Politicians

I was always optimistic, when I was younger, about politicians. After all, they were working for us, weren't they? My voting awareness started when "Honest John" Diefenbaker was just ending his era in power and he really was the last of the Conservative Party that the populace believed in. However, Dief ended his time in power and he ended the hopes of the nation almost forever when he killed and destroyed Canada's aero-space industry by ordering the end of the Avro Arrow, a fighter plane that was superior to anything known up to that time. The engineers of the Arrow were then hired by NASA to put a man on the moon. The following elections saw the Conservatives defeated but giving the Liberals a minority government, twice.

The Liberal PM, Lester Bowles Pearson but known to everyone as Mike, was a man of great potential. He was a diplomat and had won the Nobel Peace Prize for orchestrating the United Nations into ending the Suez Crisis. Not a fiery orator, soft-spoken with a lisp, he nevertheless could move intransigence. With a minority government, Pearson was obliged to use some of the ideals of the leftist CCF Party, led by Tommy Douglas. During Pearson's tenure, he brought in Universal Health Care, the Canada Pension Plan, and in 1964, our own flag, much to the dismay of royalists who continued to wave the Red Ensign.

The Pearson era was possibly the last in our political life that diplomacy and statesmanship ruled over brute force. With a minority government, Mike Pearson saw fit to use policies of the left, much to the ongoing benefit of the citizenry, to remain in power. Unlike today, when the minority Conservative Party prorogued rather than face a confidence vote.

The real age of optimism in politics began when Pearson stepped down from the Liberal leadership in favour of Pierre Trudeau, who won the next election at the age of 46 in 1965. Baby boomers were just beginning to graduate from high school and endless optimism reigned in spite of, or maybe because of, President Kennedy, Martin Luther King, freedom marches, ban the bomb, anti-Vietnam War. In Canada, Bill of Rights, universal suffrage (finally), first nations could finally vote, go to bars etc. Elvis was King, the Beatles invaded, and the Rolling Stones, well, were the Stones. Dylan, Baez, Joni Mitchell, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Leonard Cohen, the Beach Boys. This was the decade of counter-culture, of be-ins, love-ins, weed, grass, pot, and mary-jane. And don't forget LSD, CIA, NSA, IRA.

When Trudeau campaigned, he was mobbed by young women who flung themselves at him. He was the rock-star of politics. Nothing like it had ever been seen. A few years later, President "Tricky Dickie" Nixon, in the White House Tapes, just referred to Trudeau as that asshole up there. Canada, however, had never seen anything like it. A young, intelligent Prime Minister ready to lead the country into a bright future. However, militant separatists in Quebec took to bombing and kidnapping to, finally, murder to push their agenda which resulted in Trudeau declaring Martial Law through the War Measures Act.

Now, for the first time in Canada, the true power of the PMO, the Prime Minister's Office, became apparent. The power to act, without consultation with the democratically elected opposition, was there. Canadian politics would never be the same. When Trudeau finally wore out his welcome, unlike in Pearson's era, minority governments were unable or lacked the will to include the policies of other minority parties. A number of minority governments, both Conservative and Liberal, followed.

The Conservatives, ascended to majority under Brian Mulroney in 1984 and proceeded to use the power of the PMO to reduce taxes to the rich and industry, to align with the objectives of the United States (right down to singing Danny Boy with Reagan), and tying us to a free trade agreement that appears to be lop-sided in favour of the US. Rules for foreign ownership were diminished or disregarded and deals made with disregard for democratic debate. Finally, Mulroney was thrown from office as the most reviled and corrupt PM in our history and the PC Party lost almost all their seats right across the country.

Enter Jean Chretien who had entered politics under Mike Pearson and was Finance Minister under Trudeau. The "Little Guy from Shawinigan" was really aware of the PMO's power and continued to use it. Fortunately, for the citizens of the country anyway, Liberal doctrine was much more benign than the Conservative doctrine. Government was to be seen as doing the bidding of the country. Yes, the Liberal Party still had to answer to their benefactors but not outrageously at the expense of the electorate, until later years.
The Liberal government pulled the country out of the deficit and debt hole that Mulroney had plunged us into. Unfortunately, ten years in power led to a flaunting of power. Chretien famously said of parliamentary debate, "This is question period, it isn't answer period". Chretien resigned under increasing pressure for the misappropriation and misuse of funds in Liberal ridings. Paul Martin's Liberal government was never able to overcome that scandal.

In the downright absence of Conservative seats in Western Canada, a ground roots party emerged, the Reform Party. Again, famously, Chretien with a French-Canadian accent referred to it as the "T'ird Party". The party was developed in the framework of the Social Credit Party of three decades earlier and still right of Attila the Hun in doctrine. The far right was so fragmented in the face of a Liberal majority that some provincial Conservatives and the Reform Party combined to form the Conservative Alliance or the Alliance Party. In 2003, the Conservatives and the Alliance disbanded to form the Progressive Conservatives which eventually became the Conservative Party of Canada, again. Steven Harper, from the original Reform Party, rose to the top as leader.

And the rest you know. The Conservative agenda has always been to dismantle social programs (insidiously by under-funding), reduce taxes to multi-nationals (by downloading onto the middle class), and generally aligning itself with the direction of the United States. This isn't by accident. Powerful and rich corporations are headquartered in the US and funding for political campaigns flows across the border. The prospects of the rich and powerful are aligned with Conservative ideals. The Bush/Oil cabal still calls the shots. Left leaning ideology just costs money. After all, the citizens of a country are only there to support the bloated Conservative bureaucracy, aren't they. Politicians work for the elite, don't they? Until they get chucked out.