Stromata Blog

Quote of the Day: Centrist Authoritarianism

Tom Slater, “Justin Trudeau and the rise of the liberal strongman”:

For all the talk of populists and their simpleminded working-class voters ushering in a new 1930s, we now see where the true threat to liberty comes from. And not just in Canada. Indeed, we’ve seen the rise of what we might call liberal strongmen – sorry, strongpeople – right across the Western world. From the unhinged Covid authoritarianism of New Zealand under Jacinda Ardern to Emmanuel Macron’s brutalising of the gilets jaunes to Joe Biden’s banana republic to the speech-policing, women’s-rights-shredding rule of Nicola Sturgeon, all of the ‘centrist’ darlings of our age have turned out to be itching to shut up, lock up and even beat up their own citizens. Particularly citizens with the chutzpah to stand up for their rights and their livelihoods.

A Scene from Weimar Canada

Ottawa, Canada, October 2022:

I got out of the taxi in front of my hotel in lower town Ottawa and was immediately accosted by a homeless junkie looking for a donation to the cause. It was a Sunday evening, well after sunset, and not quite the greeting I had hoped for upon arrival in Canada’s leafy capital. The smell of pot was in the air, a lot of it – there was a cannabis store across the street, and another around the corner.

* * * *

But what struck me about Ottawa was the dramatic juxtaposition of a homeless junkie population with the city’s Bobo bureaucratic class. Every morning, Canadian technocrats carry their custom-made cappuccinos as they shuffle by unstable drug addicts. Every night, those same technocrats enjoy an enviable diversity of international cuisine while homeless people visible through restaurant windows debate and scream at inanimate or imagined objects – I saw this several times in just a couple days.

One evening while at the bar, I overheard several members of Ottawa’s young, urban professional class exchanging their best homeless junkie stories. The winner, they agreed, involved a coworker who in a back alley happened upon a female homeless junkie performing fellatio on a male homeless junkie who simultaneously had a hypodermic needle jabbed in his arm. The technocrats all had a good laugh over that tale.

News, Unexpected and Otherwise

Some days are like sudden squalls at sea, arising unexpectedly and without apparent cause. So it is with the news of the past 24 hours, though not every wind blows from an unexpected quarter.

First, Fidel Trudeau abruptly canceled the emergency that he declared last week and that the Canadian Parliament approved just two days ago. Did a threat so severe that scotching it necessitated the invocation of martial law vanish within fewer than 48 hours? The most plausible answer is that there was never an emergency of that magnitude, as was pretty obvious to foreign (i. e., American) observers. One didn’t need to see pictures of smiling protesters lounging in hot tubs or distributing free food to the homeless to figure that out. The tip-off was that Fidel padded the alleged “insurrection” with talk of Nazi salutes and Confederate flags. One of his supporters declared that truckers who honked their horns were calling for the second coming of Adolf Hitler. (“Honk, honk” = HH = “Heil Hitler; “Elementary, my dear Justin.”) It was the empty rhetoric that demagogues resort to when they run out of facts.

Non-unexpectedly, the dictator of Canada didn’t explain his abdication by saying that it had all been a mistake and he was going to purge his shame by resigning. It was just “over”. Various theories are floating around: that the polls were looking terrible, that several of his party’s senators were about to denounce his actions, that the freezing of protesters’ accounts had sparked a run on Canadian banks. I doubt that we’ll ever get a straight account. Fidel has said that he’ll investigate why martial law was declared. I foresee that his hand-picked investigators will conclude that Donald Trump was about to invade but was stared down by the dauntless Trudeau.

Second, it looks like the former President won’t be indicted in New York on charges of loan fraud and tax evasion. If news accounts are accurate (they’re from the New York Times, anonymously sourced, so proceed with caution), the two lead prosecutors resigned after their boss, Manhattan’s pro-crime district attorney, decided that they won’t be able to put together a winnable case. Andrew McCarthy, who served as a federal prosecutor in New York, has drawn on his knowledge of the local criminal law enforcement scene to conclude that the DA is probably right. If so, that doesn’t prove that the Trump Organization has never cut a corner, but it suggests that due process may yet have some life in it.

Finally, the expected news: Russian “peacekeepers” have entered Ukraine to “protect” the pro-Russian enclaves that have been in revolt for the past eight years. Tsar Vladimir signaled that step earlier this week in a speech that was evidence of dementia or overweening confidence or unbridled contempt for the flaccid leaders of the Western democracies, or at least two out of three.

Just before the invasion (or will it be defined down to a “minor incursion”?) began, President Biden announced economic sanctions so feeble that they would barely deter Lichtenstein. House Republicans tweeted, “This is what weakness on the world stage looks like.” The inimitable Jim Treacher has collected left-wing responses from Bill Kristol, Jen Rubin et al. that share a theme: Criticizing Joe Biden’s soft-handed approach equals support for Vladimir Putin. The logic behind that conclusion emanates out of some universe where reason follows different laws from our own. I mention it only because it offers a dram of levity at a moment when the world could use it. (If you don’t want to pay five bucks a month get the daily Treacher newsletter, you can ask for a seven-day free trial that will get you past the pay wall.)

What will tomorrow bring? I’m not entirely sure that I want to know.

The Dictator Next Door

While he will probably yield back absolute power after thirty days, as he says, Justin “Fidel” (see note) Trudeau is currently the dictator of Canada. Canadians possess civil liberties only on his sufferance. The “emergency” that led to his invocation of the Emergencies Act has so far involved no arson, looting or discernible violence (except for a Trudeau partisan who plowed his vehicle into a gathering of inoffensive protesters). In response, the government hasn’t (so far) shot anybody or thrown opponents into concentration camps. It has frozen their bank accounts, threatened their livelihoods and perhaps hacked GoSendGo, the crowdfunding site that was accepting donations to support the protesters. Pro-government media are disseminating stolen personal data about donors, and government sympathizers are urging that they be boycotted or worse.

It would be facile but useless to point out that progressives who are unfazed by these developments were outraged when Senator Tom Cotton penned an op-ed urging that the National Guard be mobilized against the riots that followed the death of George Floyd. The mere fact that those “mostly peaceful protests” destroyed billions of dollars of property and impoverished thousands of small businessmen didn’t, in progressive eyes, justify the use of force against them, because that was a virtuous protest against White Supremacy. The Canadian protests may have done no more than inconvenience shippers (not a small matter but scarcely outside the competence of ordinary law enforcement), but they were carried out by people who, because they opposed the actions of a virtuous government, must be, in Fidel Trudeau’s words, “people who wave swastikas” and “who wave the Confederate flag”.

