would cherish, and perhaps Ignatieff is every bit the true believer in democracy that he's trying to present himself as.

That would mean that, to use my personal favourite example, the other day when Stephen Harper appeared before the press to outline Canada's position on Libya, Ignatieff's seemingly non-stop partisan response was actually delivered not as a desperate attempt to undermine Harper's public support but in his capacity as a person sworn to oppose every last thing the PM does.

It'd be nice to think: I can't stand Harper, but I watched that particular press conference to hear how Canada would react. The person delivering the message was unimportant to me: it was Harper due to the political reality at the moment, yes. But be that as it may, I might dislike the guy, but his is the voice that matters on this topic. I hated watching Ignatieff pick apart everything Harper said and making dig after dig at a moment where a bit of solidarity would have been appreciated. There are occasions where I think Ignatieff can gain political points and respect by saying, 'I commend the Prime Minister on his action, which is precisely the thing I would have done in his place'. Ignatieff never seems to take them: he appears to define himself solely as the anti-Harper.

Whether this is a po-faced reading of his role as Head of the Opposition or his ham-fisted attempt at an election campaign doesn't really matter - it is clearly not working, because it makes Ignatieff look like a mere thorn in the side of Harper as opposed to a viable alternative. The false dichotomy with which we Canadians are constantly presented - the one that tells us the only two people who could be Prime Minister are the leasders of the Conservative and Liberal Parties - makes a very real problem for the vast numbers of Canadians, myself included, who don't much care for either Stephen Harper or Michael Ignatieff. For me it reinforces the correctness of my decision to park my vote with a third party, but for many Canadians it will mean either a frustrated decision to sit out the election or a resigned decision to cast their vote with the Harperites, who at least present a vision of leadership that is less than ginggle-worthy.

Bad news either way. But perhaps a necessary medicine? The Liberals need either to give people a reason to care about them again or to fade into oblivion. I'm not bothered by the years Ignatieff has spent in the UK and the USA merely because they're not Canada: I've lived abroad, and if any country should take 'cosmopolitan' as a compliment it is this one. But when I think of some of the more inspiring Canadian politicians out there - and I think the leaders of the three progressive parties in Canada can all stake a claim to this - one thing I see is years and years of unfailing public service. Jack Layton's years in municipal politics, Gilles Duceppe's years with public service unions, Elizabeth May's years with environmental organisations: all of these stake real claims of legitimacy that Ignatieff's storied academic career fails to replicate. In other words, you just haven't earned it yet, baby - not because you haven't been on Canadian soil but because you haven't been in the front trenches serving Canada. Or much of anywhere. There is no dirt under your fingernails, and I don't mean 'you're an élitist' - hell, I love the idea of a published novelist and Harvard professor representing Canada. What I mean is that it really is tough to avoid the conclusion that on some fundamental level you are in it less for the public good of Canadians than for yourself. That's not CPC slander ads sticking - it's the truth. That damned false dochotomy again shows up and allows us to view Harper's meagre public service record and conclude that 'all politicians are in it solely for personal gain'. But I refuse to believe that. Or at least believe that it has to be that way. When I see Ignatieff's fundamental lack of fresh ideas, I can't avoid the conclusion that he has little to say because he has too little experience out there listening to people. It seems like a cliché but new ideas are borne from experience, and from being able to draw on years of experience. A neophyte's vision of politics is always a useful thing, too - but Ignatieff does not seem like that, either.

I find it difficult to believe that Michael Ignatieff will outlive this current campaign. And then once he's handed in his resignation, I'm curious to see where the Liberals will turn for a successor. If that successor fails to inspire confidence in the public - once again - then I think this time it might be lights out for the Liberals.

And while Michael Ignatieff will not deserve all of the burden of blame, he will deserve no small portion either.

A Few Campaign Predictions

With an election due any second now, I'm not going to make any guesses what will happen election day, not yet. But here are a few predictions on what's going to happen during the month of April:

1. We'll see an initial jump in Conservative numbers - they'll jump into the forties for a week or so. Not only because the 'no-election' camp will support them (if they're not already) but also because their camp is more firmly established, and the 'undecideds' will rise (an event which is hidden in polling soundbites), dipping from the other four parties' support.
2. We'll also see an initial NDP jump, though perhaps a more moderate one. It will have longer legs, though.
3. At some point in the campaign, we'll see the NDP within five percentage points of the Liberals, and there will be plenty of talk about the NDP replacing the Liberals as the main federalist alternative. I can say nothing about whether or not that bubble will make it to election day.
4. Jack Layton's health will be a recurring bugaboo, and perhaps surprisingly it will be the Liberals who will push it as an issue.
5. Ignatieff will change his tone during the campaign, trying to redefine his image as something more prime ministerial. It might work.
6. The NDP's Québec bubble will burst.
7. The Liberals will reveal a few more Conservative scandals that that've been holding onto. They will not have much of an effect.
8. The Conservatives will largely succeed in defining the elction on economic terms as opposed to ethical terms. The Liberals will follow suit, and in the second half of the campaign will talk Conservative overspending more than Conservative abuses of power.
9. The debates will be hard on Harper. He will come across as aloof, surly and tired.
10. Elizabeth May will utterly fail in getting her voice heard.

