Coalition Talk Kills?
June 10, 2010 | 1 Comment
Recent coalition talk between the Liberals and New Democrats has once again shown how stilted our political imagination can be. Even hypothetical or tentative proposals are treated like radioactive waste by the party leadership. A recent poll drove home the central and troubling consequence of this approach: Canadians like the idea of cooperation, but they do not agree on what it would look like. The reason that they do not agree is because they do not know what a coalition might look like. They understand the idea of a coalition in abstract, including some of its potential variants, but they cannot imagine how it would apply to our current political situation.
For every historical example of a successful coalition or other cooperation agreement, opponents can conjure a persuasive reason why that situation was different from this situation. A coalition government might have been necessary during the World Wars, for instance, but those conflicts gave the government a sense of purpose that the Liberals and New Democrats do not share today. The result: two hands trying to wield the levers of government at once. A coalition government might work for the British, but their political situation is quite different from ours. The list could easily go on.
This is not the first time this ugly Canadian syndrome has arisen. We seem incapable of genuine and honest acts of political imagination. When a new political challenge stumps us, we first look abroad and eventually cobble together a solution that combines “best practices”. This approach is smart and it often works, but what it lacks is something which we should not ignore. It does not inspire nor does it motivate, it solves problems without reshaping the conditions which caused the problem. It also leaves us vulnerable to challenges unique to Canada or which arise here first.
We have risen to the call before, but we are now increasingly reticent to do so. My point here is not to raise the now familiar thesis of the new Canadian nationalists (think Andrew Cohen, Brian Lee Crowley and Rudyard Griffiths) nor that of their ideological ancestors (think George Grant and Mel Hurtig). This is not a question of returning to some past historical glory, but of moving forward with a common sense that this country remains under construction and that we have plenty of resources with which to build it.
A coalition government might or might not be part of Canada’s political future. Whether one is formed will depend on myriad conditions, but what is certain is that we will close this option of for ourselves unless we begin rehabilitating our badly atrophied ability to imagine alternative political futures for ourselves. We should not be afraid of learning from others about their experiences and hearing their advice, but we should not do so at the exclusion of our own. This we cannot do unless we break with this trend of not speaking seriously about real options our political leaders could choose from, including a coalition.
I understand the kinds political pressures which keep the Liberals and New Democrats from even mentioning the kinds of arrangement which could be reached between them. They fear the wrath of a Prime Minister who accused them of plotting to break up Canada with the Bloc Québecois in early December 2008. To blame is a political climate in which cooperation is necessarily conspiracy. Columnists in the major newspapers and influential political bloggers have done their best to make clear that a coalition would be a legitimate option, but until this country’s political leaders start acting like anything more than schoolyard bullies, political change remains unlikely.
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One Response to “Coalition Talk Kills?”
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June 10th, 2010 @ 1:00 pm
Agreed. There’s a real lack of courage and vision on display.
But, dear god, you name-check Mel Hurtig? Is that even allowed?
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