| quote: | Originally posted by nacarter
This leads us to my point on Canada becoming the 51st state. Based on reading a few posts after mine, this comment has been misunderstood. Harper isn't going to combine Canada with the US in any literal sense. However, there is no doubt that Harper plans to reverse the Liberals policy divergence with the Americans and develop a much more cohesive policy stance. Take the war in Iraq for instance. Although during the campaign, Harper has claimed that he would not have sent troops to Iraq, this claim is absolutely bogus. Especially if you remember the amount of time that Harper and colleagues spent grilling the Liberals over their refusal to contribute to American force strength. If Harper had been PM at the time, there is little doubt Canada would be in Iraq (and still there).
To conclude, neither the Liberals or the Conservatives are a good choice in this election. The Liberals with their 'culture of entitlement' and the arrogance that goes along with being in power too long on one side. And the Conservatives, with no interest in minority rights, excessive influence from the religious right and the desire to resume and excessively buddy-buddy relationship with the Americans on the other. UGH! I stand by my original assertion that Canadians are about to be taken to the woodshed. |
An unlikely champion of 'U.S.-style' politics
Father Raymond J. de Souza
National Post
Thursday, January 12, 2006
According to Liberal attack ads, more or less, Stephen Harper is plotting to remake Canada into a land "in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, [and] writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the government."
That's the gist of it, at least. You may recognize the words -- not from the detached narrator of the recently released Liberal spots, but the incendiary outburst of Senator Ted Kennedy denouncing U.S. Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork back in 1987. That notorious speech turned the scholarly jurist's surname into a verb synonymous with "drive-by smears" -- a tactic denounced by the PM during Monday's debate, the night before his party's ads were released.
Indeed, this extraordinary week in Paul Martin's campaign -- the ads following on his shotgun proposal to amend our Constitution -- has more than a touch of U.S.-style politics to it. That's fine by me: I don't find something abhorrent simply because Americans do it. But it is a rather odd approach from a man who doesn't mind indulging in a little America-bashing if necessary, and who pointedly said on Monday night that "America is our neighbour, not our nation."
Mr. Martin's latest constitutional position is that the "Charter defines Canada," and therefore the notwithstanding clause must go. Leave aside the dubious proposition that a nation with centuries of history is defined by a 1982 document. Leave aside whatever one thinks of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. There can be no disputing that the "Canada-defining" Charter has been the most Americanizing influence on Canadian politics in the last quarter-century.
The Charter grafted on to the Westminster model of the supremacy of the Crown-in-Parliament an American-style system of judicial review. The notwithstanding clause was demanded by the premiers in 1982 precisely to avoid the judicial supremacy practised south of the border.
The power of the courts is the key to the accelerated advance of social liberalism. To take the mother of all social issues, Canada and the United States have the most permissive abortion regimes of any Western countries. In Europe, where such policies are determined by democratically-elected parliaments, no county is so extreme.
Such extremism is only possible with the fiat of an imperial judiciary -- a distinctly American contribution to democratic governance. With the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Roe vs. Wade in 1973, and Canada's Morgentaler decision in 1988, social liberalism achieved victories far more radical than would have been possible through legislative means alone.
To eliminate the notwithstanding clause would further shift Canada from the Westminster model to the court-dominated American model. Although Mr. Martin didn't make it explicit, it stands to reason that he thinks the courts should not be overridden precisely because they can deliver social policy novelties -- gay marriage, swingers' sex clubs, pornographers' rights -- that would be harder to push through Parliament.
Court supremacy does not appear to be the only feature of American political culture that Mr. Martin wishes to adopt. His ads and his debate rhetoric have both adopted the polarizing values language that is typical of American elections.
Gone is the language of competence, national vision and policy proposals. The dreaded "American conservatives" referenced in the Liberal ads pioneered the use of "family values" rhetoric, implying that their opponents did not support the family. Mr. Martin does the same with "Canadian values," implying that his opponents have values antithetical to being Canadian. The Liberal Web site puts it bluntly: "PM Paul Martin Defends Canadian Values." Against whom? His opponents, who apparently don't have them.
American political culture is distinctive, if not singular, because moral and cultural values -- not economic interests -- dominate elections, and in that the accompanying culture wars are fought in courtrooms more than legislatures. Evidently, Mr. Martin thinks that is the path Canada should travel. That is as remarkable an argument as any other in this campaign: Defending Canadian values requires Americanized politics.
© National Post 2006
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