Well, there's ten. Let's come back to this in a month or so and see how I did, eh?

The Progressive Party

Been doing some number-crunching. You want to see?

It looks like this.

It's me playing with numbers based around a thought I keep returning to again and again: that the left in Canada is divided. But when people say that, they mean mostly the combined Liberal and NDP vote. I would counter that that represents not the left but the non-right, which is not the same thing. Liberal interests and progressive interests overlap from time to time, but not often enough to consider them truly the 'same camp'. No, when I talk about the progressive voice, I'm talking about the NDP, the BQ and the Greens. Yes, many rightist or centrist seperatists vote BQ. And many rightist or centrist environmentalists vote Green. But the platforms of those two parties overlaps those of the NDP much more than the Liberals' platform does.

Hell, just read what I wrote over a year ago.

We're probably hours away from writs being dropped. And I'm not overly optimistic that this next election will serve progressives well. But after that? Well, who knows?

L'argent et le vote ethnique

I had a wonderful dream last night.

I dreamt that we did have a spring election, and that under the intensified spotlight that an election campaign can bring, the Conservatives started to wilt in public opinion.

I dreamt that the In-and-Out scandal, where the Tories have shown contempt of election law by funnelling money between the federal office and local riding riding offices with impunity, and Jason Kenney's scandal, where a partisan shill for more money to target 'ethnic voters' was sent out on official government letter head, tainted the Conservative brand so irreparably that the party, who was in no small part elected on the back of umbrage at Liberal scandal, was soundly defeated at the election that we're very probably going to see this spring. A scandal involving money, and a scandal involving the ethnic vote.

And Stephen Harper, red-faced and humbled, strolls in front of the cameras to deliver his concession speech at his riding headquarters in Calgary. Addressing Albertans, who had continued to support him and his party in large numbers, he says, "Let's stop talking about 'Albertans', shall we? Let's talk about 'us'. And it is true that we have been defeated. But by what? By money and the ethnic vote...

L'argent et le vote ethnique... Seems like the downfall of every radical politician in Canada who gets a bit too assured of his victory.

Ed Broadbent and Me

1984 was, in addition to the year of George Orwell's famous dystopian classic, the year that we Canadians finally (decisively) decided to get our own form of Thatchereaganomics, in the form of Brian Mulroney's Progressive Conservative Party.

It was also the year my grade four teacher deciced to seriously overstretch her bounds by asking a classroom full of nine-year-olds for a straw poll who they would vote for if they were, you know, twice their age. I can still remember it. I can remember her asking us to raise our hands. First who supported the Progressive Conservatives (a fair portion of the class). Then who supported the Liberals (a fair portion of the class). Noting that not everyone had raised their hand, she scrunched her face and hesitantly inquired, with something approaching shock, 'NDP?' I know I was not alone in putting up my hand, but there could not have been more than three. And I was alone in being really upset at her attitude.

Upset in the way that, at nine years old, I had already learnt to be: I had classist politics down at nine. It had to do with the fact that I was from the 'poor part of town' and bussed to the 'rich part of town'.

But here's the weird thing: there are many, many parts of Ontario where her reaction might have made sense: places that were for all intents and purposes PC-Lib two-way races with the NDP barely above a fringe. But Oshawa was not one of them. The federal riding of Oshawa went NDP in every election between 1968 and the 'game-changer' of 1993. Although it hasn't been NDP since then, the formation of the CPC has returned Oshawa to a two-way Conservative-NDP race again. Excepting the 1990s, the Liberals have never really been in it in Oshawa.

Here's the thing about Oshawa, though: being simultaneously a suburban outpost of Toronto and its own urban core, it's rather bleakly divided between working-class socialists and bedroom-community capitalist. Actually, with its eastern frontier serving as the frontier for the whole Golden Horseshoe, it's also got small-town Conservatives too. The excellent site Pundit's Guide wasn't around back in the 1980s (since, you know, there was no internet and all), but look at this amazing picture it shows of the district-by-district results of Oshawa from the 2008 election:

Could anything be more stark than that? There's a smattering of exceptions, by largely you can draw a single line bisecting Oshawa into NDP-land and CPC-land. And note the more amazing fact: not a single neighbourhood in the whole riding went Liberal. So my teacher's reaction was a bit strange.

So, come to think of it, was the class demographics. Even in the rich part of town (actually some students were bused in from Whitby too). One of the several reasons Oshawa was so reliably an NDP town in the 1980s was because our local candidate was the party leader.

I think one reason I've gone through life a pretty dedicated socialist is that Ed Broadbent was my hero from pretty much as far back as I can remember. Not Wayne Gretzky, not Batman... Ed Broadbent. A bit geeky, perhaps, but there you have it. A 'local boy done good'. Before I even really knew what politics was, I knew that this guy, who came from the same place I did, was actually out there trying to change the whole country for the better. That seemed hugely noble to me.

