The Absence of Outrage

Let's see. We have a government in Ottawa that paid big money to ad agencies to do not much more than launder some of it back into Liberal Party coffers. They have billions of dollars unaccounted for in various government programs. They made a budget deal with the NDP, compromising their own platform, in order to stay in power a few more months. They attempted to bribe several opposition MP's to vote for their confidence. And don't even get me started on Belinda Stronach. Surely the Canadian people are mad as hell and aren't going to take it anymore. Aren't we? Well, according to polls, apparently we're not. After having plummeted in public opinion polls when the worst details of Adscam came out in the Gomery Inquiry, the Liberal Party is back on top.

Why are we not more outraged and calling for scalps over this? I have a couple of theories. One has to do with our beloved media. Just like in the U.S., the Canadian media is largely corporate and is more concerned with the bottom line than serving the public with quality journalism. As a result, it is lazy, parroting what has been reported in other outlets and re-transmitting the party lines unfiltered rather than doing its own investigating because it's cheaper to operate that way. In Canada, we also have the CBC, whose budget is controlled by the government in power. Common sense says that it is in their best interest to report more favourably on the party in power, lest they lose some funding. Then the corporate media repeat what the CBC reported. It is a recipe to benefit the status quo.

But I think the bigger factor is simply that Canadians, particularly in the eastern half of the country, don't see a viable alternative right now. The NDP clearly isn't ready for prime time, and this impression was reinforced by how they sold their souls and propped up the corrupt Liberal government just to pass some budget spending. And we see the Harper Conservative Party as too far to the right. It would be nice if we could go back to the good old days of the 80's and 90's when there wasn't too big a difference between the major parties, and one could be there to keep the other one honest. Back then their policies were almost interchangeable - the Conservatives brought you the GST and the Liberals balanced the budget. Ideally the two parties could slug it out over a few dollars here and a few programs there, and if great moral issues were to come up there could be free votes where each MP could vote according to his/her conscience and constituents.

But the Progressive Conservatives have given way to the Neo-Conservatives, and they just aren't palatable to most Canadians. I don't even think they would be all that palatable to Western Canadians - by and large traditional conservatives - if they really stopped to think about it instead of leaning on the crutch of old animosity toward Pierre Trudeau, some of it rightly and some of it wrongly. I read some of the conservative blogs, and I give them credit for harping on the Liberal scandals because somebody has to be out there speaking truth to power. But it's obvious that some of those people have been overdosing on the Kool-Aid. They blame the East for the political fracture in Canada when, in fact, eastern Canadians have shown a willingness to vote for the Conservatives if that party smartens up. Westerners, on the other hand, are not likely to vote for Liberals under any circumstances for at least another generation or two. It is they who are the inflexible ones.

So I'm in a position in which I don't know who to vote for. It definitely won't be one of the big 2 1/2. I'll probably vote Green. In the end, we'll probably see another minority government after the next election one way or the other. The Liberals definitely need to clean house, and the Conservatives need to promote a platform for all Canadians. Sad to say, Adscam has caused Quebec to be lost to all federalist parties, and that is the costliest aspect to this whole sordid affair.