41st Parliament and the Rise of Rhetoric

Somewhere in the Maritimes, a brilliant and distinguished historian, former student of an indomitable icon-blaster, is writing the History of Canada: The Harper Moment 2011-2016. 

That’s a long time ago!

She wears original fabrics: brands that are now fetish. She recalls with some nostalgia the Scottish-British, New England-American and Italian origin of the wears. Her spouse anecdotes that she enjoys the classics: George Eliot, George Sand and Colette. He enjoys William Vollmann and David Foster Wallace: reads vintage 50 years and over. Eclectics and dandies are all classics by now. Classic types form a perfect mélange. I never asked her why she wore no Canadian fabrics.

I was asked to read her final manuscript. When publishers ask for my ‘feelings’. I usually insinuate that the texts no longer feel like Pauline Kael, George Woodcock or James Wood. 

In this author's case, the impression is different. In her introduction, our distinguished historian cites Santayana: Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Thereto, she narrates by metaphor and analogy. As such, the story of the 41^st Parliament is an assemblage of brilliant minds, like the Solvay Conference of 1927, wherein participated the best and the brightest (who quilled that?) minds of the time to declare the 'correct version' of quantum theory. That’s a long time ago!  Almost one hundred twenty-five years ago, and as an aside,  although there was some compromise over the  'better version', not the definitive version, physicists still don’t understand the theory. To some extent, Parliament is also about versions of national interest and national solutions to problems in dealing with that reality, wherein hopefully, the better solution will be found and implemented.

The author will reconstruct the ‘road taken’ that led to that monumental rhetorical theatre that marked the beginning of an epochal political assembly. She will narrate the rise of a lone-gun, Mr. Stephen Harper, the  devolution of a Liberal tradition with Messrs. Martin and Ignatieff, la Grande Seduction of Mr. Layton and the parsimonious and successful campaigns of both talented Mrs. May and Mr. Mulcair.  Mostly, she commends the Return of the Natural: sine qua non-Mr. Robert Rae. It would have been a great assembly without Mr. Rae; it became a monumental Parliament with Mr. Rae. All Halberstam's best came to town for this High Noon.

She further emphasizes in her Introduction that ‘No Commons had auspiced such eloquence as the 41^st Commons. No assembly of able voices had delivered their prescriptions and denouncements with such thunder, abandon and conviction within the walls of the Commons since the Golden Ages of Canadian Oratory which had witnessed the towering elocutions of Diefenbaker, Douglas, Pearson, Trudeau, and then the riveting interlocutions between Trudeau, Stanfield, Caouette and Broadbent. In fact, no Parliament in recent memory could evince so much controversy, vibrato, passion vexation and admiration as the 41^st Parliament’

The author singles out the personas: the audacity and confidence of Mr. Harper, the compassion and incisiveness of Mr. Layton, the passion and insight of Mr. Rae, and the  trenchant pindarisms of Messrs. Dion,  Mulcair, Coderre, May, Goodale, Cotler-all versing and reversing History; all and more deciding and non-deciding the future of the Criminal Code; disclaiming visions and  claiming revisions of the Electoral Map-all embattled veterans and inspired novices denouncing injustices towards seniors, workers, families, inadequate pensions, inappropriate working conditions, climate change, first nations, minorities, regional development and on...all glazed by the revel of high rhetoric.

As enlightened a critic and competent an author, she will focus on the semiotics that embellish and legitimate the oral bravados and bravuras of  great Parliamentarians. She will highlight that Mr. Harper, alone, won a majority Government without Quebec; that Mr. Layton became the first federal NDP leader to assemble a Loyal Opposition and carry  the Quebec majority, that Mrs. May was the first leader of the Green Party to bench as sole representative of her Party and finally, our distinguished scholar will underline that Mr. Rae-after a self-imposed political exile, as some say, returned to lead a liberal opposition, attempt to rebuild a tradition whose ways and means were fragmented and scattered in places so unknown as to be forgotten. It was a session where Messrs. Harper and Rae traveled the country more than any Leaders of  previous decades-the former redefining charisma and the ‘average Canadian’, the latter constructing an appropriate organization and redefine the Liberal tradition.  Mr. Harper, according to our author, will have succeeded; Mr. Rae will have encountered too many politically illiterate obstructions that should have been shelved up front.

