LP_468x60
ontario news watch
on-the-record-468x60-white
and-another-thing-468x60

In my study of Canadian politics, I have observed two trends that I thought were separate: a near-constant absurdity and sense of meaninglessness, where incompetence repeatedly thwarts any developments that might actually be good for the country or province, and resistance to populism, where elites demonstrate sudden bursts of ruthlessness and efficiency in nipping any dissent in the bud.  I now realize that these two tendencies are not mutually exclusive.  Simply put, you can't get too excited about something that means nothing in the grand scheme of things.

Canada is, and will always be, a curiosity, a place that exists in spite of itself.  Liberals like Trudeau spend bucketloads of credibility and money trying to attract investment that might pack up and leave at any time, cultivating an obviously false image of a nation that's just too good to be true.  But they do not realize that the thing that they value most, and the thing that they virtue signal about most Canada's safeness, and its decency is the thing that prevents people from investing, and keeping their money here.  People don't want to bet big on safe bets.

Then we've got fake populists like Ford and Legault, who are supposed to signal the advent of made-in-Canada Trumpism, and huckster hobos like Steve Bannon, who provoked a perfectly Canadian outbreak of self-conscious madness when he showed up here to chat with local boy David Frum in what amounted to a useless gabfest where no one's mind was changed, if you believe the official results.

Standing outside Roy Thomson Hall as the protest against Bannon unfolded, and Toronto's moneyed elites sniffed at the rabble screaming "Shaaaaaame!" at them from the other side of barricades, over the shoulders of armoured police, I bore witness to an amazing sight.  A protestor, one who you would imagine would be inclined to vigorously oppose Ford's brand of populism (or else why would he be there that Friday night?) began to dance as a group of drummers tapped out a cadence.  Lightly and insubstantially, he hopped from one foot to the other in time with the drums, dropping into crouches and sliding across the pavement with coordinated movements of his ankles.  One of the police officers, who had a short while ago held his baton aloft, threatening to crack the skull of any masked Antifa drone who got too close, smiled broadly and called out to the dancer in encouragement.

Immediately I understood.  This whole display was nothing but pageantry, a Little League tournament where everyone gets to go home and declare that they were on the winning side.  This ridiculous dancer knew it, the cops knew it, the protestors with their eyes running from pepper spray knew it, and Bannon and Frum probably knew it too.  No ideas were disinfected with the sunlight of public debate, because that would imply someone had something to lose.

And, pulling back to the political realm again, we can see why the sexual harassment scandals that hit the Ford government will have no impact either.  All it does is feed into the narrative of "Ford The Trumpy Populist", as Jim Wilson goes to treatment for addiction and Andrew Kimber gets packed off to a PR firm, run by the guy who ran Ford's campaign, a safe distance away from it all.  The NDP is released from having to show that they could in some possible world be "a government in waiting" as they now can do their job by standing in front of podiums and whining, "Ontarians demand answers!"

Thus we in Canada get to have the best of both worlds.  We get to experiment with "populism" like all the big-boy countries do, while remaining secure in the knowledge that we won't fall into the sort of chaos that has just recently claimed Brazil.  We get to gawk at the closest thing to a real live villain that we'll ever meet Steve Bannon and have him submit to David Frum's protestations, while a bunch of virtue signalling brocialists dress up in black and get their weekend war on.  Then, like the end of some ridiculous movie or sitcom, everyone dances to some music only they can here, takes a bow, and gets into position for the next act.

Photo Credit: National Post

Written by Josh Lieblein

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.