The politics of boredom

Countless times over the past week Canadian pundits have lamented the lack of zip in our current federal election. If only the Canadian election could be as interesting and exciting as the current contest between Barack Obama and John McCain, covering the race might be more fun.

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It seems that no one has ever thought about the implication this lack of excitement in Canadian politics portends. The reasons that politics in this country are such a dreadful bore are twofold. First, in the past 15 years voter attitudes have been relatively stable. Poll after poll after poll points out that among decided voters a certain percentage always goes to the centre left parties, such as the Liberals and NDP, while the Conservatives manage to maintain a basic core of committed voters that rarely fluctuates. This fact was particularly evident following the Adscam scandal when voters “spanked” the Liberals by voting them back into office under Paul Martin, albeit with a minority, despite the fact that the Libs had basically stolen millions in taxpayer dollars. The trend continues as the left is practicing a kind of mitosis with the establishment of the Green Party, which is pulling votes away from the other two leftist parties. Of course, Quebec is and always will be, enigmatically different. For decades the Party Quebecois have campaigned on the platform of establishing la belle province as a separate nation, which at one point even propelled them into the bizarre position of having to serve as Her Majesty’s Official Opposition. Now that the specter of Quebec separatism is all but dead, the PQ’s fortunes are steadily waning, which is a benefit to the other parties. The brouhaha over whether or not to allow the Greens’ Elizabeth May into the leaders’ debate is illustrative of the second reason why Canadian politics is and will continue to be so blasé. The nation’s parties are comprised of a cadre of colourless, unimaginative party functionaries, of whom very few have had any experience functioning in a milieu other than the public sector. Consequently they find it very difficult to relate to the people whose support they are seeking, as they do not appear to understand how their proposed platforms will actually affect common Canadians. If one reads the résumés of the party leaders there is very little in their past experience that brings them into realm of what average Canadians experience. Stephen Harper has spent his entire life in politics, barring a short stint at Imperial Oil in Calgary, where he worked the mailroom. His Master’s degree in economics has given Mr. Harper very little relevant experience with which to relate to the concerns of voters. Stephane Dion’s life experience is even more arcane, given that his entire adult life was spent either in academia or politics. Working as a political science professor or serving as intergovernmental affairs minister adds little in terms of experience that remotely relates to the concerns of common Canadian voters. Ditto for Jack Layton who has spent his entire adult life dabbling in leftist politics, first as a City of Toronto politician and later as an NDP member of parliament. Elizabeth May’s resume is every bit as stodgy and arcane as those of her male counterparts. By contrast, the life experiences of John McCain, Sarah Palin, and even Barack Obama have enough grit to make them interesting and exciting. McCain, a former fighter pilot spent five years as a POW at the Hanoi Hilton in North Vietnam. Palin was a point guard in college basketball, a sports caster and a housewife that took on Alaska’s corrupt Republican establishment and won. Barack Obama worked as a community organizer among the squalor and danger of Chicago’s south side neighbourhoods and parlayed that experience into a political career. It appears that Canadian politicians spring full-grown onto the scene without the benefit of actually spending much time among those they purport to want to lead. Consequently Canadian election campaigns tend to be real yawners that are rarely infused with any excitement as the flap over whether or not to allow Elizabeth May to participate in the leaders’ debates has demonstrated. In the National Post Noah Richler went so far as to call it Canada’s “Hillary Clinton moment”. If only.