By staying true to itself, Canada is ducking the hard-right surge
Are we in Canada keeping our heads, as Rudyard Kipling would have it, while all around us people lose theirs?
Parliament opened this week with relative calm. There was less evidence of division, more signs of consensus.
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s shift to the moderate middle and his adoption of some Conservative polices have narrowed the divide between the two major parties. Chastened by the last election, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, who is so much more effective when he lightens up, has reined in his rancour.
In the House of Commons, discord from the left has also been limited. New Democrats, courtesy of their appalling showing in the last election, don’t even have official party standing.
Populist rage came to Canada three years ago in the form of the Freedom Convoy, the show of defiance that shut down the national capital. It looked to be an ominous development heralding destabilization. But nothing followed. The movement went nowhere. In the election this year, centrism won out.
Contrast the general middle-way convergence in Canada with the divergence elsewhere, with the centre shrinking not just in the United States but in countries throughout Europe, where radical fringe movements are thriving.
Far-right populist formations remarkably topped the polls last month in every one of Europe’s three major powers: Germany, France and Britain. No one can remember that happening before. In Hungary, in Portugal, in Belgium, and in Austria, the hard right has made headway, too.
The movements are driven by frustration with mainstream political parties, indignation with immigration, high inflation, and an avalanche of disinformation. Many are taking the lead from the Trump Republicans, a foremost example being Britain’s surging Reform UK, led by Trump acolyte and Brexiteer Nigel Farage.
In the U.S., the murder of MAGA activist Charlie Kirk further widens the already canyonesque right-left divide. Having pardoned many Jan. 6 ransackers of the Capitol, Mr. Trump is now threatening a crackdown on leftist organizations, singling them out for political violence as opposed to his own MAGA agents of chaos.
Divisive forces in Canada are ample enough, but on a much smaller scale than in other jurisdictions. Mr. Trump has no big-name champion north of the border to carry his message. Far from being copied, his work is what has pulled the country together.
Maxime Bernier’s radical-right People’s Party won almost five per cent of the vote in the 2021 election. In this year’s campaign the party all but disappeared, garnering less than one per cent.
Meanwhile, Alberta’s separatist movement underwhelms. Former premier Jason Kenney took to mocking it this week as being driven by a “tiny perennially angry minority” who have no business dragging the province through such a divisive debate.
Mr. Carney, who grew up in Alberta, appears to be making some headway toward repairing relations with that province, judging by Premier Danielle Smith’s recent remarks. In Edmonton last week, Ms. Smith talked of finding “more common ground” with him than in any other meeting with a PM.
Immigration is a big issue in this country, but for economic reasons – not the racial reasons that divide Europe and fuel white nationalism in the United States.
Disinformation is a serious problem here too, but there are no mainstream ideological outlets in Canada that can compare with Fox News or MSNBC in pulling the country in opposite directions.
Though conservatism took a harder-right turn in this country with the death of the old progressive Tories, the ideologically hardened version of the party isn’t finding much favour. It has lost four elections to the Liberals in succession, albeit by narrow margins.
As he told TVO’s Steve Paikin, University of Toronto political scientist Lawrence Leduc believes that we are likely to see Mr. Poilievre move “a little bit more cautiously toward a more traditional opposition.” Successful populist leaders come from outside the system, he noted. They don’t tend to be career politicians like him.
In spite of all the disruptive forces at large through these years, Canadians’ moderate disposition appears to have remained largely intact. Centrism, not leftism or rightism, is the country’s dominant political ideology, as our history of electing mainly moderately inclined Liberal or conservative governments bear witness.
As the array of problems currently confronting the country testify, the middle way leaves much to be desired. But the holding together of a land so varied and vast for 158 years is a remarkable achievement, and it’s due in large part to Canadians’ preference for the centre. Centrism is being bashed and beaten elsewhere, but not here. Here, the state of mind is in better balance. Here, in keeping with Kipling, we’re keeping our heads. |
