Forks in the road .. 2015 Canadian election race begins .. Old America crashes, Senate of Canada burns !

Oct 23rd, 2013 | By Counterweights Editors | Category: In Brief

The “About” section at the top of the page explains that this site “was launched in the summer of 2004, in response to a dockside debate in the northern woods. The current counterweights editors are committed to carrying on for at least a full decade (until the summer of 2014, that is) – and possibly or even probably until the next Canadian federal election in 2015.”

Barring some utter cataclysm (see, eg : “Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s carefully constructed house of cards comes crashing down”), the date of the next Canadian federal election has been fixed by the current Canada Elections Act as Monday, October 19, 2015 : exactly two years from this past Saturday. With this in mind the founding counterweights editors met on the exurbanizing outskirts of Brooklin, Ontario this past Sunday to plan for the mid-term future.

The meeting was unexpectedly broken up by the news that Toronto Centre is among the four ridings where federal byelections will be held this coming Monday, November 25, 2013. (Our founding editors include campaign workers who suddenly had to get there first, wherever there may be, to shock and awe their rivals.)

A more relaxed meeting of current less overtly partsian-political editors back in East Toronto (aka Ganatsekwyagon, ON), on Monday October 21, 2013, decided for dead certain that the site will stay in business until the next Canadian federal election in 2015. (Assuming that PM Harper’s house of cards will somehow survive until then.) After the election the site willÂ morph into something completely different for a new era in Canada and the global village, including the neighbouring States of the Union, where the 2016 presidential campaign will already be in motion.

This past Monday’s editorial meeting also made some fresh decisions about the counterweights style and content over its last two years. To start with, all the “In Brief” blog items on the home page will actually be brief!Â We may seldom make the limit of 400 words, proposed by technical support staff during the last technical renovation of the site. But we rigorously promise not to exceed 600 words (the limit for crikey in Australia) onÂ the “In Brief” blog items up front on the home page. Substantively, these items will focus as well on the road to the 2015 Canadian federal election, with side trips into (especially Ontario) provincial politics in CanadaÂ – and the cultural and economic development of the global village and (especially) the USA today.

At the same time, we will continue with periodic longer “essay” postings – a number of which have proved more popular than anything else on this site. These postings, however, will initially appear on the right-hand “Categories” side of the home page – with only brief mentions (and links) in the “In Brief” blog postings. And – as the exception which proves the rule – this last “old order”posting here includes some additional information, which can only be accessed (from the home page at least!) by clicking on “Read the rest of this page” and/or scrolling below.(And, again as a very final caveat emptor here, note that the editors generally agreed to this kind of broad policy back at the last technical renovation a few years ago. Yet it never really happened! So … but this time we’ll be organized – and rigorously determined to do the right thing! Meanwhile, see below for : (1) James Laxer on how “Post-shutdown America is on the verge of outright civil conflict” ; and (2) “Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s carefully constructed house of cards comes crashing down” ????. )

(1) James Laxer on how “Post-shutdown America is on the verge of outright civil conflict”

On Sunday, October 20, 2013 the Toronto Globe and Mail website published an intriguing piece by James Laxer – who, way back in 1971, when he was a mere 30 years old, “ran for the leadership of the federal NDP” as a so-called Waffle candidate – “and shocked the convention by winning one-third of the vote against party stalwart David Lewis.”

Laxer is now “a professor of political science in the Department of Equity Studies at York University.” And he is “the author of A House Divided: Watching America’s Descent into Civil Conflict, published by House of Anansi as an E Publication.” His October 20 piece in the Globe was entitled “Post-shutdown America is on the verge of outright civil conflict.”

In his October 20 Globe piece Laxer writes :”The United States is descending into a civil conflict that is driven by the division of the country into two quite distinct societies. Let’s call them Old America and New America …Among the elements that have fuelled the formation of the two Americas are: changing demographics, social class, gender, values, religion and guns.”

You can say that this is too simplistic. And in some ways it is. But, like a lot of what James Laxer writes, it is useful and helpful as well. It could also be said, we think here, that there is some vaguely parallel “Old Canada” and “New Canada.”

Similarly, just as it has been said that the old federal Liberals “campaigned from the left and governed from the right,” so it might be said that the new Harper Conservatives campaign as a “New Canada” force but govern very much as “Old Canada.”

Where is all this leading???? We certainly do not know. What we would finally advise is “keep your own counsel.” Canada in 2013 does not mean the same thing at all as it meant in 1867, to say nothing of 1789 or 1781 or 1763 or 1774 – or 1535, 1608, 1713, 1756, 1926, 1947, 1965, etc, etc, etc. And we felt we were helped along by James Laxer’s short articleÂ on how “Post-shutdown America is on the verge of outright civil conflict.” Maybe you will be too????

(2) “Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s carefully constructed house of cards comes crashing down” ????

It is not easy to know just what to make of the latest explosion in the ongoing Senate of Canada expense scandal. For a time it looked as if the new throne speech and the free trade deal with Europe might be working for the government in Ottawa.

Then suddenly, yesterday afternoon, things looked worse than expected, as one of Stephen Harper’s record number of appointed Senators (well two in fact, but only one with at least some prospects of credibility) decided to take the advice of Dylan Thomas : “Do not go gentle into that good night … Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

We are writing here before Pamela Wallin has had her chance to follow the leads of Mike Duffy and Patrick Brazeau. (“Pamela Wallin may finally have her say on the floor of the Senate today about her expense claims and the motion to suspend her without pay.”) Her testimony may deepen the problems now faced by Prime Minister Harper. (“Mike Duffy Senate scandal ‘directly implicates’ PM, Mulcair says.”) Or … who really knows what else at this point?

Only one thing seems clear to us right now. Yesterday, eg, the Yahoo Canada site was asking visitors to opine on whether this latest explosion in the ongoing Senate of Canada expense scandal would “topple” the Harper government. The only way that anything like this could happen, as best we can make out, would be for the Conservative caucus in the Canadian House of Commons to revolt against Mr. Harper’s leadership, and bring down his government.

Based on what we know to date, we don’t think there is any likelihood of any such prospect at the moment. So far this latest explosion in the ongoing Senate of Canada expense scandal is not the “utter cataclysm” alluded to above. And, whatever else, as matters stand we still expect the Harper government to survive until the fixed-date election on Monday, October 19, 2015.

But of course, stay tuned. We could be wrong! Meanwhile, here is a quick and dirty collection of a dozen related news articles from the recent past :

SEP 27 – Three-way race shaping up ahead of 2015 federal election: poll

OCT 14 – Canada Throne Speech To Mark Unofficial Start Of 2015 Federal Election Race

OCT 20 – Harper sets date for 4 federal byelections

OCT 21 – Harper back to face Senate turmoil with trade deal in hand

OCT 21 – Mike Duffy will fight move to suspend him from Senate: lawyer

OCT 22 – Mike Duffy claims Harper told him to repay expense money