What Americans need to think about now isn’t left-wing hypocrisy, which we will have with us always. The worrisome possibility is that the young Fidel’s dictatorship is no temporary aberration but will last as long as his putative father’s and that we will find ourselves with a three thousand mile border abutting a place where the rule of law is defunct. Millions of Americans have relatives, friends, real estate and investments in Canada. Those will be exposed to the whims of Ottawa. Are we prepared to take firm action against expropriations and “disappearances”, those staples of modern dictatorship, when they target out own citizens?

Then, too, dictators of similar ideological bent tend to stick together. Will Red China, Russia and Iran find hospitality north of our border? Will it be safe to maintain intelligence sharing relationships with the Trudeau regime? Will it be prudent to allow Canada to participate unreservedly in NATO, or will it have to be pushed into a corner à la Erdogan’s neo-Ottoman state?

Finally, how will we react if tyranny in Canada begets a torrent of refugees? Immigration politics is currently crude and emotionally driven on both the Left and the Right. An exodus from Canada would bring immigrants who differ markedly from those who arrive from the most impoverished regions of Latin America. That will be a challenge to those who regard immigrants as a barely mitigable evil and those who welcome them as harbingers of a “multicultural” America.

Probably, as I said at the outset, the dictatorship will be short-lived – this time. But until Trudeau is decisively defeated and his supporters ousted from positions of power, the Emergencies Act will hang like the proverbial sword over Canadian democracy, and it will be very difficult to resume the cordial relationship that we have enjoyed for the last two hundred years.

Note: No, I don’t think that Fidel Castro was Justin Trudeau’s real father, notwithstanding his mother’s flamboyant promiscuity and her son’s unfeigned admiration for the Cuban tyrant. Justin was born well before Trudeau mère met Fidel. Still, the physical and spiritual resemblance is uncanny.

Further Reading: Joe Warmington, “Police horses trample demonstrators at Freedom Convoy protest in Ottawa” (videos at the link):

The violence the Prime Minister has expressed concern about during the three-week protest in Ottawa didn’t unfold until Justin Trudeau’s Emergencies Act police army was sent in to disperse the crowd.

The three major incidents Friday, under a form of martial law, were grotesque.

Video of Toronto Police Mounted Unit officers charging into the crowd and at least one horse trampling multiple people – including an elderly woman with a walker – was disturbing.

But that was not the only troubling incident.

Another saw a protester behind a police line repeatedly being smashed with an officer’s rifle.

And convoy organizer Benjamin Dichter also told the Toronto Sun “one of drivers had his truck windows smashed by Ottawa Police (with) guns drawn and (he was) dragged out of his vehicle by force.”

Too Good to Check!

An image of a letter on Canadian government stationery (you can view it here) has been floating around the dexterosphere today. It purports to be a ukase prohibiting Canadian civil servants from including the phrase “Let’s Go, Brandon” in any official communication.

There’s not much that I’d put past our northern neighbor’s pre-adolescent prime minister and his woker-than-thou administration, but this goes past that line. It’s obvious satire, making the point that progressives suffer humor deprivation, and worthy of the Babylon Bee. Happily, it isn’t literally true – at least not yet.

Update (October 20, 2021): Others have now discovered that the “Let’s Go, Brandon” ban was a joke.

Good News Comes in Bunches

After Wisconsin – where I was one of the returns watchers who sighed wearily when it looked like the votes we’d been expecting from Waukesha County weren’t really there – I no longer put blind faith in election night returns. Nonetheless, the current indication is that the Conservative Party of Canada has won a majority in Parliament after five years of governing as a minority. It was obvious in the lead up to election night that the elite media were excited by the surge of the New Democratic (i. e., socialist) Party. The NDP has now become the official Opposition, but Jack Layton won’t become PM, or even PM-maker. Teeth will be gnashed at the New York Times come morning.

The Wall Street Journal’s Mary Anastasia O’Grady explained the other day why this election mattered:

In the past decade Canada has been gradually moving toward a more flexible, liberal economy as its citizens have sought to protect their living standards in an environment of global competition. Today is about whether this modernization continues. It is, in effect, a referendum on limited government.

And it looks like limited government won!

Update: The Conservative majority seems to be confirmed: CP 164, NDP 106, LP 35, BQ 2(!) (a collapse rivaling the fabled rout of the Progressive Conservatives, from 169 seats to two, in 1993), Greens 1. Very interesting are the numbers for the English-speaking provinces: CP 158, NDP 55, LP 29, Greens 1. Without Quebec, the Canadian Left is a remnant. The Conservatives won 45% of the vote in Ontario, 47% in British Columbia, and majorities in Alberta (67%), Saskatchewan (56% – where the New Democrats originated, but they didn’t win a single seat tonight) and Manitoba (54%). [N.B.: Results changed even as I typed. Now the CP is up to 166 seats. There’s a chance, of course, of going down a trifle before all the numbers firm up.]

Update (5/3/11): The final results, barring late changes in closely contested ridings: Conservatives 167, New Democrats 102, Liberals 34, Bloc Québécois 4, Greens 1. The English-speaking provinces went Conservatives 161, New Democrats 44, Liberals 27, Greens 1.

Addendum: This post attracted a comment that landed in the wrong place. The commenter, a left-of-center Canadian, points out, accurately, that 60 percent of the Canadian electorate didn’t vote for the Conservatives. True enough, and a good reason not to crow about an “emerging Tory majority”. I note, though, that it’s not easy to get a popular vote majority in a four-party system and that the Conservatives won very near half of the popular vote (along with over two-thirds of the ridings) in English-speaking Canada. If a two-party system emerges over the next four years, and if the opposition party is the loony left NDP, I’ll be surprised if the CP doesn’t pick up enough of the quarter of the electorate who voted for the Liberals and the rump BQ to continue in the majority.

In Other News of “Smart Diplomacy”. . . .

While the world waits to see whether the Obama Administration will deploy its vaunted “soft power” against the Iranian mullarchy or instead opt for “stability tout d’abord”, Deroy Murdock calls attention to its insouciance about trade wars developing on our northern and southern borders:

Canada and Mexico, our top two export markets, are embroiled in trade feuds with the U.S., both triggered by American protectionism. . . .

For starters, Canadians find February’s $787-billion stimulus package as stimulating as a cold shower on a hot date. It requires American-made construction materials in all federally funded public-works projects. This “Buy American” provision would keep U.S. roads, bridges, and tunnels free of Canadian iron, steel, and other components, although such Canadian inputs were allowed before the Democratic Congress passed and President Obama signed this measure.

Canada began fighting this provision at Halton Hills, Ont., where a water-treatment-equipment manufacturer called Hayward Gordon fears Washington will block its southbound exports. Ironically, such limitations will impoverish American companies that supply parts for this Canadian firm’s products. The Halton Hills council responded to February’s regulations with its own don’t-buy-American rule for purchases by the town government.

