As the Canadian government
transitions from the Harper to Trudeau leadership it may be useful to consider
the changes Canada has experienced since the last time Liberals held power
federally. While political parties are institutions that help preserve
continuity the Liberal Party that has formed the government is very different
from the one that last held power in 2006 under Paul Martin.
One of the strangest
aspects of the Liberal win in October was the fact that their caucus contains
such a huge group of rookies. From 36 to 184 seats in the House of Commons,
even with some returning MPs, there will be a steep learning curve, and
difficulty managing the green caucus. When selecting a cabinet Trudeau relied
upon experienced former ministers such as Ralph Goodale, Lawrence MacAulay,
Stephane Dion, and John McCallum to balance out new faces. Still, the Liberal
Government is hardly a return of the one that was defeated, and the country it
seeks to govern and the world it finds itself in has changed.
The political
transformation over the last nine years have been dramatic. We saw the unification
of the Conservative Party, which was table to construct a durable coalition to
hold power, the separatists were obliterated/marginalized from federal
politics, the NDP developed into a national force with a strong presence in
Quebec, and the Green Party has gained a foothold in Parliament. Oddly, despite
all the shake ups at the federal level continuity has been the name of the game
in the provinces. Many of the provinces have seen premiers in power several terms,
and successfully passed onto their successors. Notable exceptions, of course,
include places such as Alberta. The new Liberal government must consider
themselves in a two-front struggle more than any previous government in the
preceding 20 years. The NDP represents a real challenge on the left and not the
rump it was in the 1990s. However priorities have clearly changed as well. The
Martin Liberals was a party who embraced balanced budgets and a tighter
spending than what Trudeau has signaled, a definite shift.
Elsewhere on the domestic
front Canada's economy has continued its evolution. The last nine years saw an
economy buoyed by decent financial regulations and high resource prices.
Canada's strength compared to G8 peers largely has to do with the fact that
natural resources kept our economic growth going and Canadian housing increasingly
became an attractive investment for international buyers. With China's economy
flagging the demand for raw materials is plummeting. Prices for oil and other
natural resources have declined, and with them the resource-dependent economy
they brought. Canadian manufacturing continued is sad, steady erosion, and with
it the provinces of Ontario and Quebec languished. Due to this changes Ontario
seems far less willing to make sacrifices on behalf of the rest of the country,
and is looking for tangible support from the federal government. This may
become clearer given the importance Ontario played in the Trudeau majority. As
a country we move forward to a potential demographic crisis as the Boomers
prepare to retire. The looming economic and social problems associated with the
graying of our population has not been adequately tackled or addressed by our
leaders.
When reflecting on the
past nine years economically the looming presence of the Great Recession is
hard to avoid. So much of Canadian life has been marred by its shadow. Instead
of stable periods of growth or contraction we seem doomed to this prolonged
limbo of stagnation. As a member of the struggling Millennial generation it is
particularly evident in the lack of opportunities for my peers and I. Barring
some international recovery Trudeau will have to manage growing social expenses
while revenues remain low. This problem is already evident in the provinces
which carry a much larger proportion of social service expenses.
Perhaps most striking
thing for Canada's new government is the changed international landscape from
2006. In the early 2000s it was easy to continue to hold the post-Cold War
image of 'America as the only Superpower'. Developments since that time has
again and again shown that America does not have the power and influence to act
alone and impose its agenda unilaterally. It has been my opinion that the world
has returned to an era of Great Powers, such as in the 19th or early 20th
centuries. Two striking examples of this has been the rise of China and
Russia's belligerence on the international stage. Russia remains a threat to
world peace: the invasion of Georgia, pressure on the Baltic States, and the
military interventions in Crimea and eastern Ukraine. China likewise has become
more aggressive in its sphere of influence and appears to be making investments
in its military to ensure its dominance is harder to challenge. Meanwhile the
past nine years has seen a crippling crisis slowly unfold in the European
Union. Canada will have to navigate a more adversarial international scene and
perhaps might have to find a faction to align its interests with besides the
United States.
In 2003 PM Chretien's
choice to keep Canada out of the War in Iraq felt fitting, but the position of
non-intervention and peacekeeping-only seems more and more naive in a world
where ISIS and like-minded revolutionary movements burn across the Middle East
and North Africa. Add in the Syrian refugee crisis a refusal to engage in
global affairs, with military force if necessary, seems irresponsible. When
countries such as Belgium and Denmark are getting involved in these
international crises it will be difficult to excuse Canada's absence from these
conflicts. Likewise Canada may have to finally
take military spending much more seriously to effectively participate in the
global community.
In 2006 there were 32.6
million Canadians, today there are roughly 35.7 million. Much of that growth
can be attributed to immigration. Many thousands of Canadians, increasingly
from the "Global South" move to Canada every year. In time this has
changed the character of our country, fueled growth of our cities, changed the
nature of our classrooms, and streets and enriched our lives. At the same time,
while broad multiculturalism is accepted by many Canadians there is a growing
tension. During the recent election the niqab debate was a strong indication
that our belief in diversity may be more surface level than we like to assume.
If you recall the Marois Government in Quebec tried to introduce the Charter of
Values, which would also have restricted clothes associated with minority
groups. The place of minority cultures that challenge Euro-Canadian ones still
remains up for debate.
It is not as though the
Canada of 2015 and 2006 are unrecognizable from each other, but I think it is
clear that the nine years that Stephen Harper was in power saw significant transformation
of the country, and not all of it due to the social and economic policies of
his government. The Liberals under Trudeau cannot simply pretend that returning
back to the policies and practices of the 1990s will work in the current
context. Perhaps Trudeau, like many new governments, will find oddly more to
take from his predecessor than he first assumed.
