O6 ELECTION2019 O THEGLOBEANDMAIL | SATURDAY,OCTOBER19,2019
On the questions of pension re-
form, improving health care and,
most controversially, adopting a
carbon tax to reduce emissions,
the federal Liberals treated the
premiers the way Liberals so of-
ten do: as junior partners in the
federation, subject to puni-
shment if they refused to go
along with Ottawa’s latest na-
tion-building exercise.
Voters noticed. Provincial Lib-
eral governments went down to
defeat in New Brunswick, Que-
bec, Ontario and British Colum-
bia. Today, there isn’t a Liberal
government in power provincial-
ly west of Nova Scotia. Five pre-
miers are at war with Ottawa
over the carbon tax.
Mr. Trudeau noticed, too. On
Tuesday, in Fredericton, he re-
flected: “Everything I tried to do
in the last four years has been fo-
cused on bringing the country to-
gether. Yet we find ourselves now
in a more polarized, more divi-
sive election than even the 2015
one.”
Meanwhile, the sovereigntist
Bloc Québécois, which had been
written off as a political force, has
risen miraculously in recent
weeks, threatening to displace
the Liberals as the most popular
federal party among franco-
phone Quebeckers, especially
outside Montreal.
Prof. Montigny points out
that, while most Quebeckers no
longer support outright sover-
eignty, they remain what he calls
“autonomists” – determined to
see Quebec exercise the greatest
possible control over its affairs.
From 1993 until the past elec-
tion, they generally preferred to
be represented in Ottawa by a po-
litical party that had a strong
mandate to speak on their be-
half, but that was not part of the
government – first the Bloc, and
then the NDP. Only in 2015 did
most ridings send Liberals to Ot-
tawa as part of thegovernment.
Quebeckers may now regret
the decision. Liberal interven-
tions in areas of provincial juris-
diction have alienated many
Quebec voters.
And now, Mr. Trudeau is say-
ing that, if re-elected, the Liberals
may intervene to support a legal
challenge to Bill 21, which bans
the wearing of religious symbols
such as turbans and hijabs for
some Quebec public servants.
In protest, Prof. Montigny
says, Quebec voters are increas-
ingly turning to the Bloc. “The
message from the Bloc is ‘Don’t
mess with us. Let us decide whatis good for us within our juris-
diction.’” However nativist and
discriminatory Bill 21 may appear
to English Canadians, in Quebec
it remains a highly popular asser-
tion of secular principles in the
public square.
In the Prairies four years ago,
Albertans elected four Liberal
MPs, and the Liberals won a plu-
rality of seats in Manitoba.
In this election, the Conserva-
tives could take every seat in Al-
berta and Saskatchewan, and
most in Manitoba. They are also
strong in British Columbia, once
you get outside downtown Van-
couver and the southern half of
Vancouver Island.
Many Western voters interpret
the Liberal determination to re-
duce carbon emissions as an at-
tack on their economy. Yes, the
Liberals approved the Trans
Mountain pipeline, even pur-
chasing it when the previous
owners balked in the face of en-
vironmental and Indigenous op-
position.
But the pipeline hasn’t been
built, and other Liberal mea-
sures, such as the carbon tax and
the ban on tanker traffic off of
B.C.’s northern coast, speak to
Liberal indifference toward West-
ern priorities.
Mr. Wall invites voters in Cen-tral Canada to perform this
thought experiment: Imagine if
the federalgovernment, in order
to meet Canada’s commitment
to the Paris targets on global
warming, decided to tax and reg-
ulate the manufacturing sector
out of existence. Ontario’s auto-
motive and auto-parts industry
would be restricted and then
phased out. The same with avia-
tion in Quebec. Too bad about
the hundreds of thousands of
lost jobs and the crippled econo-
my, but don’t you know there’s a
climate emergency?
That’s how Prairie voters feel,
when progressives in Central
Canada blithely talk about
“winding down” the oil and gas
sector that powers their econo-
my.
As Mr. Wall points out, the In-
ternational Energy Agency pre-
dicts continued global demand
for fossil fuels for many years to
come.
“We don’t understand why the
rest of the country wouldn’t say,
‘Well, the world needs oil, better
that it come from Canada, where
we are trying harder and with
more success to be environmen-
tally responsible,’” than from
other, heavier polluting coun-
tries, he said in an interview. “But
that’s not what we’re hearing.”Election:WhichpartyismorelikelytouniteCanadians,andwhichtodivide?