Expanding this local boycott, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities voted June 6 to back localities that refuse to buy from nations that block Canadian goods and services — primarily, the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. . . .

Obama’s $410 billion omnibus spending plan defunded a pilot program in which about 100 Mexican trucks were allowed to drive goods into the U.S. beyond a 25-mile frontier zone. American trucks were given equal access to Mexican destinations. . . .

In exasperation at the ending of this program, Mexico has raised tariffs on 90 American exports worth $2.4 billion, including grapes and toilet paper. This will reportedly kill 40,000 American jobs. Mexico’s backlash against U.S. protectionism interrupted its unilateral reduction of average industrial tariffs from 10.4 percent in 2008 to a projected 4.2 percent in 2013.

The excuse for shutting out Mexican trucks is concern about safety. Aside from the lack of any evidence that Mexicano trucks are less safe than gringo, don’t we see here a whiff of what Democrats would label “bigotry” in any other context?

Whatever its faults, the Bush Administration didn’t assault and insult our friends and neighbors. So far, its successor’s “smartness” seems to consist mostly of solicitude for the feelings of our enemies.

The Obama Nation Abroad

Colin Powell predicts that Barack Obama will be a “transformational President”, and who am I to doubt it? The question is, transformation into what? The future is always dark, and I have no spectacles of prophetic night vision. Nonetheless, the picture of what the Obama Nation will look like is becoming steadily less murky.

Senator Obama’s own running mate says, “It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. . . . Watch, we’re gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.”

As Senator Biden doesn’t mention, President Kennedy’s test was the construction of the Berlin Wall, and he flunked. From that performance (reinforced by flounding at the Vienna summit), the Soviets took away the conviction that the new Administration was easy to push around. The next stop was the Cuban missile crisis. The world survived that, but those of us who can remember living through it would rather have skipped the experience.

Barack Obama has already shown how he will respond to a foreign crisis. He has “pre-reacted”, as it were. The terrorist campaign in Iraq after the deposition of the Ba’athist dictatorship, was, among other things, a test of American steadiness and will power. Senator Obama declared that we should do just what the Kennedy Administration did in Berlin: Back down. Is there any reason to think that he will have a different answer for a Russian invasion of Ukraine or a pro-Islamofascist coup in Pakistan or a nuclear-armed Iran’s ultimatum to Israel or an al-Qa’eda uprising in Saudi-controlled Arabia or Red Chinese threats against India or Taiwan?

Even if it wanted to, could the Obama Nation counter a serious challenge outside its borders? As President Bush’s political difficulties illustrate, vigor in our foreign policy requires the backing of domestic opinion. Mr. Obama’s base of support lies with people who never want to intervene anywhere at any time for any reason. They put up with President Clinton’s actions in the Balkans and Haiti only because those were inconsequential and casualty-free. Would they reverse their firmest principles after being exhorted by The One? Judging by what he says later in the speech quoted above, Senator Biden isn’t confident:

I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where [the crisis] might originate. . . . And he’s gonna need help. And the kind of help he’s gonna need is, he’s gonna need you – not financially to help him – we’re gonna need you to use your influence, your influence within the community, to stand with him. Because it’s not gonna be apparent initially, it’s not gonna be apparent that we’re right.

Rallying behind America in a crisis is not, as that rather pathetic plea implicitly concedes, the natural course of action for the Obama Left. Whence, then, would a President Obama draw supporters for, say, a showdown with Tsar Vladimir over the future of Ukraine? Will he abandon his base to court the conservatives he’s been denouncing for the past two years? Has he ever taken the risk of parting ways with left-wing velleities?

Whatever the exact course of events, the Obama Nation will almost certainly withdraw step-by-step not just from Iraq but, as the test results come in, from all the rest of the world, leaving the field to regional powers: Red China in Asia, Russia in Eastern Europe, Iran (or a Saudi-Egyptian alliance) in the Middle East, Venezuela in Latin America. All of those minor hegemons are anti-Western, internally unstable and politically reckless. Their lurches and spasms will make for interesting times.

The Obama Nation’s foreign policy may not be intellectually isolationist, but that will be its practical effect. Reinforcing the tendency will be its skeptical attitude toward foreign trade (pace Professor Goulsbee, who will, I’m sure, be less influential than Mr. Obama’s personal inclinations and those of the protectionist-dominated Democratic Congressional caucus).

Those parts of the world that don’t like the idea of being overseen by such fine folk as Vladimir Putin, Hu Jin-tao and Hugo Chavez are already looking for alternatives. The prospective free trade agreement between Canada and the European Union may be the first of many similar efforts. Why shouldn’t Mexico and Colombia follow suit? It would make a great deal of sense for those Latin American countries that reject neo-communism to link more closely with Europe, once the U.S. ceases to be a reliable trading partner and ally. For Europe, there is a benefit besides liberalized exchanges of goods and services: Latin American guest workers could start to displace some of the volatile Moslem immigrants who now provide a large part of the continent’s labor force. Spain is already encouraging immigration from the Western Hemisphere. For other EU countries, too, Mexicans might be an attractive alternative to Pakistanis.

So, looking ahead four years or so, we may well see a United States that has essentially opted out of world affairs and international commerce. (We’ll probably be busy fighting recession the way Herbert Hoover did, with trade barriers and tax increases on “the rich”.) If the remaining democracies are going to survive in the face of a multiplicity of aggressive tyrannies, they will have to alter their behavior dramatically: not just form a super-Common Market but expand their armed forces and risk dangerous confrontations outside their own neighborhoods. Their chattering classes enjoy ranting at America now. No doubt they’ll extol the Obama Nation in public – but secretly they’ll wish that the despised “W” were President again.

War with Canada!

First, President-to-be Obama threatens to order the President of Canada to revise NAFTA. Then he repudiates an advisor who tries to reassure Ottawa that an Obama Administration won’t destroy the Canadian economy. Then he reveals his ambition to add seven new states to the Union, which is plausible only if we annex the western Canadian provinces.

It used to be conservatives who reviled the Canucks. But that has all changed; Barack Obama’s Borealophobia is no sign of his membership in the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy. As long ago as 2003, leftists had identified Canada as the font of neoconservative evil. Just recently, the loony left Guardian published an exposé of “Obama’s Canadian Enemies”. In the same publication’s even loonier comments section, we are informed that “It is striking how many neoconservatives are self-hating Canadian subjects of the Crown”.

Senator Obama may be impartial between both sides of the war on terror, but he knows a real enemy when he sees one! At least we can hope that he will talk to his enemies, as FDR did, before invading.