On the strategic plane, Mr. Harper will have adjudicated his Government’s fiscal and industrial policy in the midst a strong Canadian dollar, of rising unemployment, growing income disparity and regional disparities, depleting housing and health services, increasing federal, provincial and municipal deficits and overall increases in debt-servicing. Notwithstanding, our distinguished historian will point out the institutional cautions of the Bank of Canada, the IMF and the World Bank in face of a resurgence of Keynes, circuit theory,  and chartalism which signaled the oncoming of another major seismic rupture in the classical economic model- the same undetected symptom that had preceded and perpetrated the financial collapse of 2007 and the ensuing recessions, and had pervaded the ineffectiveness and undermined the economic policy efforts of Mr. Harper's minority governments. She identifies Mr. Harper's success notwithstanding this global pandemonium,  resulting from his intelligent rendition of Canada’s performance in contrast to the declining growth rates and higher unemployment rates of the European and the American economies, but avoiding comparisons with evident economic prosperity in industrial Asia.  In fairness, she counterpoints the passionate interventions of Messrs. Layton and Rae, in that order, who remind the Government of the continuous depletion of natural resources and public infrastructure, the increasing costs of education, health and transportation, the commensurately decreasing quality of services in those sectors, and the insidious threat of privatization of critical public assets as well as the significant decline of per capita net disposable income. In a vein similar to her opposition colleagues, Mrs. May's ire will raise subtle bickers when she exposes the disinvestment of the government towards the environment and voice her concern that Canada's position in securing the contracted compliance in that sector is no longer credible, as is its foreign policy with respect to the Arctic no longer credible. Mr. Rae and Mr. Layton will remind Government of the heightening tensions in federal-provincial relations, impoverished conditions of Canadian fresh water supplies, fisheries and the timber industry and will raise the stakes of the deliberation pointing out the demise of Canada's manufacturing industry, the burden of taxation on a shrinking  middle-class and the global snicker that Canada is returning to a primary sector economy with an underlying dependency matrix. All, from the Ottawa Assembly, at High Noon.

Our author will conclude her introduction by citing the indomitable M. Marcel Trudel, vindicated by Quebec after generations of neglect by political clerics that either couldn’t read the great rogue mind and/or had no clue how to decode meanings from facts and data.  She will then rhetorically challenge the readership to find another modern-era Canadian Parliament whose participants had displayed more intensity, more imagination and more passion deliberating the State of our Union.

She will acknowledge in an epilogue the long and fruitful discussions she cherished with another renowned historian, credit the best of the script to him and the worst to herself while

somewhere in Alberta, the credited historian, renowned through his own efforts,  student of the implacable ironist and tyrant of the word, will be editing his Master's wits, dating the latter's dantesque memoirs, proofreading speeches, articles, and resetting the correspondence for his second volume on The Fall and Rise of Canadian Polity: The Orators. He will outline  Speaker Milliken’s era which preceded the Harper Moment and highlight the selection of young Mr. Sheer as Speaker for the 41st Parliament of Canada….and after a slight distraction, refocused his thoughts and selecting a HB 2, Mirado classic pencil from his leather pouch, will jot down in his three-holed Hilroy Canada Exercise book from his own childhood “By ascribing a Moment to the Harper term, my most distinguished colleague lavishes enormous notoriety upon Mr. Harper in anticipation of Clio's verdict.”
...and then returning to his own work, footnotes besides a circle of names ‘Ambition…the glorious fault of angel and gods’ [Alexander Pope].

[Part 2 to be continued]

Jack be Nimble; Mr. Layton be Quick, Mr. Jack Layton be Classic!

Jack be Nimble; Mr. Layton be Quick.

Every child mimes a rhyme and every child’s rhyme has a moral dimension. The same with Jack and the candlestick. Although most parents would probably prefer a clever and timely child, as long as he's not a little rascal, every parent knows that a clever child is not necessarily timely; and punctual kids are not necessarily clever. In politics unfortunately, when you're not nimble and not quick, you're out of luck. And Jack can't afford snuffing out the candlestick before the term ends.   That’s why Homer’s Ulysses is such a remarkable character: he plans his interventions well and leads his trained crew well.  That’s why Homer is such a classic- whatever may be troubling or overwhelming about the political arena of gods and men, destinies are never unresolved. Classic figures, with a little help from divine friends,  always find the inner strength to either succeed or transcend their failure.  In the case of Ulysses, the underlying narrative is home and family, the values honor and love.

