The Closing of the Canadian Mind
August 14, 2015 1:48 PM   Subscribe

Americans have traditionally looked to Canada as a liberal haven, with gun control, universal health care and good public education. But the nine and half years of Mr. Harper’s tenure have seen the slow-motion erosion of that reputation for open, responsible government. His stance has been a know-nothing conservatism, applied broadly and effectively. He has consistently limited the capacity of the public to understand what its government is doing, cloaking himself and his Conservative Party in an entitled secrecy, and the country in ignorance.
posted by standardasparagus (78 comments total) 30 users marked this as a favorite
 
Yes, yes. Worst government ever, etc. etc. etc.

What are you going to do about it?
posted by clvrmnky at 1:58 PM on August 14, 2015


You forgot the 'fuckharper' tag.
posted by Fizz at 2:00 PM on August 14, 2015 [21 favorites]


I'm voting ndp and hoping.
posted by dazed_one at 2:01 PM on August 14, 2015 [23 favorites]


That part about the Harper government being dedicated to the suppression of information is so right. It's their most distinctive trait.

This makes it harder to defeat him (as I'm sure Harper knows), since an ignorant citizenry tends to fall back on prejudice and regionalism to inform their votes when they've got nothing else to go by. And that helps his party.
posted by Kevin Street at 2:05 PM on August 14, 2015 [6 favorites]


I rarely if ever post anything political on my Facebook page, which is reserved for snapshots of my kids and so on, but the CSIS secret trial is just insane.
posted by Nevin at 2:07 PM on August 14, 2015 [1 favorite]




I'm scared for my country.
posted by ThatCanadianGirl at 2:18 PM on August 14, 2015 [7 favorites]


Also disenfranchising non-resident citizens. Boo.
posted by GuyZero at 2:24 PM on August 14, 2015 [7 favorites]


Silver lining is, I just spent the last 30 minutes rereading a fake Vic Toews twitter. If I can't laugh, I'll just get sad.
posted by Gor-ella at 2:24 PM on August 14, 2015 [1 favorite]


He's going to win again. He's running the same campaign he's always run, which works because it's based on fear, greed and ignorance. The other parties will split the vote, the media will soft pedal his excesses (this has already started, a couple of harsh pans in the Post aside) and - here is the thing - the vast majority of Canadians *just do not give a shit* about scientists being suppressed, Mike Duffy, environmental protections being trashed...anything, really, other than what their houses are worth. The old Canada died the day Harper won his majority, the new one he has created in his image is going to be a worse place for most people to live, and as it gets worse it will get easier for Conservatives to divide and conquer.
posted by The Card Cheat at 2:29 PM on August 14, 2015 [12 favorites]


What are you going to do about it?

We ran 'em out of Alberta, and we're running 'em out of Ottawa.
posted by No Robots at 2:36 PM on August 14, 2015 [22 favorites]


Anyway, obviously I hope I'm wrong, but this shit has been going on for almost a decade now and nothing really sticks. It's depressing. I'm depressed.
posted by The Card Cheat at 2:39 PM on August 14, 2015 [2 favorites]


It's a tightening race: The latest numbers now put the gap between the first-place New Democrats and the third-place Liberals at just under five points.

Things are going to get very interesting.
Ugly. But interesting.
posted by Kabanos at 2:39 PM on August 14, 2015 [2 favorites]


Worst case, he gets a minority - and that will force the Liberals to get over themselves and coalesce with the NDP.
posted by bobloblaw at 2:40 PM on August 14, 2015 [3 favorites]


I don't think a Conservative victory is inevitable. Harper finally got his majority because the Liberal party self-destructed at the turn of the century and couldn't rebuild, and the NDP still hadn't become a respectable choice for many voters. The left was split and the right united. But the NDP came a long way under Jack Layton, and may have retained that new-found respectability with Mulcair. Meanwhile the Liberals have had fifteen years to put the wheels back on their bus and may finally (crosses fingers) be ready to take over again.

