Explaining the Liberals

One role of any immigrant is as a sort of armchair anthropologist-cum-ambassador, explaining both the culture of origin and the culture of choice to anyone who asks about them. As such, I've often found myself in the position of giving an international perspective on the peculiar situation of the Liberal Party of Canada, to both Americans and Canadians.

The recurring problem in these discussions is a perceptual divide. The Americans, for their part, will tend to listen to what I have to say and simply not believe me. There's no way the Liberals actually view themselves as the "natural governing party," they'll say, and there's no way Canadians really tend to think the Liberals have the divine right to sit in the big chair simply by virtue of being Liberals. There's no way that corruption, entitlement, incompetence, and thuggish behaviour are dismissed with an eyeroll and reelection-by-rote. I must be exaggerating because I tend to favour another party, right? The Canadians, on the other hand, will listen to what I have to say, shrug, and say: "So? Yeah, you're right, things have been bad with the Liberals for a few years now, but that's why it's good that they're going to get their time-out. They'll regroup, and they'll come back all better. It's happened before, it'll happen this time, too. That's the way of things, and we'll all breathe a little easier once things are back to normal."

It's almost enough to make an idealistic pragmatist wish she could get both groups in a room together and take herself out of the equation entirely, since each one is making her point to the other so impressively well. Since that hasn't been logistically possible so far, though, I'll continue to try to make it on my own, to both sides.

For the Americans, then, an election anecdote:

From day one of this last election, the Liberals campaigned to try to lead soft NDP voters astray by scaring them into an "anyone but the Conservatives" vote for the Liberals. They got a prominent labour leader to endorse them, and even had Prime Minister Paul Martin wearing a union jacket. I found this unfortunate, but understandable--the political "war" was on, after all, it was every party for itself, and the Liberals had to run their reelection campaign in a way that they thought would win them votes. But then the Liberal fates shifted in the second half of the campaign with the advent of yet another scandal, and a Conservative government started looking likely. In response, the NDP shifted their message, and started attempting to take votes away from the Liberals.

The reaction was immediate and harsh, both from the Liberals and from many lefties: the NDP was "betraying their progressive values" by turning on the Liberals. And yet what had they done? The exact same thing that the Liberals had been trying to do to the NDP all along--bleed votes, during an election, away from a party that was vulnerable to being bled. When the Liberals turn on the NDP, it's just the way of things, but when the NDP turns on the Liberals, they're perpetrating a betrayal. Worse yet, as far as I've been able to discern, I'm the first Canadian to point this double standard out in so many words. It's just that self-evident that the Liberals' God-given role is to occupy the entire centre-left, and the NDP's role is to kowtow, forever and ever amen.

And for the Canadians, a good old-fashioned rant:

If you grew up in this country, the example I described above for the Americans probably didn't shock you very much. Maybe you're even mentally responding with a "Yeah, so?" reaction like the one I described in my second paragraph. Maybe you, too, are looking forward to the day when the Liberals have had their "time-out" and are back to being the "natural governing party." I'll be frank: what shocks and dismays me most about this attitude isn't the way it hurts the NDP, because eh, all's fair in love, war, and politics. It's the way hardly anyone in Canada seems to recognize that this is a sign of a sick, sick political culture. A one-party system is not beneficial to any country, no matter how many good policies that party manages to come up with. The arrogance, the corruption, and the culture of entitlement didn't come out of nowhere--they're a direct result of the position Canadians have given the Liberals in this culture. And I vehemently agree that they needed some time on the opposition benches, but disagree that they should automatically be entitled to be let back in with a majority as soon as they've chosen a new leader and shown that they're not all corrupt thugs. IT SHOULD BE HARDER THAN THAT.

I can get just as frustrated, mind you, with the people on the left who think the NDP should be trying to obliterate the Liberals and "replace them as the party of the centre-left." Putting aside the question of whether that would actually be good for the NDP, there's no way that would actually be good for Canada. A rather large proportion of Canadians tend to like what the Liberals stand for, and would like to see them succeed. And whether or not you agree with those people, in a democracy, that is their right. What it comes down to is that a multiparty system should actually get to function as a multiparty system. It should be a given that other parties will exist, and that the business of governing will be about working with them, not trying to snuff them out of existence. After all, the whole point of having more than one party at all is to make an honest stab at representing the diversity of Canadian political opinion. Otherwise, we might as well be living in East Germany or Burma.

I'm not interested in seeing any party enjoy a singular triumph, including the one I'm a member of, unless that's what Canadians actually vote for. All I really want is a colourful political scene in which there's a healthy Liberal party, and a healthy NDP, and a healthy Conservative party or parties in whatever conglomeration they end up in, and yes, a healthy Green party too--all sitting in Parliament in proportion to however many Canadians voted for each. A political scene where the parties have to work together to make new legislation, rather than having to twist any party into being everything to everyone. Where no single party gets to play God by winning 40% of the vote, and where neither the West nor the East has to fight tooth and claw to get "in." A political scene that really represents what Canadians voted for, in all its diversity. Is that too much to ask?

[Note: I started working on this post before Ian Welsh at Tilting at Windmills posted his latest opus, but you know what they say about "great minds" (or possibly deranged ones?). Go read.]