MONDAY,OCTOBER21,2019 | THEGLOBEANDMAIL O NEWS | A1 1
T
hroughout this election campaign, the par-
ty leaders have been telling you what you
should do. Now, with your vote, you get to
tell them what they should do. You appear
to be telling them to pull back from the brink of po-
larization.
If the polls are accurate, no party is likely to wina
majority of seats in the 43rd Parliament. Electors ap-
pear to have decided that none of the federal party
leaders has earned the right to govern without the
consent of other parties.
So after weeks of name-calling – with Liberal
Leader Justin Trudeau accusing Conservative Lead-
er Andrew Scheer of having a hidden agenda to claw
back the rights of women and sexual minorities,
with Mr. Scheer calling Mr. Trudeau a liar anda
phony, and with NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh saying
“we don’t respect Conservatives” – these leaders are
going to have to work together and with Yves-Fran-
çois Blanchet of the Bloc Québécois and perhaps El-
izabeth May of the Greens to keep Parliament func-
tioning until the next election.
In the United States and much of Europe, politics
has become so viciously polarized that some gov-
ernments are barely able to function. Do we want
that here? The leaders must be hearing that we
don’t.
Mr. Singh on Friday apologized for his remarks,
saying “we need to build a country where we wel-
come everybody, respect everybody, and I feel bad
about what I said.”
For his part, Mr. Scheer maintained that he re-
spects his opponents, he just disagrees with their
policies (some of which exist only in the Conserva-
tive Leader’s imagination), while Mr. Trudeau said of
Mr. Scheer: “He appears to be a strong family man.”
Let’s not forget that most Canadians mostly agree
on the most important issues. All of the major na-
tional parties embrace continued high levels of im-
migration, for example.
The parties differ on the best mix of economic
class and family class, and what to do about people
making asylum claims after crossing into Canada
from the U.S. But these are nuances compared with
the bitter cleavages over immigration in other coun-
tries.
All major parties agree that climate change isa
threat to Canada’s future and to the future of the
planet. They disagree on the best way to curb emis-
sions – the Liberals, NDP and Greens favour a carbon
tax or its equivalent, while the Conservatives prefer
to regulate industrial emitters – but no one ques-
tions the science of climate change or the impor-
tance of fighting it.
There is a party that is skeptical about global
warming and believes immigration levels are too
high: Maxime Bernier’s new People’s Party. But Na-
nos Research, which has conducted daily polls for
The Globe and Mail, has shown the party through-
out this campaign with the support of around 2 per
cent of voters.
Proponents of electoral reform believe replacing
first past the post with proportional representation
as a voting system will compel greater co-operation.
But the social and political cohesiveness within a so-
ciety matters far more than its voting system. Ger-
many and Sweden were both cohesive under PR, un-
til the Syrian refugee crisis fractured the social con-
sensus. Now, both countries struggle to contain the
rise of far-right, anti-immigrant parties.
At a rally for U.S. President Donald Trump in Dal-
las on Thursday, Republican Lieutenant Governor
Dan Patrick said: “The progressive left, they are not
our opponents. They are our enemy.” That’s an in-
credibly dangerous thing to say.
The incivility of this election campaign, and the
vitriol some people indulge in on social media,
create the impression of increasing enmity between
progressives and conservatives, and between the
different regions of Canada. But that doesn’t mean
we have to accept this toxic future.
Most Canadian politicians agree with, or at least
accept, gun control, same-sex marriage, a woman’s
right to choose, universal public health care, equal-
ization, even the need for sensible taxation and fis-
cal responsibility.
We fight on the margins – balanced budgets ver-
sus a declining debt-to-GDP ratio, limiting or ex-
panding the roster of banned weapons, what kind of
private-members bills MPs should be allowed to in-
troduce, whether and how to rejig the equalization
formula.
Let’s keep that fight civil. Let’s demand that all
MPs and party leaders treat each other with respect.
The first law of politics must always be that people of
goodwill can disagree on questions of policy. Let’s
never forget that rule, no matter the result Monday
night.Regardlessofelection’s
outcome,ourleaders
shouldstriveforcivility
intheirsquabbles
JOHN
IBBITSONOPINIONStudentslineuptovote
duringStudentVote
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StudentVoteCanada2019ballots.worried about the future, especially here in the
Lower Mainland.
“When we grow older, imagine how high the
rent is going to be for us?” Samara asked.
Nancy, a 12-year-old seventh-grader, moved the
discussion to what has become a flashpoint issue
across the entire country, but one that hits espe-
cially close to home in Burnaby: “They’re provid-
ing for the pipeline project, [but] that’s not going
to benefit our town if it has a leak.” In general,
climate change weighs heavily on the children.
While young people tend to vote significantly
less than their older counterparts, the last election
saw an uptick in turnout among young Canadians.
In 2015, roughly 57 per cent of eligible voters be-
tween 18 and 24 cast a ballot, an 18-per-cent in-
crease from 2011. This election, those between the
ages of 18 and 38 comprise the largest segment of
eligible voters.
Richard Johnston, Canada Research Chair in
Public Opinion, Elections, and Representation at
the University of British Columbia, says it’s diffi-
cult to predict whether young people will show up
this time around.
Mr. Trudeau’s “sunny ways” campaign mobili-
zed many first-time voters in 2015, Mr. Johnston
says.
“But now, the bloom is off that rose and there’s
a lot of disappointment,” he said. “And, of course,
it’s also been a depressingly negative, uninspiring
campaign.”
But Mr. Johnston still expects many young vot-
ers to return to the polls. Studies show first-time
eligible voters tend to make voting a habit, he says.
Samara hopes Mr. Johnston’s right.
“It’s really sad [youth vote less] because young
people – we have different thoughts than older
people.”Special to The Globe and Mail