Canadians seem to range from raging lassitude to constrained ennui. It is hard to get them excited or motivated over more than a hockey game. It is not that they do not care, they just consider their own lives more interesting.
This concern came up the other day by way of a long e-mail from a fellow progressive. He thought young Trudeau might be the answer for Canada last year but he now has his vote parked firmly with the Greens. He tells us he is surprised by the progressiveness of their platform. Obviously, with the fewer people writing it, the more progressive your platform can become.
In disparaging Justin Trudeau, our fellow progressive now refers to him as ‘Slick.’ He believes that both the Liberals and New Democratic Party have succumbed to neoliberal corporatism. He sees Trudeau and team selling us out for a few pieces of silver to the Europeans and to Trans-Pacific Rape.
And yet your Babel-on-the-Bay writer has an honourable background of protest. In 1993, we tried to help Mel Hurtig. He was less than pleased when some of us Toronto supporters started to refer to his new party as the National Socialist Party of Canada. It was soon obvious that the National Party was a disaster in the making and we smarter apparatchiks bowed out. The only good news in the 1993 election was that the National Party got more votes than the Greens.
Through the decade of scrimmaging between Jean Chrètien and Paul Martin, we were too busy keeping our head above water to give a damn about either. And the Liberal Party of Canada was something of a lost cause. We felt sorry for Stèphane Dion, puzzled by Michael Ignatieff but speaking to young Trudeau before he ran for the leadership gave us some hope.
But our progressive friend thinks that Justin Trudeau will soon show his true corporatist colors. He is distrustful and believes that we will be told of pipelines to build, trade deals to sign. He sees no place for himself in a Canadian party that works against progressivism.
What needs to be said here is that progressives do not necessarily leave the Liberal Party. The party tends to want to exorcise us. We can remember pleading with our old friend Paul Martin when Chètien made him finance minister in ’93. Paul took an axe to some of the most vital social programs and the corporations applauded. He forgot that corporations do not vote. And the voters could see no difference between him and Stephen Harper. Martin held the door open for the Harper era.
Justin Trudeau continues to tantalise the progressives still in his party. Most of us still hope that we are of some little influence. Time alone will tell.
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Copyright 2016 © Peter Lowry
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