It's hard to say. If the NDP continues to surge and eats the Liberals for lunch, they could take out the Conservatives. Or maybe resurgent Liberals could take away seats from the Conservatives in Ontario and make either left wing party the eventual winner. Anything could happen.
posted by Kevin Street at 2:40 PM on August 14, 2015


Yes, if you guys could please get rid of Harper, I would greatly appreciate it. All the noise from his bellowing and tromping about is keeping me up.

Thanks, your downstairs neighbor.
posted by gingerbeer at 2:43 PM on August 14, 2015 [20 favorites]


We ran 'em out of Alberta, and we're running 'em out of Ottawa.

Don't rest on your laurels. You may have run them out of the provincial government, but all the polls have the federal Conservatives way ahead in Alberta.
posted by Sys Rq at 2:47 PM on August 14, 2015 [1 favorite]


The old joke is that Canada could have had British culture, French food and American technology.

But instead they got American culture, British food and French technology.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 2:48 PM on August 14, 2015 [60 favorites]


the vast majority of Canadians *just do not give a shit* about scientists being suppressed, Mike Duffy, environmental protections being trashed...anything, really, other than what their houses are worth.

What are you talking about? The Conservatives won the last election with just below 40% of the popular vote. So that's not a "vast majority" of *voting* Canadians. That's not even a majority.

On top of that, voter turnout was 60% in the last election. So just 25% of eligible voters put Harper into power. That's not a "vast majority", that's the definition of a rump!

Low voter turnout is what is the problem. I don't have any insights about voter turnout, other than to say that one of the reasons Harper engages in polarizing politics is to turn off people who might otherwise drag themselves out to vote.

I'm already sick of this stupid election campaign and there are still two and a half months to go.
posted by Nevin at 2:50 PM on August 14, 2015 [8 favorites]


But instead they got American culture, British food and French technology.

This doesn't even make any sense. And aren't you the people who call the hamburger of all things the pinnacle of your culinary culture?
posted by Nevin at 2:52 PM on August 14, 2015


French technology

If that were the case, this whole how-to-deal-with-dicks-in-power thing would be a much more streamlined process.
posted by Sys Rq at 2:56 PM on August 14, 2015 [43 favorites]


the vast majority of Canadians *just do not give a shit* about scientists being suppressed, Mike Duffy...

Low voter turnout is what is the problem

I think "not voting" maps pretty neatly to "not giving a shit" in my book.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 2:58 PM on August 14, 2015 [14 favorites]


I think it's more complex than that, and you're mixing up people who *did* vote for the Conservatives and who presumably do not give a shit about the litany of woe in the original comment with people who did not give a shit enough to vote.

According to Stats Can:

The most common response for not having voted was that they were "not interested in voting" (28%), which also includes feeling their vote would not have made a difference in the election results.

An additional 23% indicated they were "too busy", which includes having family obligations or having a schedule conflict at work or school. [...]

The reasons for non-voting varied widely based on a person's educational attainment.

Among non-voters with less than a high school education, 30% indicated they were not interested in voting, while 17% reported an illness or disability that kept them from voting, and 14% said they were too busy.

In contrast, 28% of non-voters with a university degree cited being too busy as the main reason. An additional 22% indicated they were not interested in voting, while 16% reported they were out of town or away.

posted by Nevin at 3:03 PM on August 14, 2015


But instead they got American culture, British food and French technology.

This doesn't even make any sense.


If you have to explain a joke ...
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 3:05 PM on August 14, 2015 [4 favorites]


having a schedule conflict at work

This is not particularly legal.
posted by jeather at 3:06 PM on August 14, 2015 [5 favorites]


If you have to explain a joke ...

It's neither funny, nor a joke?

I think a better target for American to zero in on would be Canadians' perennial smug sense of superiority to our southern cousins.
posted by Nevin at 3:09 PM on August 14, 2015 [1 favorite]


The old joke is that Canada could have had British culture, French food and American technology.

But instead they got American culture, British food and French technology.


I'd still rather be here than back home in the States, in any case.
posted by Kitteh at 3:10 PM on August 14, 2015 [3 favorites]


Conservative Party of Canada: This is not particularly legal.
posted by Fizz at 3:11 PM on August 14, 2015 [15 favorites]


"I think a better target for American to zero in on would be Canadians' perennial smug sense of superiority to our southern cousins."

