Blue Like You

Archive for October 14th, 2007

Very thought-provoking column by Norman Webster in today’s Montreal Gazette - Lessons from the Ontario election.

He discusses the results of the election from the point of view of how the MMP system might have altered the results. No doubt this is a hollow victory for Dalton McGuinty:

“Sweeping victory,” said the headlines, and so it was - in seats, which are all that count in our system. McGuinty can now, if he wishes, slide into comfortable-dictator mode à la Jean Chrétien, based on the support of less than one-quarter of the voters. You don’t have to be a political scientist to discern further questions about legitimacy…

He states that we still need to be looking at some kind of electoral reform that delivers results more in line with the voters’ wishes. I agree.

This past effort was a sham. There was no time to properly educate the electorate and debate the issue in an effective way. Personally, I felt that MMP was too fraught with pitfalls, but I don’t feel that we should therefore unquestioningly accept FPTP as the single, perfect system.

However, the second half of Webster’s column is even more intriguing:

Finally, a bit worryingly, the whole election turned on Conservative leader John Tory’s pledge to support faith-based separate schools with public funds. The promise turned out to be political suicide. McGuinty seized the issue and ran with it, summing things up in his victory speech Wednesday night: “We work and build and dream together … always, always, always, together.”

That’s a fine sentiment, but to some those are code words for not accommodating the immigrant Others and their differences in the new Canada. And so we have an Ontario election lost on unspoken fears of Islamic madrassas in Toronto the Good - not to mention a Quebec election hijacked by a soccer player wearing a head covering, or wacky proposals to ban hijabs and yarmulkes on public employees.

Canada’s largest, most important province has sent a message about integration and cultural differences; it wants more of the first and less of the second, at least when it means special treatment. Politics, religion, schooling, race are potentially volatile areas.

This of course, brings to mind all the current debate in Quebec about ‘reasonable accommodation’.

Here is my theory: Canadians are indeed a tolerant and welcoming group of people. Other than the natives, we are all immigrants to some degree. However, the problem is that a culture of political correctness has taken away our right to voice our concerns publicly. We smile, but inside we’re furious and fearful that so many immigrants prefer to cloister themselves rather than blend in.

When we see Muslim women walking behind their husbands with only their eyes visible, we are reminded again and again of the differences. Some of us find that disturbing. But we are told to be quiet.

What happened this past Wednesday, I believe, was the collective voice of Ontario voters saying that this is where they draw the line.