Category: New

Listening to Justin Trudeau, MP, son of the late Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, the other day, he posed a challenge for Canada’s 150^th birthday that will take place in 2017. He explained that it would be an important year for our country. He suggested that it would be an ideal year to target setting a stronger identity for Canadians, new directions in politics and a more positive future.

That could be excellent timing. Setting new directions in Canadian politics is certainly overdue. Our politics have been going down a steep ramp into American style politics for too many years. While we learn much of our political communications techniques from south of the border, we have no need for the nastiness, the corruption, the questionable ethics, and the stifling of ideas and opportunity practiced so blatantly by our American cousins.

The reality is that there is no question that new directions take time to decide. It is a process that is not safe to rush. To reframe our country takes a long stretch of serious thought, discussion, consensus and a high level of agreement. We have no such process in place today. We will not agree on the process overnight.

But Canada must find the beginning of change. We need to find a process that will work for us. We need people to stand up and be counted. We need voices. We need books and blogs and scripts and magazine articles and newspaper opinion pieces and talk show discussion. No one person has the ideas alone. No one person can accomplish what must be accomplished.

It is likely that we need a constituent assembly. This would be an elected assembly of citizens from across Canada, chosen for their interest, expertise, determination and willingness to meet, discuss, compromise, challenge and bring forward a means to make our country more progressive, more democratic, more sensitive to the needs of our citizens and to meeting the needs of future generations of Canadians. How this assembly is elected, its mandate, the pressures it will have to abide and the time frames for it to meet and discuss are open to discussion.

We have to allow politicians to have a say, because they are our voice, but this is not what we elect them to federal or provincial office to discuss. Theirs is a finite term of office and a constituent assembly deals with a responsibility to the future.

Once the constituent assembly has issued a report, it must be open to discussion and amendment. It must be able to test its ideas in public opinion. If it is autocratic, it will fail. If it vacillates, it will fail. If it fails to communicate with Canadians, it will fail. The greatest challenge is to succeed.

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Are you old enough to remember when children sang the ditty: “The 24^th of May, the Queen’s birthday. If we don’t get a holiday, we’ll all run away”? Or if a bit younger you might remember it as “The 24^th of May, firecracker day. If we don’t get a holiday, we’ll all run away.”

The Harper Conservative government chose the eve of this celebration of Queen Victoria to announce that the royals are again coming to visit their Canadian subjects. Queen Elizabeth and her husband intend to so honor us. There are many Canadians who do not share in the enthusiasm for this outmoded demonstration of fealty. It is not only inappropriate in the 21^st Century but it sends a very wrong message to everybody as to what we are as Canadians.

The fact of being a Canadian sovereign is based on the law of primogeniture which is no longer valid law in most of the world’s jurisdictions. It is a law that passes all possessions and titles to the eldest male offspring. It is not even valid in Canada. It would be impossible, under Canadian law for the Queen’s son Charles to claim her estates, possessions and bank accounts without a specific will provided by her to that effect and with agreement by her husband and her other children. As for her titles, there is no provision provided for their transfer under Canadian law.

While our laws allow the monarchy to exist, it is, at best, a polite fiction. You are not supposed to tell people that because it is considered rude. Those of us who have served the Canadian monarchy (in the right of Canada) in various capacities, ranging from police and jurists to the military and to privy counsellors have had to swear allegiance to this mystic Canadian phenomenon. It is assumed that this allegiance is quietly voided once your term of service expires—with the exception of privy counsellors who are appointed for life.

But in this time, in this century, in this modern world, the monarchy makes no sense. It should no longer be countenanced or even quietly ignored. Try explaining the law of primogeniture to your daughter and you will deserve the kick in the shin she should give you. Try to explain why the guy with the big ears is prepared to take over as King Charles III and you will be considered ridiculous by a kindergarten class.

Nobody but the most foolish despots and business tycoons try to pass power from parent to offspring today. Does Kim Il Sung’s leadership of North Korea being passed on to his son Kim Jong Il inspire confidence in that country?

Fairy story time of kings and queens, princes and princesses is over. Canada needs to strike out boldly to create a new future. The first step is to structure a constitutional assembly. This must be an elected assembly that reflects its electors. It will need time to consider the future, discuss alternatives and to choose a path. Whatever the assembly decides then must be approved by a clear majority of Canadians after a reasonable period of discussion and consideration. What is decided might become a model for the rest of the world.

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They used to say that the Liberal Party campaigned on the left and governed on the right. It used to be true. When it failed was during the short tenure of Paul Martin as Canada’s Prime Minister. After the damage done to Canada’s social programs when Martin was Jean Chrétien’s finance minister and his so obvious ties to the business community, he had no credibility with which to campaign effectively from the left of the political spectrum. The voters would not buy it.

Since the days of Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier, the Liberal Party has tried to sit broadly across the middle of the political spectrum. It enables the party to attract both left and right wing candidates, supporters and voters. The party tries to be all things to meet the wants of the voters but slow enough to implement change to please the most stolid of the right wing. As a provincial party leader once explained to a group of unhappy left wing members of the party, no policy was going to happen unless both the right and left wings could flap in unison.

For a left-wing thinker such as Herb Gray, who gave 40 years of his life to Canada’s Parliament, the rate of change was glacial but he never lost his humour or his belief that the party could meet its commitments to people. The same could be said about another long-serving left-wing Liberal, Lloyd Axworthy. Lloyd did much to meet the needs of the people in his riding and across Manitoba. These parliamentarians believed in the promises of the left.

But where does the Liberal Party stand today? There seems to be a question mark. And it falls on Michael Ignatieff to clarify the question.

Despite sporadic voices calling for a merger with the New Democratic Party, there is no clear movement in that direction. When Stéphane Dion tried to form a coalition with the NDP, along with the support of the Bloc Québécois, it was never clear whether Michael Ignatieff rejected the coalition because he was more concerned about being seen out and about with the NDP or taking help from the Bloc.

The time has come Michael to state your intentions.

A merger with the NDP is not the be all and end all for the problem. The party could lose two right wing supporters for every staunch union person being dragged kicking and screaming into the den of the enemy Liberals. What such a merger can do is return credibility to the Liberal Party. Social solutions can be promised by a clearly left of centre party and social solutions can be implemented by the party when in power.

We can have a national daycare program. We can strengthen medicare. We can work towards a guaranteed income for all Canadians. We can make things happen.

It is really up to you Michael. If you fight Stephen Harper on the right of the political spectrum, he will laugh his way back to the Prime Minister’s office with a clear majority. Fight him on the left—with the NDP on side—and you will have an opportunity to lead Canada into a greater future.

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Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]