So American culture, British laws, and French smugness.
posted by Kevin Street at 3:11 PM on August 14, 2015 [19 favorites]


I'd vote but I've been disenfranchised. Indeed, I now have no right to vote anywhere. Democracy my ass.
posted by Poldo at 3:11 PM on August 14, 2015 [7 favorites]


MetaFilter: American culture, British laws, and French smugness.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 3:13 PM on August 14, 2015 [10 favorites]


The Harper years have seen a subtle darkening of Canadian life.

Political snark aside, I thought this was a pretty well written and succinct piece with teeth.
posted by cacofonie at 3:15 PM on August 14, 2015 [2 favorites]


My socialist leaning but conservative voting (a common thing in the prairies) parents mentioned the last time I talked to them that Harper had finally lost their support.

I am too angry with them for having supported Harper this long to trust myself to open a dialogue on just what pushed them over the edge.
posted by Cosine at 3:28 PM on August 14, 2015


While there have been a lot of disappointmenting things about being a Canadian in the last decade, I think the one of the worst was the Orwellian "Canada Border Agency" reality television program a couple of years ago, where "illegals" were rounded up by government employees on television, in order to be deported. Not only were government employees involved, but the television production company received a bunch of tax credits because the show was "Canadian content."

It's notable the spot was shot in Vancouver, which Neill Blomkamp says was the basis for the orbiting pleasure city in Elysium.
posted by Nevin at 3:28 PM on August 14, 2015 [7 favorites]


Are politics in democracies outside of the Anglosphere less dumb and regressive?
posted by Apocryphon at 3:40 PM on August 14, 2015 [1 favorite]


Are politics in democracies outside of the Anglosphere less dumb and regressive?

No.

Corruption in India wiki.
posted by Fizz at 3:43 PM on August 14, 2015


From the wiki:
Corruption in India is a major issue that adversely affects its economy. A study conducted by Transparency International in year 2005 found that more than 62% of Indians had first hand experience of paying bribes or influence peddling to get jobs done in public offices successfully. In its study conducted in year 2008, Transparency International reports about 40% of Indians had firsthand experience of paying bribes or using a contact to get a job done in public office.
posted by Fizz at 3:56 PM on August 14, 2015


Don't rest on your laurels.

Are you kiddin'? Next stop, the White House. Go, Bernie!
posted by No Robots at 4:24 PM on August 14, 2015 [1 favorite]


I know this post is about Canada, but the following line jumped out at me:

...he has built more prisons at great expense at the exact moment when even American conservatives have realized that over-incarceration causes more problems than it solves...

Is that something I blinked and missed?

posted by mudpuppie at 4:40 PM on August 14, 2015


Are politics in democracies outside of the Anglosphere less dumb and regressive?

Absolutely not.

posted by dazed_one at 5:00 PM on August 14, 2015


Come on, Canada. We're better than this!
posted by ssg at 5:01 PM on August 14, 2015 [1 favorite]


Not sure if Canada is comparable to Malaysia... yet. Bland as they are, our newspapers are not getting shut down, and Harper has not (as far as we know) embezzled $100B like the PM of Malaysia.

Unfortunately, British Columbia is "negotiating" with Petronas, the state-owned oil company there.
posted by Nevin at 5:05 PM on August 14, 2015 [1 favorite]


American cheese, British gravy, and French fries
posted by Freelance Demiurge at 5:16 PM on August 14, 2015 [12 favorites]


American cheese, British gravy, and French fries poutine
posted by Fizz at 5:18 PM on August 14, 2015 [3 favorites]


Not sure if Canada is comparable to Malaysia... yet. Bland as they are, our newspapers are not getting shut down, and Harper has not (as far as we know) embezzled $100B like the PM of Malaysia.

Oh, I wasn't claiming the state of democracy in Canada was reaching Malaysian levels of fail. I just wanted to answer the question of whether politicking in democracies in general could be shitty the world over.

