As a Canadian writer, I feel compelled to talk about the political problems we’re experiencing up here.

First of all, Stephane Dion is my boy. I’ve been impressed with him ever since his letters to Bourassa protesting Quebec separatism. Quite frankly, his well thought-out, cogent arguments again separatism made Bourassa and his cronies look like dundering idiots.

I’m not sure that anyone can deny that he’s one of the brightest politicians to hit the hill in quite some time. However, the public doesn’t generally care how smart you are if your accent is so thick that it’s difficult to get your point across. And that, I think has been the main issue that has dogged Mr. Dion in his tenure as leader of the Liberal part. Anglophones, especially in the West, just don’t understand him. I still like Mr. Dion, but I feel like he’s unelectable because of this.

Which makes this end run around democracy extremely unpalatable for me. Mr. Dion wants to form a grand coalition between every political party in parliament except for the Conservatives, who are now in power. This includes the Bloc Quebecois, who are both a party whose sole goal is dividing the country, and also the very same people Mr. Dion argued so hard to squash early in his career.

What has triggered this coalition? Mr. Harper’s brisk method of governance probably played a big part. Every vote in parliament was a “confidence issue”, which meant triggering a national election if the Conservative motion was defeated. He also rammed legislation through without little or no consulation with the other parties. In effect, he was a bully. However, it’s difficult not to see some sour grapes on the part of Mr. Dion. Since he vowed to step down from the leadership of the Liberal party in May, he would be only the second leader of that party in history not to go on to lead the country.

He claims that Harper is not responding strongly enough to the economic crisis. It seems to me that he’s playing on the fact that many Canadians believe that what happens in the States also happens here. There’s a tide of negativity in the media, but in reality the Canadian banking system is currently the strongest and best positioned in the G20. We’re not even in recession yet. In fact, our national debt is actually going down, not up.

Now the Liberals have had a rough time of it. They’re dividing the vote on the political left with the NDP, while the Conservatives have the right pretty much to themselves. However, while the Bloc is in parliament chewing up 50 seats, the odds of a majority government happening any time soon are slim. We need to figure out how to work a minority government because they’re here to stay. This kind of squabbling is poison to our democracy and feels like ignoring the will of the people who voted the Conservatives into power.

I’m disappointed in Mr. Dion, and embarassed as a Canadian.

How are you guys feeling about it?

Tags: politics