Being Progressive in the 2019 Canadian Election

“Unfortunately, the Liberal party in power turned out to be as much a political creature as ever.”

Introduction

In 2015, Canadians voted to end almost ten years of rule by the Conservative Party of Canada, inaugurating Justin Trudeau, son of the eminent Pierre Elliott Trudeau, to the highest office of the land. Trudeau the younger had run on a campaign of social progressivism, promising to deepen the multicultural project, reform Canada’s dated first-past-the-post way of electing Members of Parliament (analyzed here), and take steps to end the war on drugs by legalizing marijuana. Trudeau was surprisingly able to outflank even the nominally left-wing New Democratic Party and took advantage of the citizenry’s yearning for change after ten years of Conservative rule under the calculating Stephen Harper. Also unique was Trudeau’s emphasis on a tonal change in politics. While the conservative Stephen Harper had presented himself as icily competent (with efforts to melt that image coming across as embarrassing) and an intellectual, Trudeau emphasized sunny mannerisms and opening the country up. Far from the insular and partisan politics of the preceding government, the newly youthful Liberal Party under its photogenic leader would create an environment that was democratic and participatory. Political life would reflect the pluralistic values many Canadians pride themselves on, and which flow from the multicultural policies which are perhaps the signature achievement of the Liberal Party.

The Need for a Genuinely Progressive Alternative

Unfortunately, the Liberal party in power turned out to be as much a political creature as ever. While critics of Trudeau like to imply that the recent string of scandals and evasions is somehow a tremendous deviation from the past, it is in fact a sorry demonstration of how politics has continued as usual from at least Chretien through Harper and now Trudeau. At least since Pierre Trudeau labelled the opposition parties a bunch of “nobodies” in 1969, the increasingly leader-centric nature of Canadian politics has generated ever greater concentration of power. Much power is vested in a few figures who surround the Prime Minister. These individuals become the face of the political party and drive much of its agenda forward. This has, in turn, contributed to deepening partisanship as leaders of the two major parties (the Liberals and Conservatives) try to personally distinguish themselves and edge out ever smaller margins of voter support from the undecided center.

The end result of this has been that many sincerely progressive parties have been held back. With so much attention directed to the sitting Prime Minister and his (occasionally her) expected rival, the ever-third place New Democratic party and its leader get sidelined. This difficulty is compounded by the aforementioned first-past-the-post system for electing representatives, which is also appropriately characterized as a winner take all process. The peculiarities of Canadian politics mean that it is entirely possible for a candidate to win a relatively small percentage of the vote, while still getting elected despite most of the population not casting a ballot for him or her. This also means that the two major parties, the Liberals and Conservatives, have often won majority governments with 38 or 39 percent of voters supporting them. Naturally, this, in turn, establishes a de facto two party system. There is little point in casting a ballot for the Green or New Democratic parties, since that may split the Left and center-left vote and lead to a Conservative victory. Although Trudeau’s Liberals promised to reform the system during the 2015 campaign, they later reneged on that promise once in office.