These are trying times. A global pandemic has forced millions of people to re-evaluate their priorities and rethink the way their lives are structured. Yet, in the midst of the tumult, Canadians have been forced to go to the polls to elect a new government even though the government in place has done an admirable job of handling the Covid-19 crisis. Why? Is it because of what Prime Minister Justin Trudeau dubiously asserted to be a toxic situation in Parliament?
Toxic for whom? For the population at large, or for Trudeau’s aspirations to rule the country like a king? Seeing that the Liberal government has been able to pass all of its legislation without having the opposition parties that are in the majority force an election by means of a non-confidence motion, it appears that the problem is Trudeau’s desire to rule as if he had the support of the majority of Canadian electors when clearly he hasn’t. The only way he can expect to form a majority government and assume the regal powers that go with it is that the antiquated first-past-the-post electoral system distorts the popular vote so to fabricate a false majority. No wonder he reneged on his promise to change the voting system. He now stands to be the principal beneficiary of its systemic distortions.
If we dig a bit deeper, the real problem isn’t simply Trudeau’s desire to rule like a king, but Canada’s inability to upgrade its political system from a system born in the nineteenth century, before the advent of electricity, to a system capable of responding to the challenges of the twenty-first century, a century in which humanity’s future is threatened by its refusal to make the necessary changes to ensure its survival in the face of catastrophic climate change.
Canadians find themselves trapped by a political system that perpetuates the colonial obsession with wealth extraction. The two political parties that have governed Canada, Liberal or Conservative, since confederation may differ with regard to their social policies, but both have given their unwavering support to economic policies that give priority to the perpetual accumulation of wealth. In this regard, both parties are the flip side of the same coin, what the French refer to as: la pensée unique.
Although it may be argued that this manner of thinking served the nation well throughout the twentieth century, having helped to build the infrastructure that makes modern life possible, it is the inability to let go of this colonial mindset that is the real issue. Essentially, the present system of governance promotes the wealth accumulation modus operandi to such an extent that it prevents any significant change that would steer the nation in another direction.
However, for Canada not to change direction, along with all the other developed nations, runs the risk of sacrificing the well-being of future generations because they will be the ones who will be saddled with the onerous task of trying to survive in a world where today’s extreme weather events are no longer considered to be extreme.
I wonder how many citizens from Lytton, British Columbia will be voting in this federal election? I’m sure that many of them will be, but they won’t be casting their votes in the small town they used to call home. After recording the highest temperature since records have been kept in Canada, 49 degrees Celsius, Lytton had the misfortune of being caught in what seemed like a case of spontaneous combustion from a Dickens’ novel. The nearby forest burst into flames and engulfed the town in a fire that burned 90% of the buildings to the ground.
Hello Canada. That was your wake up call. The formation of heat domes has increased in frequency during the last ten years. How many towns need to meet the same fate before Canada takes concrete action instead of setting carbon emissions goals that it never meets? The time has come for immediate action. Forget trying to make believe change is in the works. as long as no concrete measures are put into place. It might be already to late to mitigate the damage that climate change will bring about during what’s left of the century. But we have a moral obligation to assume the duty of care towards the environment. Nothing less will do.
Now, here’s the thing. Giving Trudeau a majority government will only exacerbate the problem. Remember this is the man who thought it would be a good thing if the Canadian government would support the expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline that would almost triple the amount of oil being transported from Alberta through the interior of British Columbia, a province that is now experiencing the worst forest fire devastation in living memory. Talk about throwing gasoline on the fire. The Canadian government bought the Trans Mountain from Kinder Morgan Inc. for C$4.5 billion in 2018 after the company threatened to scrap the line's expansion amid fierce environmental opposition. It did so while Trudeau’s Liberals formed a “majority” government with less than 40% of the popular vote.
One of the fallouts of the COVID pandemic, however, is the realization that nothing is written in stone. Change is possible. For example, millions of people have continued to work through these difficult times, no longer having to waste two hours of their day commuting to and from their place of work. Instead, they learned to work from home without a demonstrable loss of productivity. Now the majority of these workers don’t want to return to the status quo, the way things were before the pandemic. They would prefer to continue to work from home, at least for a coupe of days per week. Others came to the realization that they were sacrificing too much of their lives for the sake of keeping their jobs. As a result, the Great Resignation has ensued and millions of workers in North America have quit their jobs.
In a similar vein, the pandemic has demonstrated that a majority government in Parliament is not required to run a country like Canada even during a global health crisis. In fact, the concentration of political power in one person constitutes a significant risk since one person holding such power can make decisions that imperil the well-being of the population as has been the case in the Trump-led USA, the Johnson-led Great Britain, and the Bolsonaro-led Brazil.
Facing the even greater challenge of responding to the challenge of dealing with catastrophic climate change, Canadians would do well not to place all their eggs in one basket by handing Trudeau a majority government. He can’t be trusted to do the right thing. Political power means too much to him, and to maintain that power he will be extremely reluctant to do anything that would diminish the returns to the investors in the gas and oil sector. He won’t bite the hand that feeds him.
But that what’s needed to even have the slim chance of mitigating the effects of extreme weather events like the one that destroyed the town of Lytton. The new normal that we are rapidly moving towards includes what were once in a lifetime weather event happening every year and what were once in a millennium event happening every decade.
A minority Liberal, Conservative, or New Democratic Party government is Canada’s best option at the moment. That way the regal powers of the crown-in-parliament political system will not be transferred to a single person. As much as some people are disappointed with Trudeau’s performance, a majority Conservative government is not something to be desired. No one person should be empowered to make the decisions for the entire country, especially now since the quality of life of future generations is now in our hands.
