Once again, Canada has held a peaceful, orderly election process with an uncontested outcome. We may take this for granted, but we shouldn’t. It is the result of a rules-based system in which we all have confidence that it will function without interference by forces either domestic or foreign. This can’t be said for many countries around the world.
Here, in the Pontiac, we have been blessed by an array of terrific local candidates stepping up for public service, each with something worthwhile to contribute on subjects of local concern such as economic development and job creation in the Pontiac, supporting agriculture, developing tourism, protecting minority language rights, health care, climate change, Chalk River, the need to work with local residents to improve things here, and more.
All well and good. But, in the end, this election was not about this place or what we want our local candidates to do for us. It was about one issue: leadership in the face of the Trump threat.
Never let a good crisis go to waste, as they say. Trump provided the crisis, and the Liberals seized the moment.
In no time flat, the Liberals pivoted from the depths of unpopularity to forming the next government. In the process, they swapped out their leader in record time. The Liberal and Conservative platforms converged around the middle of the political spectrum. The preoccupations of the other parties vanished from the landscape as our multi-party system was reduced to a two-party horse race.
The emergence of a new ballot question was a gift for the new Liberal leader and a liability for the candidate whose policies were seen to be most like Trump’s. It enabled someone who had never been elected to anything to beat a career politician.
As we go to press, it is still not certain whether the Liberals will form a minority or a majority government. But one outcome of this election is clear. The diversity of opposition voices in the House has been greatly diminished. In turn, this promises to impoverish the level of debate and the provision of effective, substantive criticism of government policy, a cornerstone of a functioning parliamentary democracy.
Among the many issues where this will be of concern is the Liberal plan to lean more heavily on nuclear power as part of its energy and climate change strategy. It has long been a Liberal aspiration to build Canada’s uranium and nuclear exports. The climate crisis has finally handed them the perfect rationale for doing so. On the other hand, the mounting tensions between India and Pakistan, both of which were recipients of Canadian nuclear technology decades ago, ought to serve as a cautionary tale. And the foolish notion that nuclear power is a clean energy simply because it does not emit carbon dioxide is far from true and deserves vigorous opposition.
This is but one of many issues that have quietly slipped into the mandate of the government we just elected, largely un-discussed in an election entirely about the Trump threat.
A crisis may lend itself to a very successful political campaign, but it comes at a cost. In the rush to welcome the saviour, the one person who can protect us, other issues that would normally be of concern drop by the wayside.
Losing focus on pressing issues is a problem that is plaguing the entire planet, where urgent human tragedies such as in Ukraine and in Gaza, among others, are left to languish by the global community as the crisis of Trump’s mischief sucks all the oxygen out of the room.
While wishing our new government godspeed in dealing with the Trump problem it was elected to solve, we can only hope it is able to multitask, as Trump is not the only pebble on the beach.