Canada Did It!

And here’s the proof: David Frum, who just happens to have been born in Toronto and who still writes for Canadian newspapers, linked to The Mad Revisionist’s proofs of the non-existence of the Moon and of Jews. Those truths he is willing to acknowledge. But as a lackey of Stephen Harper, he maintains omerta about Canada and 9/11:

Means, motive, and opportunity. Canada was very nearby, and could easily infiltrate operatives across the border. Their efficient state apparatus was much better equipped to pull off an operation of this magnitude than a group of terrorists half a world away. But what’s more, it has long been known that Canada suffers under a debilitating inferiority complex, one that could easily have led to a virulent hostility against the very targets that were attacked on September 11.

Take a look at the CN Tower. Why would they build such a big, long, hard, rigid monstrosity? What purpose does it serve other than to give New York State the finger from across the lake? Canadians seem to take great pride in the fact that theirs is the largest tower in the world. What, then, would they be expected to feel about other structures in other countries whose sizes are a cause of distinction? Of course, the World Trade Centre comes to mind, as does the Pentagon, which, with over 3.7 million square feet of space, is the world’s largest office building. . . .

Furthermore, it is important to note that not a single Canadian was killed in the September 11 attacks. This is no lie. Indeed, this highly suspicious fact – obscured by the controlled media – is undeniable, as someone has posted it on the web and called it undeniable (see above), but it can also be verified by a simple look at the lists of the victims of the World Trade Centre and Pentagon disasters. Not a single one of the names on any of those lists is identifiably Canadian.

Obviously, then, Canadians working at the World Trade Centre were warned in advance to call in sick that morning. Naturally, they never bothered to tell any of their non-Canadian co-workers, indicating the contempt that Canadians have for non-Canadian life.

What can we conclude from all of this? Well, I do know one thing. If I were the President of Malaysia (and I hope to be some day), I would be very concerned about the possibility of Canadian designs on the Petronas Towers.

Fess up, Frum! Cooperate and you might be given a comfy cell, just down the block from Kofi Annan.

Fresh Winds in the North

Thirty seats away from a majority, faced with the necessity of haggling over every bill, outnumbered by left-leaning MP’s, the Conservative Party of Canada won only a victory yesterday, not a triumph. Nonetheless, it is a victory with genuine consequences.

First, the Conservatives established themselves as Canada’s only national political party. They have MP’s, in more than derisory numbers, everywhere except the barely inhabited Territories and minuscule Prince Edward Island. Their showing in Quebec, where they finished first or second in a solid majority of ridings (47 out of 75, winning ten) and surpassed the Liberals’ popular vote, was even more impressive than it looks, in view of their utter lack of electoral infrastructure in Francophone Canada. By contrast, the Liberals won no ridings and only 15 percent of the vote in Alberta, the country’s most prosperous province. In the three Prairie provinces combined, they got five ridings (out of 56) and 19 percent of the vote. In British Columbia, they came in third, behind both the Conservatives and the NDP.

Second, while the Harper government may not be able to accomplish a lot, it can undoubtedly make sure that the criminal activity of its predecessor is exposed, publicized and punished. The conventional wisdom is that the damage to the Grits’ prospects will be limited, because they will have a fresh, untainted leader to replace Paul Martin. But just a couple of years ago, Paul Martin was the fresh, untainted leader. What the party needs is not a newer and better leader but a cellar-to-ceiling housecleaning, including jail time for guilty bigwigs. The Machiavellian strategy for Mr. Harper would be a lackadaisical investigation and minimum of prosecution. I doubt that he will be a Machiavel, which is good for his country, his party and his opponents.

Third, the outcome had an important negative benefit for Canada. Americans pay almost no attention to north-of-the-border politics. The election results weren’t headline news here. The Wall Street Journal’s story ran on page A-19. My local classical music station gave them fifth billing in its three minutes an hour of news. The general tone was, Something happened in a far off land, and now back to our regularly scheduled programming. There was a chance, however, that a Martin victory would have been noticed by, if not a huge proportion of the U.S. public, at least enough to matter. And what would have been noticed was the relentless anti-Americanism of the Liberal campaign. In its waning days, Paul Martin was hard to distinguish from Michael Moore. The damage that Jacques Chirac has inflicted on Franco-American relations is nugatory next to the havoc that could have been wreaked by a Prime Minister who believes, or purports to believe, that good relations with the President of the United States are a disqualification for office.

Of course the final tally is less than the hopes that rose during the week before the balloting. For a few euphoric days, the polls suggested that a majority government was only a few ridings out of reach. Either the pollsters were all wet or the race tightened remarkably over the final weekend. The Conservative seat count and popular vote margin were on the low end of projections: 124 seats and a six-point differential instead of the consensus of roughly 140 seats and eight to ten points. Maybe fence sitters turned timid at the last minute, as the Liberals kept up their smear-and-scare tattoo. Or is it possible that Stephen Harper’s insistence during the final days that he was a harmless dishrag who would do almost nothing, especially not on those terrifying “social issues” (at one point, he found himself to Paul Martin’s left on abortion), drained the energy from the Conservative effort? The Conservatives clearly did nothing to appeal the unrepresented electorate whose existence most commentators try to ignore. David Warren is a rare exception:

There are, I would estimate, many million people in this country who still hold views that were fairly universally held a couple of generations ago – against abortion on demand, same-sex “marriage”, pornography in public places, among many other issues. . . .

Many of them are New Canadians. Many of them came to this country for a chance to raise their children in freedom, as Christians, or as observant Jews, or Hindus, or Sikhs, or Muslims.

No mainstream political party will dare to represent these people. The Conservatives condescend to be polite to them, on the condition they will not say anything “embarrassing”. But the other three major parties contesting tomorrow’s election play directly to the elites – to the “urbane” and “enlightened” – going out of their way to mock the “dinosaurs” in the “backwaters” as a class, and accuse one another of catering to them. . . .

I refer to a “silent minority” – it may well still be a majority up here – who are the natural constituency of the Conservative Party. Many in fact vote Conservative, many still vote Liberal from past family or ethnic associations, or are conned into doing so when they fall for various rhetorical and tactical tricks. But a considerable number, and those among the toughest, seldom vote in elections, for the simple reason that no one represents their views. Or else they vote for small hopeless outfits such as the Christian Heritage Party – among the several that will split the Tory vote tomorrow, letting the Liberals hold on to closely-contested seats.

Despite all the Liberal screeching, faithfully echoed in the local media, about “Harper the right-wing extremist”, it’s not very likely that Prime Minister Harper will be so daring as to seek the backing of the “silent minority”. For instance, he declared during the campaign that he would not support the enactment of even mild restrictions on abortion. Thanks to a judicial edict some years ago, Canada is the only country in the civilized world with no abortion regulation whatsoever. The one operation for which the sclerotic nationalized medical system has no long waiting period is termination of a pregnancy. This Conservative government will shrink from any alteration to the status quo.