So, Mr. Layton, if a classic rhyme can trigger an imperative and an initiative, 'be nimble and be quick', lest fortune snuff out the candlestick! Then it's worth the following recall.

Our May 2, 2011 posting had predicted a majority Progressive Conservative Government; a Liberal oust and a Bloc rout, and recognized the NDP as Parliament’s new opposition.  By doing so, the Mr. Layton and the NDP changed Canadian Parliamentary history: it was the first time since Confederation that the NDP had assumed the role as Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition.  To say the least, the May 2, 2011 election result blindsided the leadership of the NDP party, regardless of what they contend. Had the virtue of Messrs Layton and Mulcair been premonitory, professing virtue (virtu) in the most endearing of machiavellian senses,  the selection and availability of candidates would have been more vigilantly curated. On the other hand, thank heaven that the new NDP candidates are enthusiastic and unmarred by political whines. The rejuvenation and earnestness of a young whingeless opposition may indeed mark the beginning of an unorthodox parliamentary session and help counter their leadership's caution. Yet, at some point, euphoria, wishful thinking and rationalization will dissipate, and the people and more particularly the media, will lend a serious ear to the realpolitik being deliberated on Parliament Hill.

The same May 2 posting reminded Mr. Layton of his obligations towards Canadians, and Central Canada in particular, that had opted for change, and had chosen to resend some weather-worn elected officials and a group of novice enthusiasts to represent the interests and aspirations of an opposing electorate, to check the government, and mostly act as an alternative government in waiting. I owe the latter notion to a former Conservative Rt Hon John George Diefenbaker from a speech delivered in 1949 to the Empire Club in Toronto.In view of this serious responsibility and ultimate end, the NDP must be pragmatic, and demonstrate courage and wisdom.  

More than two thousand years ago, the Greek philosopher Aristotle judged that of all governments, Democracy was the most desirable, although he also considered it as the most fragile of all the forms, as did Churchill  more than two millenia later when the latter proposed the epitaph "Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world… No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." As a result of this intrinsic frailty, it is the duty of party leaders to ensure that their respective legislators are best equipped with resources and adequately trained to exercise their rhetoric in the House of Commons and in the Committees. After all, politics in a Parliamentary Democracy takes a highly Rhetorical form, and the best at eloquence and substance ultimately win the day. It is then natural and wise to seek out the best orations by opponents to the government in Parliamentary history as a springboard for one's own preparation.  Suffice to browse, for those with some time to spare, the interventions of Messrs Pitt the elder, Pitt the younger, Peel, Disraeli and Gladstone, David Lloyd George and Churchill in the UK, Messrs Tommy Douglas, Diefenbaker, Stanfield and Broadbent in Canada, in order to evoke the voice and temperament of fearless and ferocious opposition. If one may humbly suggest, although the latter all warrant lecture, among these, there is probably no better prescription of the role of the opposition than a speech delivered by the Hon. John Diefenbaker in 1949 to the Empire Club in Toronto. It is an elegantly structured, marvellously argued and a profound historical rendition of the nature and role of Canada's Loyal Opposition. It should be a staple on the Opposition bench and visible to the Conservatives and Prime Minister Stephen Harper, although we surmise that The Prime Minister and the better of his bench have gem in memory.

If cautions can be suggested, avoid the simplistic resonance attributed to George Tierney 'oppose everything and propose nothing' or the monologous, para-filibuster undertaking of the 1993 Bouchard Official Opposition centered largely on Quebec which undermined the  ‘loyalty’ of the opposition regardless of its officialism. Notwithstanding all the effort and good faith Mr. Bouchard demonstrated, it is difficult to represent 'loyalty' when the principles dictating the postures of the Government and the Opposition are fundamentally different and diametrically opposed.  This was best articulated by Thomas Jefferson in his first inaugural speech wherein he affirmed that belief in the same principles permits differences in opinion and policy, arguing that it reflects and is the foundation of the party system, and underlines the dynamic of a healthy political opposition.

