CLIVE DOUCET
Justin Trudeau’s decision to put his party before the country when he refused to honour his 2015 promise to move toward a proportional voting system infected everything that happened in this most recent election.
I saw it every day in Cape Breton, from Mi’kmaw communities to fishing villages, to the post-coal, post-industrial abandonment of Glace Bay.
The thing of it is, the people knew exactly that they were being manipulated to vote against the Conservatives led by Andrew Scheer, rather than for what they wanted. They understood perfectly what was at stake.
They didn’t want to vote strategically. One man put it this way: “We voted strategically last time. Thirty-two Liberal seats and … our communities are the same as they ever were. I am so past strategic voting.”
I took this to be true because I heard it often — at the beginning.
One lady put it this way: “I fear Scheer and distrust Trudeau. I’m thinking of voting Green.” Not surprisingly, during the first few weeks, we thought the Greens had a real chance, and the early polls that I saw supported that idea. Fresh out of the gate, we were running at about 18 per cent, which was well ahead of the NDP and within shooting range of the Conservatives. It seemed like a miracle might occur, that in Cape Breton-Canso, where Elizabeth May spent her childhood, a Green victory was possible.
Even the weather was co-operating. Hurricane Dorian had belted the hell out of the island. Eighty per cent of Nova Scotians had been without power for many days. The need to do something about climate change could not have been more apparent. People were sympathetic to the Green message.
Then came the craziness of old brownface photos of that buffeted Trudeau. An opéra bouffe of racial panic swept through the media like a wildfire, with the prime minister apologizing for dressing up as Aladdin at a high school fundraiser. Jagmeet Singh came galloping out of political obscurity to ride the opera triumphantly past the shamed prime minister.
The NDP began to save some of their furniture and the Greens began to crumble. Our numbers, instead of dramatically increasing, decreased — and I saw it at the door. The early enthusiasm changed to a tentativeness. People still said they wanted change, but they became more cautious about saying how that change might manifest itself. As the weeks went by, it became clear that they were genuinely uncertain about how to vote. Cape Bretoners were still unfailingly polite and welcoming at the door, but the atmosphere had changed. A frustration bordering on desperation began to paint every interaction.
The debates with the other candidates simplified. It was as if each of us were playing a kind of political Santa Claus. My gift box was the Greens’ proposal for a guaranteed basic annual income. The NDP had their gifts wrapped up in pharmacare. The Liberals rained presents, the newest being billions of trees, while the Conservatives promised to play Grinch and take away all the gifts the others were offering. The idea that the election should be about a made-in-Canada vision for the future did not surface. We were all locked in our gift boxes.
On election day, the decisions were finally made. In Atlantic Canada, it was a grudging, angry strategic vote for the Liberals. No one was happy. The Liberal first-past-the-post strategy motivated by fear did win enough votes to gain the day. No doubt, I and the Greens must share part of the blame. The Green platform, which was the most radical, the boldest plan for moving the nation towards a more compassionate society and balanced environment, never got out of the gift box.
In my more despairing moments, I wonder if this election marked the dismantling of Canada as a national idea. The West has remained locked in a simplistic “pipeline or bust” mentality. Immigrant Ontario clung to the Liberals. Quebec is back with the Bloc’s federal version of the old Parti Québécois. 2019 gave the federal Parliament no mandate, no vision for the country, just more division and attack.
I’m confident that if the 2019 election had been based on a proportional vote, we would have had a very different outcome on every level, that divisions would be less marked because each party would have representatives from all regions of the country and political debates would have been more generous and more coherent.
Instead, all we got was more partisan politics and a down payment on the next election.
Clive Doucet is a former Ottawa city councillor and author. His last book is Grandfather’s House, Returning to Cape Breton. He was the Green Party candidate in Cape Breton-Canso.