But, who knows? The odds are that the next election will come circa 2009. The Liberal Party’s great electoral advantage – fear of the unknown – will have withered by then, and it may be possible to look rationally at a great many issues, “social” and otherwise, about which political correctness currently forbids debate. If so, January 23, 2006, will be a memorable day in Canadian history. If not – well, anyone who has followed the fortunes of Canadian conservatism for the past half century is used to disappointment.

Quotes of the Day

Cliff May, after squaring off against representatives of the ACLU, Center for Constitutional Rights and CAIR:

Prior to 9/11/01 there were at least 19 al-Qaeda members in the United States. They had committed no acts of terrorism. But they planned to. Members of our intelligence community evidently did not listen to the phone calls they made to, and received from, their employers abroad. Nor were their communications with one another monitored.

Most Americans probably believe that should have been done – that had it been done 3,000 Americans might not have been murdered. But the CCR, the ACLU and others are essentially saying that 9/11 was a fair price to pay to guarantee their idea of privacy rights. And if we have to pay that price again, so be it.

David Warren, in the context of Canada’s coming election, but the wider application is obvious:

It is very hard to be both a politician and a Christian, to be faithful both to party and God. I know this from having met a few Christian politicians. I know it better from experiencing my own reactions, when I get into a tumbledown political fight. The desire to cut corners, to misrepresent, to exploit ignorance and subvert reason, to play to the lowest motives in one’s audience while pretending to play to the highest – these are not temptations only for others. Nor can they ever be restricted to one political party.

Politics is ritualized combat (the alternative being unritualized), and it is very hard, on the battlefield of an election campaign, to distinguish sin from sinner. Which is paradoxically why it is so important to have a clear sense of the devil. For without the devil, our opponents become devils, and instead of fighting against their errors, we fight only to destroy.

Harper Derangement Syndrome

Barbara Boxer frets that President Bush intends to shut down Congress. North of the border, the Liberal Party suffers a variant of the same fever. One of its new campaign ads shrieks that Conservative leader Stephen Harper is, in addition to being for the war in Iraq and against abortion on demand, “pour la présence de l’armée en toutes nos villes”, that is, “in favor of a military presence in every urban area”. The ad is running only in French (an English version was released and then yanked almost instantly), so the target audience seems to be Québecois separatists and the implication that a Conservative government plans to use military force to hold down the province. In the rest of the country, incidentally, the Liberal line is that only they can ensure that Canada doesn’t break apart.

I suppose that Mr. Harper can respond that secessionists have nothing to fear from the Canadian Army. After years of Liberal neglect, it would be hard put to crush rebellion en une ville, much less all of them.

The Wind in the North

My pessimism about the January 23rd election in Canada is on record, and I’m not yet ready to recede from it. Nonetheless, the polls look promising: Stephen Harper’s Conservatives have a double digit lead and are hovering around the 40 percent mark that makes a Parliamentary majority a genuine possibility. Judging by the instant surveys, not to mention Captain Ed’s reaction, last night’s debate only helped. A new round of rather hysterical attack ads hints that the incumbents know that they are sliding fast down a greasy slope.

If my gloomy expectations are falsified by events, it will only be realistic to give a major share of the credit the Gomery Report and its revelations of pervasive Liberal corruption. Paul Martin hoped to counter with two familiar tactics: denouncing the United States and insinuating that the Conservatives have a hidden far-right-wing agenda that they are just waiting to spring on Canada with the cynical assistance of the Bloc Québecois. Last time around, those themes worked magically in the final two weeks of the campaign. This time they are undermined, first, by Mr. Harper’s failure to say anything very scary (or very conservative, for that matter) and, second, by growing public realization that the Liberals are very economical with the truth; if they lied about the sponsorship scandal, voters may suspect they also lie about what a Harper government will do. Perhaps the drummed-in fear of “scary Harper” will fade just enough to give the Tories a chance.

But I’m not yet ready to bet a lot on it.

Update (1/11/06): David Warren is, and he offers a similar take on why the time-tested Liberal strategy isn’t working this time:

I really thought the Liberals were going to pull it out of the fire again. I thought the Conservatives would play into their hands as usual, that the electorate -- well, the Ontario electorate -- would again fall for a “bwahaha”. Pinch me. I do believe the Grits have finally done themselves in. And that their increasingly wild scare campaign is going to backfire, even on NDP voters. If Stephen Harper can avoid rising to any Grit bait in the next 12 days, and maybe suppress that silly smile, we, Canadians, are going to have the most pleasure we have had from an election since 1993.

The result appeared to be clinched in Monday’s English-language debate, as Paul Martin began to unravel in front of people’s eyes. No amount of media cover can save him now.

One of my woman friends explains. If you thought Mildred down the street was a dishrag, then Ethel tells you she is “really scary”, you give Mildred a closer look. And when, after looking, you become the more convinced that she is a dishrag, it’s not Mildred’s sanity you question. It’s Ethel you start wondering about.

The Liberal propensity to clutch onto power by claiming their opposition is “really scary” has worked for them through many elections. Has worked so well, that they thought it would work forever. But the opposition made it work, by panicking whenever charged, and frequently changing its leader. This is what dishrags often do.

Truth to tell, the Conservative Party and its predecessors have never been scary. Not even Diefenbaker was scary; not even Meighen. And especially not that puppydog, Stockwell Day. None would ever have dreamed of paddling seriously out of the mainstream. We have a long history of wet cloth, on that side of the House.

But to return to our present Mildred, I mean Mr Harper. He has run twice. We’ve had a chance for a good look. And no, he is not scary. There is no grand principle of conservatism that he is prepared to defend. He’ll even shy away from policies that routinely get U.S. Republicans elected. He is a dishrag. (Well, an honest and fairly intelligent dishrag.)

Whereas Ethel, I mean Mr Martin, is beginning to put the willies in us. The prospect of losing power is sending him over the edge.

