United States of Canada?

Maybe it is because my thoroughly American family is replete with Canadian relatives and ancestors, but I have never had trouble differentiating between the two countries. Canadians, it seems, haven't had it so easy. Yesterday's national election in Canada (Election? What election? Ask 99% of the U.S. population) will no doubt stir up the identity-crisis-clinical-depression-induced-paranoia-all-wrapped-up-in-navel-gazing that Canadians call their "relationship" with this country. My Canadian "cousins" were folks that climbed into Sopwith Camels in one war, and fought in North Africa (long before us Yanks) in the next. I have always seen them as heroes. I wish Canadians could discover those elements in their heritage to celebrate.


Sydney Morning Herald

So yesterday there was an election in Canada. A parliamentary election. Meaning the party with the most seats gets to have their leader as premier. Meaning a head of the central government with a few more powers of appointment than an American-style president. If the American president had the kinds of powers of a Canadian premier, the president would hold some of the perogatives of the states' governors and a few of the oversight (advise and consent) powers of Congress. All wrapped up in one leader. From the Conservative Party. By the name of Stephen Harper.

As you can see, the new ruling Conservative Party has a bare majority. The BBC reports, "(i)n the run-up to the 23 January vote, the 46-year-old Conservative leader succeeded in transforming his image, from that of a hardline right-winger to a progressive conservative, and moving his party to the centre."

Meanwhile Michael Moore - remember him? Yeah, that's right, the guy who owns Halliburton stock, can't resist the opportunity to whip up some left wing hysteria:

"These are no ordinary times," Moore proclaimed. "And as you go to the polls on Monday, you do so while a man running the nation to the south of you is hoping you can lend him a hand by picking Stephen Harper because he's a man who shares his world view?" For more, see the article in Newsmax. One can easily see where Moore is going with this, fueling already rampant Canadian sentiment: "Do you really want to help George Bush by turning Canada into his latest conquest?"


NotAColony.ca

The great news is that enough Canadians didn't fall for it. And that enough Canadians see themselves in the same image of how I viewed my Canadian relatives from childhood onwards - and Canada has a chance to move forward in that vein.

Liberal Canadian commentator Anthony Westell describes how it happened:

"For years the Liberals coasted to victory in election after election because the centre-right vote was split between the Progressive Conservatives and the Reform, later Alliance, party. In yesterday's election the position was reversed. The right was unified in the new Conservative party while the centre left was split between the Liberals, the NDP and the Greens –not to mention the Bloc Québécois which claims to be social democratic. It's really as simple as that. Final vote totals will show that the majority of Canadians remain center-left in their politics, and Liberal and NDP MPs will outnumber the Conservatives in the new House. However, government in Ottawa may well remain in Conservative hands until their opponents can get their act together."


FiscalStudy.com

Not to worry, though - a significant enough portion of the Canadian population is into the self-loathing that master manipulators like Michael Moore require in order to make their millions.


NotAColony.ca

But as conservative Canadian columnist Mark Steyn said in his column in The Australian: it is a sad day for Michael Moore. Steyn knows how to unload a sweet rant:

"For the past century, Canada's ruling Liberals have been the democratic world's most consistently successful political party. This time round, mired in a series of scandals that were turning Canada into the G7's first Third World kleptocracy, the flailing Trudeaupians adopted an even more ferocious version of their usual strategy: scare the voters back to Nanny. As the Liberals warned Canadians - or, rather, shrieked at them - Stephen Harper will take away "a woman's right to choose"! The unwanted boys you'll be forced to have will grow up to be Bush cannon fodder in Iraq, and the unwanted girls will be sold as white slaves for Halliburton corporate cocktail parties round the pool at Dick Cheney's ranch."

It sounds like Michael Moore knows where to go for his talking points.