Perennial Politics

It hardly seems possible that the American political campaign leading to the election of a new president and Congress on November 4th next has already been under way for at least the past year. That is the what I would call "perennial politics." Be that as it may, the holding of the Iowa party caucuses this evening is the beginning of the official sorting out of all the claimants who have offered themselves and have already spent hundreds of millions of dollars raising funds and campaigning for the ultimate prize. The general shape of the actual election campaign and the final candidates for the two major parties won't be known until the Democratic and Republican Parties hold their nominating conventions in late July or early August. The actual inauguration of the new president won't be held until January 20, 2009 - 383 days from now.

Of course, we have much the same sort of "perennial politics" here in Canada, but usually it is limited to times when we have minority governments. In fact, we have been in that situation since 2004 when Paul Martin won a minority for the Liberals only to be defeated early in 2006 and replaced by Stephen Harper's Conservative minority. There doesn't seem to be much likelihood of another election producing much of a difference. Most pundits seem to assume that an election is all but inevitable in the spring of 2008.

I can recall a similar situation too in the 1960s when one of Canada's most popular prime ministers, Lester B. Pearson, defeated John Diefenbaker's Progressive Conservatives, but never succeeded in forming a majority government. It was said then and repeated several times since that we Canadian prefer minority governments because they can govern least.

That was not particularly true of Pearson's minorities. Some of the most enduring social justice legislation for which this country has since become famous was enacted by those minority governments with the support of the New Democratic Party led by Tommy Douglas and David Lewis. Pierre Trudeau also led a minority Liberal government in the early 1980s, but it is not remembered for any significant legislation like the passing of the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Those were adopted by a majority Trudeau won after a brief term leading a minority.

An article by our local Member of Parliament, Garth Turner, in the Oakville papers this week gives all the more impetus to my analysis of our current situation. His comments seemed both subdued and resigned. That may be partly because he knows that his own re-election is anything but certain. He was pushed out of the Conservative caucus by Prime Minister Stephen Harper because he refused to follow the party line and voice only what he prime minister's stand on all issues. His maverick independence was acceptable to the new leader of the Liberal Party, Stefan Dion, so he crossed the floor and joined the official opposition. But here in the Halton constituency he is likely to be strongly opposed by local members of the Conservative Party which elected him as a Conservative in 2006. At least the local political scene will be anything but dull in the forthcoming months.