Your Own Canadian Election

80Soft.com is the only company, so far as I know, that produces computer games about parliamentary elections. Now that Canada is in the midst of another campaign, Prime Minister Forever – Canada 2006 has appeared, the latest in the oddly named series that has also covered recent elections in Australia, Britain, British Columbia and Germany. Comparing it to its predecessor of 2½ years ago, one sees a lot of worthwhile augmentations: minor parties (12 parties in all, with minors ranging from the Greens to the Christian Heritage), a long list of potential endorsers (major newspapers, business and labor groups, grass roots advocates of narrow causes) offering differing benefits (momentum, money, foot soldiers), a variety of forms of advertising, more detailed geographical differentiation (Ontario, for instance, is split into four regions, Quebec into three) and sundry lesser features. With just a little effort, one can customize game elements (e. g., by adding new endorsers, advertising options, key issues or special events) or create entirely new scenarios. The 2006 version comes with recreations of the 1993, 1997, 2000 and 2004 Canadian contests, as well as the current one, giving masochistic Conservatives a variety of frustrations to endure. All of this costs only $18.95 in Canadian money, which is very nearly the equivalent of free.

I haven’t yet had time to play a complete game, though I’ll certainly try to get in a couple before January 23rd. Regarding the outcome of the real life version, I have little optimism. As was readily predictable, Paul Martin’s Liberal Party has adopted Gerhard Schröder’s anti-American hysteria, reinforced by appeals to the most scoundrelly form of patriotism. As David Warren observes,

To be fair, Mr Martin and cronies have more reasons to cling, than the enjoyment of power itself. For if even a minority Conservative government can be formed, there may be three-party agreement to launch corruption inquiries that go far beyond the scope of the Gomery Commission. Billions upon billions are spent annually in other unaudited programmes, crying out for review. Remember this each time the Liberals sound desperate.

The OpinionJournal Political Diary (have I mentioned that it’s a mere $3.95 a month?) has more on Liberal anti-Americanism and the winding tendrils of the party’s corruption:

America-bashing helped to re-elect Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schroeder when they were in tight re-election contests in France and Germany a few years back, and it now appears Canada’s Liberal Party prime minister, Paul Martin, is taking a page out of their playbook. He took advantage of the recent Montreal climate conference to lecture the United States to heed a “global conscience” and adopt strict standards in fighting global warming. This despite the fact Canada has a proportionally worse record than the U.S. on controlling greenhouse gas emissions [nearly twice as rapid a rise since 1990 – ETV].

His swipes at the U.S. in the run-up to Canada’s January 23 election elicited a sharp response from U.S. Ambassador David Wilkins, who told an Ottawa audience that incessant criticism of the U.S. could eventually damage the close relationship between the two countries. “Canada never has to tear the United States down to build itself up,” he said. “It may be smart election politics to thump your chest and constantly criticize your friend and your No. 1 trading partner. But it’s a slippery slope and all of us should hope it doesn’t have a long-term impact on our relationship.”

Mr. Martin seized on the remarks by the U.S. diplomat to retort: “That our friends do not like what we say – well, c’est la vie. I’m going to defend Canada and I’m right on softwood lumber and I’m right on climate change and I won’t let anybody tell me that I should not defend my country.”

It’s worth noting, however, that Mr. Martin has not been that eager to defend all Canadians. Chief among them is Maurice Strong, his former patron and until recently a top United Nations official who has been implicated in the oil-for-food scandal. Mr. Strong was also a key architect of the unworkable Kyoto treaty on global warming.

Canadian journalist Judi McLeod reports that Mr. Strong “has been missing in action” in this election campaign “and you can safely bet” that will continue to be the case until the actual vote. You can also safely bet that if Mr. Martin continues to bash the U.S. over Kyoto, he can expect return fire over his ties to Mr. Strong.

I doubt that the last bet is all that safe. The prime minister and his media megaphones will doubtless denounce criticism of Mr. Strong’s ties to Saddam Hussein as another instance of un-Canadian activities.

Despite hopeful polls showing, for instance, that the Conservatives actually lead the Liberals, however narrowly, outside Quebec (which the separatist Bloc Québécois will sweep) and that 58 percent of the voters think that it’s “time for a change”, I doubt that it will occur to enough to them that the way to get change is not to vote for the status quo. The Schröder strategy worked once in Germany and almost repeated its success. Hence, I am psychologically prepared for another victory of the kleptocrats, whether or not they can be vanquished on my computer screen.

Addenda: 1. A free demo version of the game is available from CBC.

2. The deadline for nominating candidates is January 2, 2006, and the confirmed list will be released on January 5th. As I understand it, 80Soft will then produce a patch with the final candidate list and (probably) other updates and modifications.

Neocons vs. UFO’s

If yesterday had been April Fools’ Day rather than Thanksgiving, I would find this story (via Little Green Footballs) more believable. Paul Hellyer, who was Canada’s Minister of Defence way back when Canada had an army, navy and air force, came close to succeeding Lester Pearson as Liberal Party leader and has since pursued a – let’s call it “colorful” – political career, is afraid that the Bush Administration’s next target won’t be Syria, Iran or North Korea but beneficent extraterrestrials.

A former Canadian Minister of Defence and Deputy Prime Minister under Pierre Trudeau has joined forces with three Non-governmental organizations to ask the Parliament of Canada to hold public hearings on Exopolitics – relations with “ETs.” . . .

Paul Hellyer, Canada’s Defence Minister from 1963-67 under Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Prime Minister Lester Pearson, publicly stated: “UFOs, are as real as the airplanes that fly over your head.”

Mr. Hellyer went on to say, “I’m so concerned about what the consequences might be of starting an intergalactic war, that I just think I had to say something.”

Hellyer revealed, “The secrecy involved in all matters pertaining to the Roswell incident was unparalled. The classification was, from the outset, above top secret, so the vast majority of U.S. officials and politicians, let alone a mere allied minister of defence, were never in-the-loop.”

Hellyer warned, “The United States military are preparing weapons which could be used against the aliens, and they could get us into an intergalactic war without us ever having any warning. He stated, “The Bush administration has finally agreed to let the military build a forward base on the moon, which will put them in a better position to keep track of the goings and comings of the visitors from space, and to shoot at them, if they so decide.”

Hellyer’s speech ended with a standing ovation. He said, “The time has come to lift the veil of secrecy, and let the truth emerge, so there can be a real and informed debate, about one of the most important problems facing our planet today.”

Oddly enough, Canadian Senators responded to a request that they “schedule public hearings on the Canadian Exopolitics Initiative, so that witnesses such as the Hon. Paul Hellyer, and Canadian-connected high level military-intelligence, NORAD-connected, scientific, and governmental witnesses facilitated by the Disclosure Project and by the Toronto Exopolitics Symposium can present compelling evidence, testimony, and Public Policy recommendations” with regrets that they “could not hold hearings on ETs in 2005, because of their already crowded schedule”.

