portage --- now there's a good Canadian word. Must be a paddler, no?
Croc, that post jolted me. I doubt that one in a thousand Americans would write something like that. Does your populace, en masse, actually get worked up about the kind of cronyism and corruption that seems to draw huge yawns when it even sees the light of day in the news here ? And then they actually do something about it, and throw the bums out ? Damn.
I think that Canadians differ greatly from Americans in many ways. I've travelled and spent quite a bit of time in different parts of the U.S., and in general, I find people "down there" to be much less politically informed and more complacent compared to people "up here".
There are probably lots of reasons for this. We have less provinces than your states, and all of them are arranged neatly from coast to coast. Probably makes it easier to keep things straight regarding what is going on where. Our television stations devote a good part of their time to "national" issues, so we tend to hear what's happening in each province (news, politics, economy). Most Canadians seem to have a pretty decent knowledge of which premiers are running various provinces, and the major political issues going on in each of the provincial legislatures.
At a federal level, we tend to be very well informed, or at least, it's easy to stay informed if one so desires. Our federal parliamentary debates and Question Periods are televised, so it's an easy thing to find out who said what, did what, or voted which way on any issue. We still have the reporters' scrum at Parliament Hill, so our PM and other politicians are regularly grilled by the press and that makes it onto the evening or late night news. Our Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) still produces highly investigative television and radio programming, and in many ways, is the nation's mirror or conscience. If you know our television programming, you'll know that 2 of our favourite comedy shows up here are "This Hour Has 22 Minutes" and "Royal Canadian Air Farce" -- both of which are weekly, half hour, highly political comedy satires. Our favourite stand-up comedians tend to "do politics" and are popular across the nation. I've watched for but still haven't seen anything that even remotely compares with our form of political satire in the U.S. I would expect that our form of political satire would be viewed as traitorous or too savage for American tastes.
As for how we vote. We tend to get very heavy voter turn-out when the public becomes annoyed with a political leader or party. This happens at municipal, provincial and federal levels. And yes, people "up here" do get worked up when they don't care for a politician or party. I saw this kind of thing building before the election when Mulroney was ousted. While travelling in Nova Scotia one summer, everywhere I went, if I said I lived near Ottawa (our nation's capital city -- I mention this as few Americans seem to know this bit of trivia), I would have to listen to a half-hour tirade on what to tell Brian Mulroney when I returned home after my vacation. I soon learned to say I lived near Montreal or Toronto instead, just so that I could wander the province without having to get an earful each time I spoke to one of the locals.
On the other side of the coin, I would say that the majority of people up here practice the mind-your-own-business-and-I'll-mind-mine approach to subjects such as sex and religion, especially with regards to our politicians and "celebrities". The truth is, we aren't much into the "cult of personality" thing up here, and we tend not to give a hoot about other people's gender identities, sexual escapades, or religious affirmations, so long as they keep to themselves and leave us out of it. For example, most of us up here were laughing our asses off at Americans making such a big deal over the Clinton-Lewinsky affair. Most of us couldn't believe that the people of a nation could get so preoccupied over someone's sexual peccadilloes, even if he was the President. We had several friends visiting from the Netherlands that year, and we often sat and discussed how the U.S. was making itself look like a nation of uptight twits. I mean, time to get real and save the self-righteous indignation for something truly serious.
BTW, I should clarify one point regarding my previous post. First, I think Kim Campbell is a very interesting person and was a damned fine politician. I think she was put into a ridiculous position as the "fall guy" for the Mulroney government, and it (basically) ruined her political future. Otherwise, I think she could have gone on to be the first elected female PM. And my use of the word Mistress as in Honorable Scape Goat Mistress, was as meant to be a form of address, as in Mister or Madame -- and definitely not as in mistress with a small "m". I'm sorry that her political career ended so quickly as I think she would have made a fine PM. -- just wanted to set the record straight on that little point as I think KC is a pretty cool woman and I wish she had been treated a lot better by her party and the Canadian public.
croc |