So I guess that's got a lot to do with the person I am today, with the politics I have. Being Oshawan made me a socialist. Having not lived in Oshawa for decades now has done nothing to change that. It's all Ed Broadbent's fault.

Related articles

• Unite the centre-left – without a coalition (theglobeandmail.com)
• With a dozen MPs vulnerable, NDP faces defensive campaign (theglobeandmail.com)
• Oshawa councillors start working weekends (cbc.ca)
• Don’t tempt fate with your coalition talk, Mr. Harper (theglobeandmail.com)
• Which came first, the Liberal or NDP line on pensions? (theglobeandmail.com)

Progressive Talking Point: New Democrats for a New Democracy

I wonder if the budget 'drama' is going to play out the way it looks like it just might... I wonder if the Liberals and the Conservatives really are going to square off on the topic of corporate taxes.

It's a worthy issue - it's the kind of thing elections should be waged over. But if that's how it comes to pass, it might have implications for the long-term voting habits of Canadians. It might shift allegiances. And I'm not sure it'll happen to the betterment of Canadians.

After all, the gambit will only work for the Liberals if it helps them peel off some working-class support from the NDP. Theoretically they could peel off working-class support from the Conservatives, too, but I think they'll have a harder time making that work. The allegiance of corporate interests and apolitical working-class 'common people' that has treated the Republican Party so well is looking like working up here too - and just as that has allowed a corporate-shill party to rebrand a help-the-poor party as 'élitist' down south, the same process is well underway here, helped in no part by the Liberals' long-term willingness to appear élitist and certainly helped by the very existence of Michael Ignatieff. If the Liberals are hoping to get the common man to see the Liberals as their champion, Ignatieff is not going to help at all.

On the other hand, Ignatieff is a more natural ally of a kind of older-money Toronto Liberal, someone well-off who finds the Conservatives' 'heartland' brand of social conservatism a turn-off. Moneyed Ontario Liberals have never been the soul of the party, but they've always been an important element of its success. If an election really is to be drawn on the terms of 'how much should we tax the rich', it's not too much to expect that the rich (and the would-be rich) will also vote on those terms. If the Liberals draw a stark contrast on class lines, it will push them well into the overcrowded left and leave fully one-half of the spectrum the exclusive domain of the Conservatives. That's a hell of a rish to take.

So it's interesting to see how Jack Layton seems to be playing it. For the NDP to stand outside of discussion on wealth and taxes seems absurd: surely this, if anything, is why we have a New Democratic Party, isn't it? And yet if Layton is really playing his cards the way I think he might be, it will if nothing else be an interesting electoral experiment.

It's tough for the NDP to fight a campain on the notion of a Liberal/NDP coalition: it merely invites the question of why anyone should vote NDP if it only means getting Liberals. But if Layton is going to attempt to approach the current budget dialogue as the 'moderate voice of reason', as the party committed to making progress by working with whomever they need to, as the party not stuck in stubborn line-in-the-sand polemics but willing to co-operate, to work within the system... if Layton and the NDP can actually communicate that message, it might give the NDP a valuable place in the minds of voters.

Everyone in Canada is fed up with Canadian politics. Everyone agrees the system is not working, that parties are failing to engage the population and that elections are failing to return parliaments that represent the will of Canadians and have the respect of Canadians. Insomuch as the NDP is just another voice in the din, this reality affects them as much as any other party (moreso, perhaps, in that their typical voter profile largely overlaps with the kinds of people most likely to be disaffected by the current political climate). But if they can be seen as an alternative to simple business-as-usual politicking, well that might see them reaping votes from all over the place and in perhaps unexpected amounts.

The New Democratic Party - the party for a new democratic system. Changing our electoral system and abolishing the senate are already long-standing platforms of the NDP. And they've been associated with the word 'coalition' so long now that, frankly, they might as well run with it - not by saying 'we're in symbiosis with the Liberals' but by saying 'we as a country need to enter an era when coalitions are tolerated and even encouraged: we in the NDP announce our willingness to work with all parties after an election to the extent that we have common ground'. Since it'd be a relatively empty threat, the NDP could avoid the 'coalition of the losers' scenario by stating that as a policy the third-finishing party should attempt to form a coalition with the first-finishing party before the second - knowing that Harper would never consent to a Conservative-NDP coalition anyway. Still, it could make it look like they were trying.

'We do politics differently'. I'm not sure that it's really something that can light Canadians on fire, but little else seems to be: corporate tax cuts, fighter jets, Helena Oda (I mean Bev Guergis), G20, Security Council... it amounts to a big litany of 'blah blah' for a lot of Canadians. What will those Canadians do? At the moment, excluding the 10% or so currently committed to the Green Party in what is to a certain degree a protest vote, it seems like they're snaking towards the Conservatives, based on a notion that at least they're in power and they haven't screwed up too much. These people aren't necessarily by nature complacent. It's just the broken-record-player din of politics-as-usual has lulled them to sleep. There is a chance that standing up and basing a campaign around 'what we're doing is not democracy; let's stop it' might have legs...

...And otherwise, let's face it, the NDP are largely dead in the water.