Far be it from me to doubt that the exponents of the Canadian Exopolitics Initiative are correct about the existence of UFO’s. (Indeed, the sky is full of flying objects that I can’t identify.) They are, however, naive in their assumption that President Bush and his cabal of neoconservative conspirators plan to go to war with the ET’s. Contact between solar systems is, after all, the next extension of globalization, which Mr. Hellyer has condemned as the plotting of an “evil empire”. Isn’t it likely that the aliens, globalists par excellence, are even now engaged in secret talks with Rumsfeld, Vulfovitz et al., aimed at furnishing America with the technology to tighten the fascist grip of the New World Order? Those Jews could be anywhere, you know, including the next galaxy.

Paul Martin’s Contribution to the War on Terror

Via Cronaca, always a delightful source of curious information, I learn that Canada (oops – CANADA) is taking the war seriously with “heightened security measures”. As summarized by our own Postal Service:

All postal items (except postcards) that do not display the complete name and address of both the sender and the recipient – in roman letters (A, B, C) and Arabic numerals (1, 2, 3) – are being denied entry into Canada. . . .

According to Canadian officials, this action is pursuant to the Canada Customs Act and reflects heightened security measures.

Accordingly, addresses to recipients in Canada should be printed in ink or typewritten in capital letters, and the last line of the address must show only the country name, written in full, and in capital letters. When a Canadian postal delivery zone number is included in the address, mailing requirements allow that number to appear as the last line of the address. . . .

Canadian Customs offices report a backlog of incoming postal items containing incomplete or inaccurate information. According to Canadian officials, these items eventually [sic] will be returned to their points of origin for correction by the sender as soon as practical.

So, if Osama bin-Laden mails anthrax spores to Canada CANADA and wants to slip them through the ace Canadian Customs Service, he will have to provide a full return address in ALL CAPS, and we can then nail him. Brilliant thinking, Mr. Premier!

Briefly Noted

■ Long ago Michael Kinsley was my favorite liberal columnist, because he was always witty and usually well-informed. (Curse of the Giant Muffins and Other Washington Maladies remains one of my favorite book titles.) I grew disillusioned in 1986. James Buchanan won the Nobel Prize for Economics that year, and Mr. Kinsley responded with a withering attack on “public choice” economics – based, by his own admission, on a single article in the New York Times. A man who thought himself competent to criticize one of our era’s great economists, without bothering to read a word of his writings, could not be regarded as anything better than a clown. As the years went by, and I read less and less Kinsley, that impression was confirmed: In the interest of liberalism, he seemed to have deliberately turned himself into a know-nothing. “A mind is a terrible thing to waste” is a slogan with broader applicability than the United Negro College Fund.

An hour ago, however, I had a delightful surprise. I was looking at Andrew Coyne’s blog, expecting to find depressing news from Canada (useful for countering any euphoria from the referendum in France) and found an excerpt from a marvelous, old-time-Kinsley op-ed. It’s so funny that I’m not going to quote a line. Right now, stop whatever else you’re doing, and follow this link.

■ On a more serious topic, but also with so many gems that one hesitates to quote, is David Warren’s “Oh Canada” (the depressant that I was searching for), which captures the reasons why everybody on this continent should worry about what is happening on its northern periphery:

A friend referred usefully to the “Montypythonization” of Canadian politics, perhaps a happier expression than my own, “Zimbabwefication”. It was somehow suitable that everything finally turned on the defection of the bird-brained Belinda Stronach, without whose feckless ambition, some of the farce might have remained concealed. It was as if God wanted everyone with eyes to see just what our ruling order is made of. . . .

Things are hardly yet as bad here as they have become in Zimbabwe – but only because we started from a better position, and Robert Mugabe has had more time than Messrs Chretién and Martin. I don’t think this is rhetorical excess. I do not think, after so much more than a century of unfailing constitutional government, that people fully appreciate how little of our safety and prosperity depends on the writing and enforcement of laws, and how much on unspoken habits of mind and behaviour, without which the laws can have no effect. . . .

We find the entire country is being held together by the bubblegum and string of Liberal Party impostures. And the rogues’ final argument is: “You must vote for us, or else it will fall apart!” And that may be close to the true situation. It helps to explain why so many Canadians, outwardly in their right minds, would consider voting for the Grits again. . . .

Take away everything that has rotted, and the whole pathetic system will collapse. They may be right, that the Conservatives are unprepared for the huge task of renovation; that they can only do what the Liberals have done (and as Mulroney did), but with even less skill. They can only run wildly about, trying to buy off all the losers and whiners and frauds, at a constantly escalating price. They do not understand that the Liberals can no longer hold things together, either. They can hold power, but only in Ontario, and by direct purchase of the poorest regions elsewhere. Quebec, and the West, will openly rebel. And Ontario, as our premier now affirms, has tired of paying for all this nonsense. A kind of default separatism is growing, even here.

Is it time for Americans to begin pondering what form our future relationship with Canada west of Ontario will take? Statehood would be too sharp a break from tradition, I imagine, but Puerto Rico offers a precedent for bringing a very different society into the American fold without forcing it to sacrifice its character.

■ I once knew a fellow so militantly opposed to tobacco that he always asked for a table in the smoking section at restaurants, on the theory that he thereby deprived some foul group of smokers of the means to indulge their vile habit. He had nothing, though, on one Dennis Dagless of Cromer, England, who, the Daily Telegraph reports, was found by police to have a stash of “more than 150,000 cigarettes, 1,000 cigars and about 80lb of tobacco in his home”. According to his ex-girlfriend, he doesn’t smoke. The dull-witted authorities have convicted him of smuggling, but isn’t it obvious that he was just doing his bit to keep the filthy weed from being consumed?

Awa’ to the Hills

Now for a few days in the mountains, at a site to which the Internet has not yet penetrated, where the only television remains focused on ESPN, the newspapers are a couple of days old, and even telephones are a rationed luxury. A good place to lose touch with the ebb and flow of events while regaining perspective.

Among the other virtues of this retreat is that I shall almost certainly hear none of the depressing news from Canada. It is one thing to read that democracy is being aborted in Uzbekistan, another to see it murdered north of our own border.

“Murder” is an extreme word, and it remains possible that the corpse will revivify, yet no other word really fits. The foundation of the parliamentary system is that the government must have the confidence of a majority of the popular house. If it does not, it must resign or call new elections, serving only as a caretaker until a government with majority backing succeeds it.

Prime Minister Martin has altered those rules and thus, by his sole decree, given Canada a new, unprecedented form of government, one in which only an intermittent majority is needed to retain the reins of power and, in the interludes, the minority administration is free to utilize the full resources of government to regain its position. Mr. Martin needed only a week after losing his majority to buy a new one. A future P.M. might need a little more time. The effective principle now is that the ministers must retain only their own confidence, not that of the House. From there the descent from elections to plebiscites is an easy one.

