Canadian politics should be civil, not civil war

The vitriol and demagoguery of last fall's aborted parliamentary session stood von Clausewitz on his head. Canadians watched in horror and dismay as their politicians used the language and techniques of war to fight politics. Alan Whitehorn, professor of political science at the Royal Military College of Canada, finds it alarming.

He worries about "this notion of all-out war, of obliterating the opposition rather than simply defeating them. My feeling is all the major parties have a right to exist," he said in an interview. "I've done work on genocide so I'm very sensitive to language that goes too far and begins to create a culture of intolerance and denigration...

"I've long been a critic of negative advertising that in the short term may help you to win elections. But in the long term, the cost to the political process and the esteem politicians and the political process suffer is counterproductive and is one of the factors contributing to low voter turnout, not to mention the sense of fatalism, despair and alienation as people ask 'What can I do?' "

The language of politics is as important as the content of politics, Whitehorn says. "I'm making the case for a certain sense of civility... If this continent-sized polity is going to survive, it has to be based on some tolerance for a diversity of views. No single party or two parties can adequately represent the diversity of this country."

Whitehorn has a further lament about the current political situation. The Liberal-NDP coalition supported by the Bloc Quebecois was "a remarkable opportunity missed. For the first time, it looked like a sovereignist party was willing to work with a federal Canadian government systematically... I actually think from a system point of view, an opportunity was lost to co-opt the BQ..."

The co-editor of the eighth edition of Party Politics in Canada is not optimistic there will be much goodwill when Parliament reconvenes next week. "We had the House of Commons prematurely shut down on the eve of a vote of non-confidence and many in the opposition feel that the democratic process and vote was thwarted by constitutional techniques that were perhaps unwise and will come back to haunt us in the long run."

He notes Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his longtime friend and mentor, University of Calgary political scientist Tom Flanagan, "share a temperament of a very militant battling of the opposition."

Whitehorn's concerns prompted him to write a letter to the Kingston Whig Standard Jan. 3. He described two articles by Flanagan published in The Globe and Mail on Aug. 28 and Nov. 14, 2008 as "profoundly troubling", "calamitous", "chilling" and "ominous." The articles "proved to be the crucial key for me, as a political science professor, in understanding the triggers to the current political and constitutional crisis."

The articles suggest "a paradigm not of civil rivalry between fellow citizens of the same state, but rather all-out, extended war to destroy and obliterate the opponent," Whitehorn wrote. "This kind of malevolent vision and hostile tone seems antithetical to the democratic spirit, not to mention political peace and stability."

In the August article, Flanagan likened the Conservatives to the rising Roman republic and the Liberals to the evil empire of Carthage. The Romans "defeated Carthage totally, razed the city to the ground and sowed salt in the fields so that nothing would ever grow there again."

Flanagan proposed the Conservatives use the Liberals' financial woes to destroy them: "Force the Liberals to exhaust their limited resources in repeated battles." Then "the Liberals could be pushed into a financial pit they can never climb out of..."

Less than a month later, Harper called a snap federal election. Just prior to Finance Minister Jim Flaherty's November fiscal update, Flanagan returned to his Liberal obliteration theme. The Liberals' "Evil Empire will go the way of Carthage, razed to the ground..." As if on cue, Flaherty proposed eliminating the public subsidy to political parties -- "the intended push," Whitehorn said, of the Liberals into the financial pit.

Flanagan's columns, Whitehorn wrote "seem to have been a clarion call that played a central role in closing the doors of Parliament, thwarting democratic debate and vote and poisoning the political atmosphere."

Whitehorn and Flanagan have known each other for decades and have demonstrated their "academic mutual respect" by citing each other's work although they "politely disagree" about how they see Canadian society and politics.

Flanagan has responded to Whitehorn's letter with one of his own. "If Canada's Liberals can't survive in an era of grassroots fundraising, other parties will step in to fill the void," he wrote.

"Whitehorn has spent his life supporting the NDP. Well, guess what? The financial weakness of the Liberals gives the NDP its best chance to replace them... Whitehorn should be applauding my analysis, not worrying about it."

Frances Russell is a Winnipeg author and political writer.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition January 22, 2009 A11