Happy 2010 Canada-you have no government. We are the kids who woke up at a friend’s house on New Years day to come home to find our parents took the keys, sold the house and are halfway to Tijuana. What did we do to deserve this we are asking ourselves in this proroguing time? Nothing. Well, exactly nothing. It’s that we have done nothing, seen nothing, asked for nothing, that well… we get a government of nothing. We are in the land of nowhere politics: a great society without a captain, a ship or even a fucking map. Analogies aside, we’re in trouble here.  The discontent that followed Ad-scam has manifested itself into a long, disaffected, and disinterested malaise typified by a series of ineffectual sideshow parliaments. While America has been revolutionizing it’s political discourse-both for good and evil and electing a dynamic leader we have been listing. Not even naval-gazing. That would mean a quiet time of introspection. No-we haven’t got a fucking clue who we are, where to go or how to get there. After the worst decade for the Western world since the 70s for failures in democracy, statecraft, the environment, civil rights and the demise of the dream of the Great Society we have let a government shut the door on our political assembly.  Prime Minister Harper has crafted a government that is exclusionary (see media control), secretive, and almost fictional. What has he done, minority constraints aside? He has protected his self-image and his power by avoiding anything that resembles a working executive and government. His reign has solely been predicated on self-preservation and methinks he has finally found the proverbial line and crossed it. And don’t hit me with the argument that this has been done before by both sides-yes it has and it was bullshit then as it is now but this is the cherry on top of a cake made of horse dung. A move that in the context of the Harper “government” cannot be excused.

I have been lost in the world of revolutionary America. Reading the stories of U.S. Independence and the architects of its inception. It was impossibly hard to live let alone create what these men and women created 250 years ago. Then I close the book and look at the TV to find that we are living in a time of absolute antipathy toward politics. They’re all “crooks”-“salesmen, cheats and liars” if you please. As much as we have the unalienable right to freedom, we also have the unassailable responsibility as democratic citizens to at a minimum give a shit. The tendency lately has been to play the great useless game of blame. It’s our “parliamentary system”, “party politics”,  “no Trudeaus or Mulroneys”, we need “proportional representation”, “republicanism”. All valid, but all theoretics are about as helpful as a fart in a windstorm if our civil society continues down the road of ‘who cares’.  Two examples of why we should care and where the buck stops politically in terms of responsibility -squarely at the federal governments doorstep.

1. Since 2002 138 Soldiers have died in the line of duty in Afghanistan. I’m not debating here why we are there (I have before if you care ) But that is 138 people’s families I’d love for the local Tim Horton’s “fuck this country’s politics” blowhards to have a sit-down with.  Our involvement in this war needs to be directed by a unified government with a clear mandate. This is not a place for half measures, murky debates and statements or worse-the game of hot potato that has been the MO of the Harper government.

2. Copenhagen was just great. Thanks Mr. Prentice for at least showing up. I haven’t heard a thing from David Suzuki on Facebook since. I think he has been so pissed he went into his back forty in Vancouver and punched a tree.  The environment, as much as the bumper sticker on your local lefty’s car says act local-is not something the Mayor of Cornwall can fix by himself. Your local Church Women’s League, Mosque or high school Global Issues club is not going to be where this gets fixed. It will take the weight of the biggest consumer in the country-the same monolith that is responsible for the future of the environment to take action. This crosses, borders, religion, gender, class, time zones, histories, cultures, markets, languages,-it is the great multidisciplinary clusterfuck of responsibility. If there was ever a rallying point for a national conversation and meaningful national strategy led by the federal government –this is it. The federal government is in charge of “the big stuff”-the things that move the national idea of Canada forward. What has happened in our factionalized, regionalized little state of ours is that we have downloaded responsibility for all the really important big stuff to the point that most people in Ottawa are looking around and asking, “what do we do again?” Health and education are a provincial “responsibility”. All the cache without the cash. The Feds have given away the uniting work of the country to a level of government that has neither the time, money, staff nor resources to manage and implement. There are no great national projects. The environment is the one thing that could create a unity and sense of national purpose but-well…Copenhagen.

I digress in the details here. This is the time to put the gloves on. You know all those times when an election was imminent and you said to yourself, I'm going to volunteer, knock on some doors, make some calls, read the platforms-enter the fray? Well this is the eve of that time again that I think is our last kick at the can before we really descend into a suicidal depression.  It is the time to find out who your local MP is, find out about the party structure in your riding and be prepared to be active.  This has been my little “burning down the barn” rant. But what we need is a country of builders. We have been asked before by politicians, “what kind of country do we want?”. Some of those politicians have been good, and we have given them resounding shoulder shrugs and they have moved on to better higher paying jobs. Some of those politicians have been bad and our shoulder shrugs have enabled and entrenched power hungry ineffective “salesmen, cheats and liars”. They have quietly been holding back the tide of democratic action by stifling the media, stoking the slow flameless burn of voter apathy all the while dreaming of how to really disassemble the government and sell it to the highest bidders-usually their friends and ex-business partners who I’m sure will set a aside a piece for their elected friends upon retirement.

L.