Some holiday political reading

There’s something oddly irritating about Michael Ignatieff that’s hard to pinpoint. It’s expressed obliquely in countless forms: his mid-Atlantic accent in English, his Parisian French, his languid delivery, his patrician air, his supercilious regard, the brass buttons on his blue blazer, the way he wants to ingratiate himself with the plebeians by slipping into slang or dropping his g’s. It’s probably a reflection on the Canadian spirit (maybe commendable, maybe not) that after a few minutes in his company many experience an almost irresistible urge to push him off his pedestal. Even his family was said to believe that the terrible thrashing he received for one of his novels, however bad for his ego, was probably good for his soul.

Envy doesn’t fully account for it. Nor can it be glibly dismissed as tall poppy syndrome, the pleasure mediocre people take in cutting down anyone who presumes to rise above the average. After all, Canadians tolerate and admire all kinds of high achievers, from billionaires to novelists, sports stars to scientists. But we get weird around the question of classes and prefer to reserve political power for the masses. Our ancestors fought a rebellion for that reason. Mackenzie King was a grandson of a rebel leader even while a pal of the Rockefellers. Trudeau was an iconoclast despite his wealth and style. The little guy from Shawinigan succeeded where the Rhodes Scholar who had danced with Princess Margaret failed. And while Upper Canada College may have produced an honour roll of ministers, judges, generals, diplomats, professors, authors, artists, business leaders, and Conrad Black, it has yet to produce a prime minister.

Ron Graham. The Walrus: The Stranger Within

Putting Canada into the ranks of other Yes Men targets such as George W. Bush, Dow Chemical and the stodgy World Trade Organization marks a huge shift in the international image of a country that was deemed “rather cool” by influential British magazine The Economist in September 2003.

Back then, the buzz was about Canadian budget surpluses, same-sex marriage, Kyoto and marijuana decriminalization.

Today Canada is talking tough on crime and stressing military pride, national security, “global energy superpower status,” tax cuts and deficits.

Canada enters the final year of the decade with Harper – a conservative thinker once deemed “unelectable” in this country by pollsters and pundits – and his Conservative government firmly in command of the federal political and legislative agenda.

But whether the country has moved to the right is another matter.

Canada was likely never as “cool” as the outside world perceived, nor is it today as uncool as New York underground activists would suggest.

Pollster Allan Gregg of Harris-Decima believes Harper has “learned that showing moderate, balanced, stable, competent government is good politics in this country. He benefits simply from being the prime minister and not doing anything stupid.”

The year 2009 encapsulated that decade-long lesson. It began with Harper’s minority reeling under the self-made threat of being toppled by a united opposition and ends with the Conservative minority on top and the election drums silent.

While talk of a pending Harper majority may be premature – the party closes 2009 stuck in the same old mid-30s of public opinion approval – there’s little doubt of Conservative party success.

Gregg calls it a “slow motion re-drawing of the political map” over the last five years. The Conservatives, he said are “just sort of inching into new territory all the time.”

Bruce Cheadle, CP: Harper in control as decade winds down but polls say Canada hasn’t moved right

Independent Jewish Voices on 7.1 million dollar CIDA cut to KAIROS - IJV is appalled
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I am really glad to see KAIROS come out swinging on this.