FROMO1Onthequestions
ofpensionreform,
improvinghealth
careand,most
controversially,adopting
acarbontaxtoreduce
emissions,thefederal
Liberalstreatedthe
premierstheway
Liberalssooftendo:
asjuniorpartnersin
thefederation,subject
topunishmentifthey
refusedtogoalong
withOttawa’slatest
nation-building
exercise.I
n 1991, I was in Hungary, taking
part in an important project
that Canadians don’t often
think about when they think
about Elections Canada’s work:
assisting a country in establishing
its nascent democracy.
It’s a job that the agency has
performed in countries all over
the world; in my term as chief
electoral officer, we offered ex-
pertise to various nations in East-
ern Europe and Africa, as well as
to Mexico. And in Hungary–aso-
cialist republic for four decades
before the fall of the Soviet Union
- people were eager for the repre-
sentative, empowering change
that a new age of democracy,
birthed correctly, could bring.
When I was there, I met a wom-
an who was part of the group that
had sought out our expertise. She
reflected the broader movement
that had peacefully achieved de-
mocracy: young, energetic and
brimming with hope. I ran into
her again when I returned to Hun-
gary in the early 2000s; by that
point, Hungary had held three
parliamentary elections and two
local ones.
I asked her how things were go-
ing. Her response has stayed with
me ever since.
“You know, Jean-Pierre,” she
replied, “I wake up every morning
and listen to the radio.”
“What for?” I asked.
“I listen to see if they’ve come
back.”
They. More than a decade after
the Communists left, in one of the
smoothest transitions to democ-
racy among any of the countries
in the former Soviet bloc, she was
still uncertain about whether it
could all fall apart.
It was a moving reminder that
democracy is fragile and needs
time to set in – a fact that’s easy to
forget here. Canada is hurtling to
the end of its 43rd federal election
campaign, and while there are
worthy conversations to be had
over how it has played out, howthe processes can be improved
and how elections should be
fought, we are bearing witness
again to a strong, much-admired
system that allows the public to
consider and select the people
that represent them. We don’t
tune into the CBC to see if tanks
are rolling through Ottawa. De-
mocracy has set in here.
But it is not perfect. If we lose
sight of that, bad things can hap-
pen to one of our most precious
resources – from interference by
foreign actors to a loss of faith
among the electorate in the very
foundations of our society and in-
stitutions.
So what can serve as our de-
mocracy’s best shield? Firm
knowledge of our history, a com-
mitment to reason, and a con-
stant scrutiny over a truly acces-
sible and equitable franchise. In
short, we must make every effort
to ensure the legitimacy of our
elections.
Indeed, our commitment to a
full-fledged democracy premised
on truly equal rights remains a
somewhat novel concept. After
Confederation, elections were aWild West affair: Canadians out-
side of New Brunswick voted oral-
ly, making them particularly sus-
ceptible to intimidation; differ-
ent ridings held elections on dif-
ferent dates, allowing for
chicanery. By the time the courts
got involved, it was clear there
was plenty of work to do in build-
ing this fledgling democracy; be-
tween 1874 and 1878, 75 per cent of
contested elections were ren-
dered void, and nearly one third
of MPs were forced to resign as a
result.
Even the Greeks – often held up
as the ultimate democrats – only
really fooled around with the idea
of truly representative people
power. A small percentage of the
Greeks could actually vote, and
they were the only ones that were
considered to be people in the
first place. In that way, Canada did
indeed model itself after Greece:
through to the early 1900s, myr-
iad groups were denied the vote
on racial or religious grounds, or
because they did not have the re-
quired income level. Women, for
instance, could not vote federally
until 1918; it took until 1960 forStatus Indians to be granted the
unconditional right to vote. The
Doukhobors – Russian Christians
accused of “disgusting indecen-
cy” – were disenfranchised, on-
and-off, until 1955.
And in one of our democracy’s
blackest marks, the 1920 Domin-
ion Elections Act allowed the fed-
eral government to strip the vote
from those who lost their provin-
cial franchise “for reasons of
race.” So when B.C. took away the
vote from people of Japanese and
Chinese origin, as well as “Hin-
dus” – which at the time referred
to any non-white person from In-
dia – they lost their federal rights,
too. When a delegation of Japa-
nese Canadians asked the House
of Commons to recognize their
franchise in 1936, they were re-
jected, amid fears stoked by the
Second World War that they were
spies. Their efforts were even dis-
missed by MPs as “sob stuff” and
“claptrap.” The rights were not
fully restored until 1948.
How our representative de-
mocracy got to where it is now,
though, is through the hard, care-
ful work of constructing sturdyTRUEDEMOCRACYISNOTANANCIENTIDEA–ANDI
AsCanadanearstheendofits43rdfederalelectioncampaign,weenjoyafreedemocracyandstrong,legitimateins
JEAN-PIERREKINGSLEY
OPINIONServedasCanada’schiefelectoral
officerfrom1990to2016