Still divided

There is jubilation across the land. Stephen Harper is gone. And Justin Trudeau is leading a majority government promising real change. A nation celebrates the end of a regime that came across as small and petty—out of touch with the way Canadians think and view their country. Ushering in a new way of looking at the country, Trudeau promises to be a prime minister for all Canadians. It is a new, hopeful, sunny day. Canadians have taken their country back. Well, some Canadians have, anyway.

It turns out most Canadians didn’t vote for Justin Trudeau and his Liberals on Monday. In fact, more than 60 per cent of Canadians voted for someone else. Trudeau won a majority of seats with a smaller share of the vote (39.5 per cent) than did Harper in 2011 (39.6 per cent). In 2011, Harper’s victory was, for many, an emblem of what was wrong with Canada’s electoral system—Trudeau’s success on Monday, however, is described variously as a historic achievement or a stunning rout.

It will be interesting to see if the results from Monday stimulate or diminish Trudeau’s enthusiasm for replacing Canada’s first-past-the- post electoral system. Similarly, I am curious to see if there is new interest in proportional representation from those newly marginalized by this week’s vote.

The lingering problem, however, is that Canada is as divided as it was last week—the difference is that there is a new team in charge.

Canada’s cities voted mostly Liberal—rural voters, with the exception of Atlantic Canada, largely voted for other parties. This does not, nor should it, diminish Justin Trudeau’s achievement nor the legitimacy of his government. But it should give him pause—in a way it never did Harper—to consider the ambitions and desires of the majority of Canadians who did not vote for him.

Do not read this as a lament for Stephen Harper. The opposite, really. Harper never missed an opportunity to kick his opponents when they were down. He stewed his own poison and assembled folks around him who understood their job was to cast his toxic brew upon critics, reporters and insubordinate members of his own team.

The end, for me, was when Harper cut loose Nigel Wright and fed him to the wolves that were creeping closer to his door. Wright was fixing a problem, of his boss’s making. With his own money. An indulgent and self-entitled senator was blackmailing his own party. At that moment, Harper had a choice. Fair-minded Canadians might have forgiven Wright’s lapse of judgement. But they could never forgive Harper using his closest aide as a shield, casting Wright’s reputation into the trash bin as a diversion. That singular act revealed a grasping, desperate man who had become untethered from a basic sense of loyalty or decency. The tighter he clung to power, the uglier he appeared to Canadians. Indifference transformed into personal animus.

More troubling for the future, Harper leaves behind a broken party that is vulnerable to fracturing along ideological lines once more. The roster of folks most likely to scramble to fill Harper’s void appear uninspiring and dull. Harper wanted it that way. Those are the folks he assembled around him. Obedient. Pliant. Conniving. Even those who jumped ship when they could see they were likely to run aground will seem paler for having spent so much time in Harper’s shadow. These would-be leaders will appear opportunistic when they raise their hands, as well as dull.

So Conservatives seem destined to wander the land for a time. The spectre of splintering into reform and progressive factions will rise again.

This, sadly, will be Harper’s legacy. We’ve already forgotten that his government steered Canada through a profound recession and kept the nation’s finances, more or less, in balance. The nation’s debt is lower than when his government took power in 2005. Household incomes are higher. Government is smaller.

But somewhere along the way, that stopped being enough. Canadians never really warmed to the guy. So it was easy for many to show him the door. And they did.

Justin Trudeau’s Liberals are smart folks. They know that their claim on government is based on the very same tenuous share of the Canadian electorate as Harper’s was four years ago. Trudeau says he wants to govern for all Canadians. Those words will be tested every day for the next four years.

He is urged not to excacerbate or exploit the divide between rural and urban Canada. He is encouraged to resist the long list of demands that are already being formulated in provincial capitals and corporate boardrooms.

His ambitions ought to be tempered by the fact that all Canadians want him to succeed. We want to be hopeful and optimistic. It’s his job now to demonstrate he deserves the trust of a true majority of Canadians.

rick@wellingtontimes.ca