A few weeks ago, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, decided in the face of a threat of a vote of confidence in his new government, to ask the Governor General of Canada to suspend sittings of the Parliament for a month. The Conservatives had only been in office for about two months, albeit on a plurality, rather than a majority of the seats in the Canadian Parliament. This unprecedented political initiative to, as it were, “close down the House,” seemed more characteristic of the instability of some governments in the developing world than of Canada’s own traditions, and signalled a certain desperation on the part of the government.
But Harper’s decision, now approved by the Governor General, reflects the reverberations of fluctuations in political party arrangements which have been going on for some time in Canada. These have been partly a result of shifts in the social and geographic arrangements of the country. In particular there has been the growing economic, and consequently political significance of the western provinces of the country, as a result in part of the oil boom that has occurred there. And this has followed on the rise, and then partial decline of Quebec, as it has sought to find a formula for greater autonomy and positioning in Canadian governance arrangements, starting originally with the threat of secession from the Parti Quebecois in the 1970s and ’80s.
These, as we might call them, threats of structural changes in the configurations of Canadian politics have been reflected in changes in the structures of the political party arrangements of the country. The post-1960s Progressive Conservative Party of John Diefenbaker has been through several changes, influenced by the increasing strength of the western provinces, resulting today in the establishment of the Conservative Party led by Stephen Harper, itself a recent coalition of his Conservative Alliance (itself a coalition) and the Progressive Conservatives.
On the other hand the Liberal Party, the traditionally most stable of the various formations, has faced a continuing threat, in recent times, to its dominance associated with the rule of Pierre Trudeau in the 1980s and more recently Jean Chretien in the ’90s. And the smaller parties, which seemed to be about to break the mould of Canadian politics in the ’70s and ’80s, the quasi-socialist New Democratic Party with its greatest strength in Ontario, and the Parti Quebecois (now referred to as the Bloc Quebecois) based on French assertion, have both suffered declines in recent years.
In effect, since the successful Liberal Minister of Finance Paul Martin, virtually forced Jean Chretien out the Prime Minister’s chair at the end of 2003, and failed through a succession of political mispitches to consolidate his own authority, a certain amount of political turmoil has reigned in the country. Martin, deemed to be on the right of the Liberal Party, sought through policies of liberalization more characteristic of the Reagan-Thatcher orientation than those of his own party, can in retrospect be seen to have caused a degree of alienation in the base of the party resulting from changes in social welfare arrangements, particularly in employment practices and social (including health) entitlements to which the Canadian population, especially in the significant Ontario province, had become accustomed.
Since then the ideological centre of Canadian domestic politics has reflected a rightward turn, partly resulting from the influence of a Reagan-Thatcher-type, rather than Liberal Party-type social and economic liberalism, as Canada has tried to come to terms with the wider economic liberalization trends in the Western world. This rightward turn is what has placed Stephen Harper in office, though in a minority ruling situation, as existing, or periodically new political formations, seek to dominate the twists and turns of an electorate changing in temperament and sentiment.
This is really the setting of the decision of the recent, somewhat strange, alliance between the New Democratic Party and the Liberal Party, with the Bloc Quebecois in informal support, to force Stephen Harper off his minority government perch through a vote of no confidence; and in response to which Harper has sought, and obtained from Governor General Michaëlle Jean, the temporary closure of Parliament. But paradoxically the threat from the new coalition, temporarily resulting in this unprecedented response from Harper, has quickly turned on itself, with reverberations particularly in a Liberal Party unhappy with any close relationship between the Bloc Quebecois and the liberals at the national level. And it has also somewhat destablised the New Democratic Party in Ontario. The Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion, already unpopular after his party’s loss in the general elections of two months ago, has himself been pushed off his perch and forced to resign as leader of the party, in favour of a relatively untested Michael Ignatieff, said to be more on the right of the liberal tradition.
The confusion among the Liberals, the dominant element in the budding coalition, has given Prime Minister Harper a respite. Obviously the Governor General, provided with the spectacle of disarray among the Liberals as certain internal groups called for Dion’s resignation, was provided with an easy recourse to accepting Harper’s unprecedented request. And Harper has now been able to present himself as a relatively stabilising force in the country’s politics, with a responsibility to ensure political and constitutional stability as Canada, like other countries, faces the threat of global recession after a long period of relatively successful economic policy-making from the era of Chrétien-Martin. The Liberals do not now seem ready for a general election as Ignatieff seeks time to consolidate himself. But it is probably the case that as soon as the opportunity beckons, Harper will seek to go to the polls, barring getting tied down by shaping Canada’s response to the global recession.
Caricom has an interest in these various gyrations of Canadian politics. Not only is there a large anglophone Caribbean migrant population stemming from early migrations induced by liberal Canadian immigration in the 1960s, but also as a result of the further migrations induced by economic decline in the 1980s and 1990s in Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago and Guyana. But we have always seen Canadian policy on the developing world as liberal in orientation, and in our case, sympathetic to claims for development assistance, and to our view that special consideration should be given to the issue of small size in international trade negotiations. From that perspective Caricom leaders have been partial to the Liberal Party as government of Canada.
But with ideological orientations having a lesser significance in international relations today, and with the governments of the leading countries, including Canada, inclined to free trade and liberalization, and tight domestic fiscal policies, we are unlikely to be able to maintain what we can call the “old influence and political companionship” previously characteristic of the relations between a Barrow-Burnham-Manley grouping and the Trudeau-Martin socially and internationally liberal orientation in Canada. We are no more important to Canada today, really, than say, the Central American states and Cuba.
This means that for us, a close observation of domestic political trends in Canada based on shifting coalitions, is necessary in order that we may determine our ability, at a day-to-day level, to influence Canadian policy towards Caricom. The development of close relationships between our diplomats and the various political parties/formations in Canada becomes more necessary now, particularly as we approach decisions on a free trade agreement with that country which must inevitably be acceptable to a Canadian Parliament in which small, and region-based rather than national, groupings or parties, can play a significant role.
