ambition, arrogance, incompetence:
analyzing the liberal defeat
by Angelo Persichilli
THE HILL TIMES
It's a
weak minority government, but it's also a huge opportunity for the country.
For 13 years we've had a mutilated democracy without an opposition. In the
last two years, we had a dysfunctional government and a political system
incapable of providing a stable leadership. Politicians went to the polls
asking Canadians to fix it. Last Monday, Canadians answered very wisely
back: it's your job, you fix it and, in the process, gave all of them an
opportunity.
The first is
for the new Conservative Party.
Last week's vote has given back to Conservatives the "licence"
to lead the country and a small minority to prove it. Prime Minister
Designate Stephen Harper and his Conservatives didn't receive a blank cheque,
but they did get a "loan" that can be recalled at any time if they're not
able to prove they can handle it.
The voters
have also given a new opportunity to the NDP to prove that their presence in
the Canadian political spectrum is still needed. Buzz Hargrove, the powerful
leader of the Canadian Auto Workers, has lately considered the New
Democratic Party the spare tire of the Liberal Party. Had he succeeded,
again, the NDP would have been slowly, but surely erased by the Canadian
political system and incorporated into a new organization called the Liberal
Party of Canada. In fact, the actions of people like Hargrove have proven to
be driven more by a hatred against the Conservatives than a love and trust
for their party. But I believe that had people like Hargrove worked hard for
the NDP, the NDP would have been the Official Opposition in Ottawa and the
Liberals would be on the verge of extinction. With a Liberal Party plagued
by scandals and lack of leadership, it would have been wiser to ask
left-leaning Liberals to join the NDP than the other way around.
This 39th Parliament is also an opportunity for the Bloc.
Canadians in Quebec have told Gilles Duceppe that his party is needed within
Canada, but they've also told him that corruption within one federal party
is not a sufficient reason to break up this beautiful country. For this
reason, they have cut him down to size in order to eliminate his
presumptuousness, but leaving him enough members to be useful to Canada and
Quebecers. Last, but not least, the
Liberal Party. I need more words for a political organization that has led
the country for the last 13 years.
First, Paul Martin: he has been the most disappointing leader in
the recent history of the Liberal Party. The only wise decision he made is
when he announced Monday night to bow out from Canadian politics. Hopefully,
he'll take his "board" with him too. Even though I hope they are not trying
to pull a Trudeau. Mr. Martin, in fact, on Monday night only said that he
will not lead the party in another election, but he did not ask his caucus
to organize a leadership convention "as soon as possible." There is a
possibility to delay the process as long as possible, increase the
opposition in the House against Harper hoping for a mistake like Joe Clark
in 1979, and provoke another election without having the time to elect a new
Liberal Party leader. It's just a thought.
This would be a disaster for the Liberal Party and for Canada.
The present political system is very weak and can no longer tolerate the
negative and confrontational attitude of the people around Paul Martin.
Canada likes to brag about our tolerant, fair and decent
approach to issues.
It's what we call the Canadian way and we use this to parrot,
too often, the differences between us and the Americans. Well, what I've seen during the
last federal campaign was neither tolerant, nor fair and, in the last days,
not even decent. The blame for this indecent spectacle falls completely on
the shoulders of outgoing Prime Minister and his acolytes. In order to
retain power they pushed all the hot buttons to radicalize the debate, scare
people and divide the country. Some Liberal MPs are telling me
that it was the opposition that started this dirty game when "they painted
all of us as corrupt and incompetent when the problem was related to a small
group of people and we created the Gomery Commission to deal with it." It is
true, there are many honest and hard-working Liberal MPs, but it's also true
that the system within their party makes them irrelevant to the process,
with the power still resting in the hands of a few non-elected people and,
whether they like it or not, they are the Liberal Party. It was a small
group of non-elected people who ran the Jean Chrétien government, and
another small group of non-elected people who ran Paul Martin's government.
The only difference is that the non-elected people around Chrétien were
competent and the people around Martin were not.
As for the Gomery Inquiry, I believe that it was the highest
point of political hypocrisy demonstrated by the so-called "board." The
mandate was so limited that the commission had no capacity to expose the
potential corruption within the government. The mandate was sufficient to
embarrass the predecessor and his people and finish off the job of political
elimination of the "enemy within the party." Of course, it didn't work and
could not work.
In an environment in which Canadians believe politics is a
synonymous to corruption, no exceptions accepted, the boys and girls on "the
board" had the arrogance to believe that Canadians would have accepted the
naïve axiom which is very simple in their eyes: Conservatives are evil, NDPers are useless, separatists are, well, separatists, and the Liberals are
the best, except Jean Chrétien and those around Jean Chrétien, except those
voting against abortion, except those against same-sex marriage, except
those that bad-mouth George Bush and except those in favour of George Bush,
except, except, except....So, well, vote for us.
They were so sure of this brilliant strategy that in the first
three weeks of the campaign they basically did nothing. I'm also told that
some "very close advisers" of the Prime Minister took a very long Christmas
holiday down south and returned to Ottawa only at the beginning of January
just to jump on the train of victory and ride towards another huge,
successful Liberal minority government. Well they failed. They
inherited a majority; they downsized the party into a minority and now back
into the opposition benches. That's what happens when you put together
unlimited ambitions, vulgar arrogance and unmitigated incompetence.