What is most truly appalling, however, is not the discarding of Westminster rules but the indifference of the Canadian political class to the Liberal Party’s massive corruption. The news emanating from the Gomery inquiry ought to have been a shock on the order of Watergate, leading to the swift desertion of the P.M. by legislators unwilling to be tainted by acquiescence in scandal at the once-in-a-century level. Instead, the Liberals and the New Democrats (the latter used to call itself the “party of conscience”) closed ranks to defend the kleptocracy. The government crisis turned into an occasion for extracting cash and policy concessions in return for votes. When the Prime Minister’s chief of staff was tape recorded offering a plum appointment in exchange for an abstention on the budget vote, he was quite unashamed, and there was no outbreak of fury among the media elite.

However much ordinary citizens may be outraged by blatant corruption, it is evident that it doesn’t particularly bother 50 percent of the Canadian House of Commons. The other 50 percent may not deserve a lot of credit either; the Conservatives and Bloc Quebeçois have promised not to undo any of the spending commitments made by the non-majority government. They seem to lack confidence that the voters will throw the rascals out unless assured of the payoffs that the rascals offered. So one side rallies behind corruption, while the other lacks the courage to reject it.

Canadians are, I imagine, too “civilized” to fill the streets in protest against the Liberal usurpation. There won’t be a Maple Leaf Revolution to go with the Orange and Cedar varieties. Protest may in any case be premature. Possibly the eventual Gomery report will prod the consciences of a few of Mr. Martin’s current allies, the government will concede an election, and the outcome will convince the next generation of politicians that honesty and adherence to constitutional principles are the best policies. That isn’t the way that I would bet at the moment, but hope is not extinguished.

We’ll see how matters stand when I get back in touch with the world.

Further reading: David Frum, “For Martin and Stronach, It’s Lose-Lose”
Mark Steyn, “A Constitutional Coup”
Andrew Coyne, “Proof There Are No More Rules”
David Warren, “Belinda Stronach”

Schröder of the North?

Except for Captain Ed, who seems well on his way to becoming a leading Canadian blogger, most of the U.S. has shown only mild interest in what is happening north of our border. In case you’re among the indifferent, the short version is that the Liberal government no longer has a majority in the House of Commons, has suffered regular defeats in Parliamentary votes and refuses to resign. It says that it will step down if its budget is defeated next Thursday (the day after a Conservative M.P. undergoes surgery for cancer; two other opposition lawmakers are also gravely ill). Meanwhile, it has been promising vast sums of money to special interests all over the country, despite the constitutional principle that a government without a Parliamentary mandate is no more than a caretaker and cannot commit its successor to anything.

The odds are that no last-minute shenanigans will be able to save Prime Minister Paul Martin from defeat, which means that Canada will have a new election soon under circumstances, viz., a scandal that makes Teapot Dome look like a tea party, that are far from propitious for his party. What kind of campaign will that lead to?

If Mr. Martin were a statesman of any degree, he would accept the necessity of losing. The Liberal Party will not be fit to govern a democratic nation until it cleanses itself of criminal elements, and a period in the minority offers the only real opportunity for purgation. It is glaringly obvious from his spending spree, however, that Mr. Martin intends to cling to power in whatever way he can. (A coup is happily out of the picture, because the enfeebled Canadian military couldn’t pull one off if it would.) Trying to bribe the entire electorate with public funds seems to be the current strategy, but it is a dicey one. Voters may decide that the benefits to themselves aren’t worth the price of paying off everybody else, or they may thank the Liberals for the promised subventions, then kick them out anyway, on the theory that the Conservatives will find themselves unable to repudiate more than a small fraction of the largesse.

It won’t surprise me, then, if the beleaguered P.M. turns to the Gerhard Schröder tactic: denouncing the United States for all that is wrong with the world. If anti-Americanism worked for a tottering governing party in Germany, and has so far been the chief bulwark of its corrupt and sclerotic French sibling, perhaps it will also succeed in Canada.

Canadian disdain for us Americans is a fine old tradition, but it has never been the main prop of a major party’s platform. Should the Liberals take that road and win the election, their country will start down the road toward Latin American-style politics, in which finding gringos to blame for one’s failings is a higher priority than dealing with real problems. Such success would also highlight an important point about anti-American agitation in general: Its principal impetus is not what America does but what suits the convenience of political elites elsewhere. Demonizing the U.S. is a way to profit from nationalistic envy and pride. At the same time, it is a relatively safe course of action, for it is nearly impossible, short of actually attacking us, to provoke American enmity. Delisting “french fries” from the menu at the Congressional restaurant counts as a severe reaction to relentless opposition to American interests. Canada has far less to fear.

At least, it has less to fear from America. It has a great deal to fear from retaining a government of kleptocrats.

Less Than Worthwhile Canadian Result

Experts like David Frum can divine the True Meaning of today's Canadian elections, which the Conservatives entered with what now appear to have been extravagant hopes. There was talk of a Parliamentary majority for the reunited CPC. Instead, the party won about 95 (out of 308) seats and about exactly 30 percent of the popular vote. The Liberals, despite impressive scandals, held onto a plurality, c. 135 seats and a 37 percent vote share. They'll be able to form a government with the socialist New Democratic Party (22 seats, 15 percent), and we can expect our northern neighbor to move further and faster toward a Third World political stance. It is already the first Western country to grant legal jurisdiction (limited but effective within the Moslem community) to shari'a courts. Likewise, the economic regime will likely tend toward higher taxes, more welfare and fewer incentives for progress. From the narrowly selfish American point of view, we can look forward to an increasing trickle of Canada's best and brightest across our common border.

A tiny company called 80 Dimensional Software brought out a Canadian election computer game, oddly named Prime Minister Forever (as if this poll would be the last), just a couple of weeks ago (only $11.99, with the promise of a free Australian add-on in the near future). Two playings prepared me for disappointment this evening. In the first, my Conservatives got all the breaks: bad economic news and almost continual Liberal scandals − which yielded a plurality of 116 seats but brought me nowhere near the 155 needed to govern. In the second, I was confident of my chances, having deciphered a few of the secrets of successful campaigning, and strategized astutely enough to gain the coveted "Big Mo" in the final week. But the economy was strong, the scandals were weak, and I got only 88 seats to the Liberals' 130. A good game; I wish that it had proven less accurate as a prognosticator.

Update: The final results: Liberals 135 (36.7%), Conservatives 99 (29.6%), Bloc Québécois 54 (12.4% [contested seats only in Quebec, where they won 48.8% of the popular vote]), New Democrats 19 (15.7%), unaffiliated 1. The combined Liberals and NDP thus fall one vote short of a majority, which will roil Paul Martin's life. David Frum is philosophical: "Canadian conservatives have become so used to heartbreak that mere disappointment can feel almost like good news."