It is. The difference tends to be in the level of subtlety by which those in power abuse the system.
posted by dazed_one at 5:18 PM on August 14, 2015 [1 favorite]


I am still occasionally plagued by visions of the US annexing Canada in an "amicable" takeover, in the mid-term future. The interesting thing about Canada is that is has at least 10 other, more or less unpopulated Canadas on top of it. It is the Shark's teeth solution to global warming.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 5:36 PM on August 14, 2015 [1 favorite]


In contrast to the old and not-particularly-accurate saw, I think the new phrase should be "if you voted conservative, you don't get to complain about people not voting."

Because the (Un)Fair Elections Act explicitly prevents Elections Canada from running non-partisan GOTV efforts. It is designed to lower voting rates.
posted by Lemurrhea at 5:36 PM on August 14, 2015 [6 favorites]


Low voter turnout is what is the problem.

Is there good evidence that the ones not voting would vote differently then those which do? 40% is a pretty good sample, and I don't see any particular reason why the conservative minded people would vote while liberal minded ones do not. Typically we are lead to be believe that the young skew liberal, and they also vote less, so I guess that could be a source of votes, but I'm not sure those "facts" are terribly well established.
posted by Bovine Love at 6:18 PM on August 14, 2015


Indeed. Indeed.
posted by juiceCake at 6:21 PM on August 14, 2015


Cool Papa Bell: "But instead they got [...] French technology."

Geez I wish.

jeather: "This is not particularly legal."

Employers are required to allow you 4 hours to vote during the day; they aren't required to force you to take that time off.
posted by Mitheral at 6:22 PM on August 14, 2015


MetaFilter: American culture, British laws, and French smugness.

. . . Latin to God, and German to my horse.
 
posted by Herodios at 6:27 PM on August 14, 2015 [6 favorites]


I don't see any particular reason why the conservative minded people would vote while liberal minded ones do not.

Low morale feedback loop. Less chance of winning = less chance of voting = less chance of winning = less chance of voting = less chance of winning = ...
posted by Sys Rq at 6:27 PM on August 14, 2015 [4 favorites]


(Also, Conservatives are more likely to attend groupthink propaganda meetings every weekend.)
posted by Sys Rq at 6:30 PM on August 14, 2015


I am still occasionally plagued by visions of the US annexing Canada in an "amicable" takeover, in the mid-term future.

Paul Gross has seen your future. (warning: spoilers for, uh, a CBC miniseries that aired over a decade ago that you'll probably never be able to see again unless you pay $60 for a used DVD)
posted by chrominance at 7:18 PM on August 14, 2015 [1 favorite]


Paul Gross has seen your future.

So has John Candy. And some have seen the reverse take-over. And don't forget all the times the armies have marched north just to trot on back south again.
posted by No Robots at 7:27 PM on August 14, 2015


And don't forget all the times the armies have marched north just to trot on back south again.

Meh. That's usually just the Irish.
posted by Sys Rq at 7:32 PM on August 14, 2015


Mulcair has managed to push the NDP to a plausible lead in the polls (and simultaneously diminish the prospects of the Liberals) by moving the NDP towards the centre in a Blair-esque movement. Mulcair, of course, used to belong to the Quebec Liberals so this isn't necessarily surprising. The clear strategy is to obviate the need for a merger with the Liberals by simply eating their political lunch.
posted by modernnomad at 7:57 PM on August 14, 2015 [2 favorites]


Political snark aside, I thought this was a pretty well written and succinct piece with teeth.

What are we meant to do here if not political snark? I thought it was poorly-written, left out some of the worst things, and annoyingly claimed some relatively innocuous things as "the worst" and "most shocking" as if to praise by faint damnation. You want well-written, try Murray Dobbin [pdf], though it's much less succinct.
posted by sfenders at 8:12 PM on August 14, 2015 [1 favorite]


The interesting thing about Canada is that is has at least 10 other, more or less unpopulated Canadas on top of it.

Of course if global warming is going to mean countries the size of Canada repeatedly falling from the sky and crushing the existing Canada, I don't think it matters who we vote for.
posted by sfenders at 8:15 PM on August 14, 2015 [3 favorites]


Someone's been eating bad hamburgers, which is a crime. And our Mexican food can't be matched by truffles and what-not.
posted by Brocktoon at 12:14 AM on August 15, 2015


The anti-Harper commercials I saw in Toronto last month were the best political ads I've ever seen. They basically just said "No, really, he's a horrible person."
posted by Ruki at 7:29 AM on August 15, 2015


The clear strategy is to obviate the need for a merger with the Liberals by simply eating their political lunch.