Within the difficult context of a Majority Government and an emergent inexperienced Loyal Opposition, the challenge for Mr. Layton is to ensure the soundness of his platform and credibility of his legislators. Both Mr. Layton and his executive are accountable to the Canadian people for the quality and quantity of work that the Opposition must perform. Failure on either count may entail the unravelling of the party and the demise of Layton/Mulcair as serious political figures.

Greek political thought had given enormous significance to the quality of legislative efforts and polities. Aristotle (Ethics Bk X: 1180b28ff), in particular, demanded that legislators be properly and practically trained and educated by experienced politicians before entering the political arena. This advice on the importance of a legislator's education is confirmed by figures no less outstanding than Thomas Hobbes  and Voltaire, and success in the matter entails, according to Aristotle 'no better legacy...to their state, and no greater distinction ...for themselves...' (Ethics Bk X:1181aff).

Paraphrasing Machiavelli: it’s not the titles that ennobles the person; it is the actions of a person that give value to the title. So too, it is the duty of  leadership to equip and motivate its legislators. So let the media put aside its speculations and ramblings on the causes for success or failure of this Opposition until later in the term. Only at that moment can both Media and History evaluate Messrs Layton and Mulcair on their ability and resolve to have assumed responsibility and organized a serious and respectful Loyal Opposition.

This post contends that Messrs Layton and Mulcair will succeed. This post hopes that Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition of the 41st Parliament will become one of the most inspiring displays of serious and responsible deliberation in Parliamentary History.

Jack is nimble and Mr. Layton is quick, and Mr. Jack Layton shall clear the candlestick!

Mr. Harper, Machiavelli and Games

A previous  May 2, 2011 article distinguished between Mr. Harper's win and Mr Layton's victory. Pïerre de Coubertin's well-worn reserve in his London speech of July 24, 1908, phrases it best : "... l'essentiel [c'est le combat] ce n'est pas d'avoir vaincu mais de s'être bien battu" ('the essential thing is [..the contest] not to have won but to have fought well.').

The purpose was not to indulge in an affectation or pander pedantry.  There is good reason to distinguish between the political results. The same article commented on both results. The evident matter is the result of government; opaque is the matter of how the country will be represented in the Government.

Mr. Harper's win commends because it was masterfully planned and executed; it falls short because it was both a no-brainer and a no-contest. To his credit, hindsight tests him perfectly on both counts.

For those gamers who enjoy dabbling, consider the following.  Mr. Harper recognized the features of this election's zero-sum game;  democratic party politics do not configure a nonzero-sum game. There were only two bona fide players or opponents in this federal election: Mr. Harper and the Others. The Harper tradeoff was an option for/against a parliamentary majority. It was a non-ambivalent, unambiguous platform, for many outright outrageous- to other electors and some analysts, it even reaped of political suicide, until the last few weeks when it dawned on the more enlightened of the pundit class that Harper had foreseen the unravelling of the singular, most machiavellian scheme in Canadian political history. And I do not intend machiavellian as a demonic and caricatural fashion after the skewed readings of the Tudors, Elizabethans or french Renaissance,  but to that observer of human polities who neither conceived nor  framed the machiavellian moment now associated to his name,  to one of history's most brilliant political analysts, and "the founder and master of policy," who professed that political success is determined by courageous insight and calculated foresight-the combination of which are exceptional modes of great leadership or as Machiavelli contextually coins it "virtu".  

Mr. Harper's prerequisite for a win was  that the conservative electorate base would show up at the polls.The only way Mr. Harper could not win is if this original premise was overly presumptuous! Unfortunately for the Others, it wasn't.  His assumption was valid, the probability that  large regional contingents of conservative sympathizers would show up at the polls on election day was validated, and the game was played out with the  non-conservative base divided between three parties and ending up in two routs: the Liberal Party and the Bloc Quebecois.  A vote against Harper, was a split-vote, in other words, a half-vote! Well, math confirms that it takes twice the amount of non-conservative half-votes to supplant a whole conservative vote, and there weren't that many non-conservatives showing up, although there was a record turnout at the polls.

