Minority Report

      At the risk of seeming (let alone being) indignantly arrogant, it is this blog's not-so-humble assertion that if this is true, that if my fellow Canadians deem it fit to hand Paul Martin a majority government on a platter, then they truly DESERVE to get screwed. Yes, screwed, or perhaps more appropriately, sodomized sans lubrication. I don't care for whom anyone votes-- not even if it's to vote for "Team Martin" (notice no one calls them the Liberals anymore, really) -- but if we seat these sharks with a majority, then I wash my hands. So, what's the answer, Doctor J, at least as you see it?, I can hear you all sniggering. The answer, patient readers, is to vote strategically. Don't vote Martin just because you can't see any other party as a viable option (i.e., you don't like your other choices); watch what's happening locally, and weigh your judgment accordingly, particularly in terms of what your vote can do to keep our political system in check. What would I like to see? I'd like to see what some call "an Italian parliament," a parliament sufficiently spread among the various parties, with a minority government. Let's make these guys have to work together-- and be at least in some sense accountable to one another. If this means voting BQ or NDP or Conservative or whatever in your local riding, maybe it would be a good idea, especially if it's looking like a close race. A majority government is not one that should be handed over by default; it should be a statement of a collective sense of political direction. We have no specific political direction, and none of the leaders, none of them, have offered a unique perspective behind which people will stand with commitment and/or conviction. So, the answer, to me at least, is clear: fracture the parliament, make whatever party that comes to government know that they have to walk on proverbial eggshells. Let's not let them think, with a majority mandate, that the lessons of the sponsorship scandal-- remember: just one among many-- have been forgotten, that we'll be hooked and drawn again into buying the resigning logic of "who else is there to vote for." If my compatriots dish over another majority government to the Liberals, they will have proven themselves as little more than cynical fools, and they will have absolutely no damned right to bitch when the next series of scandals arises.

      Canada hasn't had a minority government since Joe Clark's. It's time we corrected that. Then, in the time that follows, let the hegemonies be broken and let us see what emerges from there. Let's also make our leaders actually have to earn government. Now wouldn't THAT be a novel concept? Imagine what that would do for "the democratic deficit" of which Prime Minister Martin speaks with certainly forked-tongue. I don't care if Martin wins the election and forms the next government, but let it be a minority. Let's make Bolingbroke prove he deserves the crown instead of shrugging passively as we hand it over to him.

      Have no fear: this is the last time I'll preach about the election. From now on, it'll be back to heckling, hooting and ribald hollering.