I hope that's true. But I fear that the Liberals see themselves as representing a class of commercial interests, so in my mind they're "Conservatives Lite". And they're kind of the entrenched competition in Eastern Canada. I think it's going to be difficult for the NDP to win enough seats with Liberal vote-splitting going on.
posted by sneebler at 9:29 AM on August 15, 2015


He has been prime minister for nearly a decade for a reason: He promised a steady and quiet life, undisturbed by painful facts. The Harper years have not been terrible; they’ve just been bland and purposeless. Mr. Harper represents the politics of willful ignorance. It has its attractions.

I think the desire for this is essential to our national character, going way back. Under an energetic visionary like Trudeau 1.0, it looks like tolerance and peace-seeking. Under Harper, it looks like what we've got.

Whether or not he loses, he will leave Canada more ignorant than he found it. The real question for the coming election is a simple but grand one: Do Canadians like their country like that?

I think the honest answer is, "yeah, pretty much".
posted by cotton dress sock at 9:30 AM on August 15, 2015 [1 favorite]


The clear strategy is to obviate the need for a merger with the Liberals by simply eating their political lunch.

Which is not even really necessary because if they would just agree to cooperate electorally, even a little bit, the Liberals and NDP could easily win a majority of ridings and form a coalition government (if they were upfront about it, I don't think Harper could try to prorogue without massive public backlash which the GG would have to listen to).

Both the NDP and Liberals claim to be in favour of electoral reform and under any reasonably representative new system, there would almost certainly be coalition governments. Why won't they arrange for one in advance, especially as it would allow them to actually implement the electoral reforms they claim to want to implement? It doesn't make sense.

One wonders if the desire to win (and crush one's opponents) is perhaps a lot stronger than the desire to actually do something good for Canada. If the NDP wins, I'll bet electoral reform gets pushed way back on the agenda for them.
posted by ssg at 10:47 AM on August 15, 2015 [2 favorites]




^ How is that acceptable in any way to anyone? I can't even fathom the thought process that went into giving Shell that approval. Unless maybe the Environmental Assessment Agency thinks swimming in hydrocarbons is good for fish?
posted by Kevin Street at 5:05 PM on August 15, 2015 [1 favorite]


See this is the kind of thing the the other parties should be hammering on in their ads. An easy to explain issue with little nuance for wiggle room showing how the Conservatives are poorly managing our resources. And a potential disaster that everyone if well familiar with thanks to deep horizon. Even the people who gain jobs by this can be swayed because requiring a response time of 24 hours would mean more jobs maintaining the blowout stack ready ship and berth.
posted by Mitheral at 8:58 PM on August 15, 2015


How many people know exactly what a "capping stack" is, and consider themselves qualified to have an opinion about whether it's an essential safety feature to have one on hand for immediate use in offshore drilling? It sort of looks like it might be a novel practice adopted by Shell for that one controversial project in order to take every possible safety precaution as a response to Greenpeace. Probably a good idea? But the lack of one may not be entirely "inconceivable" or easily blamed on Conservatives. That news article is little better than a campaign ad, for all the context it provides.
posted by sfenders at 5:17 AM on August 16, 2015


So if anyone else was wondering what a capping stack actually is, it's a sort of backup for the blowout preventer, except bigger and probably more complicated since it's designed to be installed after a blowout. A relatively new invention, developed after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster, only a few exist in the world.

The one Shell sent to the arctic is probably the only place there's one of these dedicated to a single drilling operation. When this type of equipment was used at Macondo (possibly the only time it's ever been used?) it took months to deploy. The best case might be shorter, but in the kind of scenario where it would be needed it's quite likely there would be oil spewing out for weeks even if you had a capping stack stored on-site. Is it worth demanding that the industry keep one in Canada before allowing any new offshore drilling? Resuilts of this preliminary web search suggest it's plausible that it might be. Maybe we should form a parliamentary committee to investigate.
posted by sfenders at 3:41 AM on August 17, 2015




This is the most lasting damage that the Harper government has done to Canada, and it's what will be hardest for their successors to fix. Our government is largely based on precedent. A lot of the time abuses are avoided because "we never did it that way before." (This may or may not be the best system. Maybe it's better to spell everything out like they do in the US, or maybe that approach leads to a higher level of gaming the system. I don't know.) The point is that our system of unwritten precedents has largely worked until now. But the Harper government pushed everything as far as it would go, taking advantage of the lack of written limits to executive power to effectively hamstring Parliament. More than ever now Parliament is just a sideshow, and the government are dictators with absolute power that we vote into office once in a while, when they decide to declare elections.