In this context, Mr. Harper's unwilling machiavellianism is more reminiscent of the rational deliberation depicting a Von Neumann-Morgenstern lottery. It is inconceivable to imagine anyone else in Ottawa in the same company as Machiavelli and Von Neumann with the exception of Conrad Black. Unfortunately the latter is not in Ottawa.  Mr. Harper, on the other hand, is in Ottawa. He does have a challenge in living up to that pedigree and fortunately, he is confronted by the optimally classical moment. 

The results of history will validate the rest. Whether Mr. Harper can rise above the storms that will characterize his term will depend on his leadership, because storms are already brewing on the horizon. Whether Mr. Harper can appease the expectations of Quebec that defined its fortune with the Others, will demand virtu...something that many pundits and dilettantes refuse to recognize he possesses in great quantity.

But then pundits, political dilettantes and  staffers, not only those in Canada, do not recall what fortuna and virtu denote and connote. Most recall, if at all, that Machiavelli  wrote the Prince and claimed that the end justifies the means.  There is a cultural tendency to predicate gratuitously and incorrectly the machiavellian moment to a world of intrigue, deceit and ruthlessness. Virtu is that responsibility and skill of leadership to improvise a novel vision in the face of fortune-a set of unforeseen novel events and circumstances. In Mr. Harper's case, fortune has presented the Federal Government with a Canadian dominion in which apparently, Quebec's constitutional dilemma is shelved and its traditional bloc voices are cloistered. Is Mr. Harper experiencing the last breath before the great plunge- an hyperbole to Tolkien's. Is this Quebec's tacit warning that if this doesn't work, then the Rubicon. What a Pyrrhic victory Election Canada 2011 would have been for Mr. Harper.

Personally, I think Mr. Harper is a stricter Machiavellian than the English and French Renaissance diminuitive traditions have transmitted, and as such, much more politically integral and constructive than anyone will expect. Mr. Harper is certainly, a reader of the Discourses, not of  the Prince. 

Mr. Harper, Mr Layton, Mr Ignatieff and Quebec

Mr. Harper's was a classic win, Mr. Layton's was a classic victory and Mr. Ignatieff's a classic failure. Harper's win was strategically brilliant-the master tactitian, most probably the most brilliant Canadian politician of the modern era. Layton's victory was passionate and visionary, rising above the traditional rhetoric of populism to address the needs and passions of the peoples of the country.  Ignatieff's failure was tragic, homme engagé fed by the hubris of a thin organization that settled for its own mediocrity and destroyed an institution that pillared men like Laurier and Trudeau. Therein the worse tragedy.     

The first major task for Prime Minister Harper is to integrate, for all intents and purposes, a non-conservative Quebec into his government without courting a senate selection.  He should shun the obvious conversions of those that never supported the Canadian dream and favor his vision and discretion with members of the official opposition without persuading them to retire their colors. This would mark great leadership in the context of a great challenge. Mr. Harper must recognize that Quebec cannot be shunned; if anything, Quebec should be praised for having democratically stood up against a potential majority conservative government that it viewed as suspect. The Quebec electorate ousted bloc, liberal and conservative incumbents from their ridings and limited access to candidates of the same three to the country's Parliament, thereby  ennobling and voicing its concerns that 'Things cannot remain as they are! Things must change!' not only in Quebec but also in Canada. Once again, Quebec participated in changing the Canadian political scene in a radical way.

Mr. Layton, as leader of the official opposition, must demonstrate classic prudence: he must not be cornered into the same lethargic rhetoric that isolated Quebec, preventing the rest of Canada and the world from seeing Quebec as a creative and dynamic force within Canada. Mr. Layton must avoid the confrontational forum of recent years that unfortunately and sometimes inadvertently demeaned Quebec's aspirations and realities. The leader of the official opposition must honor the great trust that has been given to the NDP by the Quebec electorate.

Mr. Ignatieff should show classic courage and appreciate the writing on the wall.

This election has historic dimensions. It is a classic study in Democracy and Rhetorics: its ups and downs, decisions and indecisions, reversals and achievements are almost literary. It is also the opportunity to label an appropriate moment: The Harper moment-little doubt that Mr. Harper has solidified his reputation. The Layton moment-the jury just walked in and is watching.

If not....