It's hard to get a government to limit its own power once it's been elected, but that's what the next government will have to do if it wants to preserve our democratic system. No more omnibus bills, no more restrictions to the freedom of speech of government employees, and no more prorogations. Give Parliament the power to actually punish the executive when it breaks the rules. Walk back Harper's excesses.
posted by Kevin Street at 9:24 AM on August 17, 2015 [6 favorites]


As Kevin Street said better than I can above..., Harper torched and burned Parliament and I'm afraid the damage can never be undone. peace, order, and good government
posted by sety at 5:12 PM on August 17, 2015


Stephen Harper supporters heckle journalists
He then accused the reporters of lying on their tax returns and said that the Duffy scandal amounts to the same thing. When asked how he could make such a claim, he answered, "Because you're a lying piece of shit."
The CPC: elevating the level of discourse since 2003.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 2:45 PM on August 18, 2015 [2 favorites]


Angry, old, white, male...yep, that's the Harper Reform Party base. That guy could be my wife's uncle.
posted by The Card Cheat at 4:52 PM on August 18, 2015


Is there good evidence that the ones not voting would vote differently then those which do? 40% is a pretty good sample, and I don't see any particular reason why the conservative minded people would vote while liberal minded ones do not. Typically we are lead to be believe that the young skew liberal, and they also vote less, so I guess that could be a source of votes, but I'm not sure those "facts" are terribly well established.

I think the evidence is as follows:
Typically, younger people are more likely to poll in favour of the NDP and the greens, and less likely to vote.

However, the young people who are more likely to vote are usually university educated, which also makes them more likely to poll as in favour of the ndp or greens...
So it might mean getting out the vote would change the result, but it might just be a wash.
posted by chapps at 5:31 PM on August 18, 2015


Re angry conservative supporter... I found it shocking that someone would think it is normal to cheat on taxes.
It isn't. . . Although the right wingers always claim that folks on welfare are likely to cheat (they aren't).
posted by chapps at 5:33 PM on August 18, 2015


Regarding voter turnout, age, and party support:

This is a very big effect and pretty easy to find data for.

Here is Elections Canada on turnout by age group in 2011. Turnout in the youngest age group (18-24) is 39%. Turnout peaks for 65-74 year olds at 75%. That's almost double!

Here's some charts on party support by age from 2014 polls (Threehundredeight.com). The youngest age group (18-29) had 21% support for the Conservatives. The oldest (60+) had 35% support for the Conservatives. So the older folks supported the Conservatives two-thirds more than the youngest!

And it isn't just the youngest and oldest groups. Voter turnout increases steadily from the youngest to the 65-74 range (and drops off after). Conservative support increases as people get older.

The age ranges don't match exactly, but you don't really need to do a detailed analysis to see that yes, Conservative supporting age cohorts are much more likely to vote than less-Conservative cohorts. If voter turnout was evenly distributed by age, we'd have a very different government - certainly not a Conservative majority!

This is why the Conservatives don't want Elections Canada to encourage voting. This is why they want to make it harder for students, for people who move frequently, and for those who don't have ID to vote. It's naked self-interest.
posted by ssg at 6:16 PM on August 18, 2015 [2 favorites]


Harper says he’ll resurrect ‘life means life’ legislation

The opening paragraph of the G&M story is:
Stephen Harper tried once again on Tuesday to change the campaign channel back to a key issue for the Conservatives: getting tough-on-crime.
Unless the victim of that crime is an aboriginal woman, in which case, [shrug].
posted by ricochet biscuit at 6:29 AM on August 19, 2015 [2 favorites]


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