Then what's the point really?

I found Michael Ignatieff's entry into the Liberal leadership race to be interesting not because of his prescription for the country or because of any of his policy ideas (all very tired and boring), but because of his academic writings on nationalism and particularly his dissecting of nationalist aspirations and dreams. In any case, his scholarly (and even real world) experience with nationalism will have trouble applying to nationalism in Quebec.

As Laurent Moss notes, nationalism in Quebec is no longer based on French heritage or much of anything to do with a shared ancestry or a shared cultural heritage. Instead, it is based on supposed economic and fiscal grievances, such as complaints about Quebec not getting its fair share of federal transfers. In an effort to appeal to non-Francophones, the sovereignty movement has given up on most of their traditional appeals. In effect, a sovereign Quebec would be identical to the Canada that it had just separated from.

Naturally, instead of the more romantic approach of wanting to be the "French speaking people of North America" in their own country, Quebec's sovereignty movement can no longer be fueled by the same passion that existed before all of the politically correct arguments came to be used by sovereigntist leaders.

As politically correct attitudes (i.e. wanting sovereignty to be based upon something that is "solely civic, territorial, multicultural and pluralistic") spread across the globe to some degree, nationalist movements will continue to die, at least in terms of what real nationalism means.

Even the arguments for Sikh nationalism in Punjab follow along the lines of western PC thinking: A Sikh state would be a completely secular state, there would be no discrimination between Sikhs and non-Sikhs and so on. Of course it would be against Sikh teachings to coerse any non-Sikh into following the Sikh lifestyle but that in itself somewhat defeats the purpose of a "Sikh state". This is why I don't envision a Sikh state to really be a "state" at all. My vision of a Sikh state (something that I can't imagine for decades, at least) is a vision of a sort of anti-state, a sort of anarcho-libertarian paradise, where there's really no government at all.

Low expectations always work

After watching Peter MacKay's press conference with Condi Rice late last week, I have to say that it wasn't so bad. Not as bad as I thought it'd be at least. He'll certainly be far better than Lloyd Axworthy, the worst Foreign Affairs Minister Canada's probably ever had. Axworthy wouldn't even be able to hold a press conference with Secretary Rice if he were still the Minister, considering his past remarks.

When he was appointed Foreign Minister, I was fairly disappointed since changes in government have the ability to effect a nation's foreign policy almost immediately and having a cliche-speaking (and probably cliche-thinking) novice like MacKay in the job didn't seem too promising, but with the tight control that the PMO seems to be imposing on him, things might not turn out too bad. Because of the direction from up top, MacKay will also surely be better than the pointless (though not amoral in the way Axworthy was) Foreign ministers of the later Liberal years such as Manley, Graham and Pettigrew.

TheirSay.com

Mike Brock has finally launched his commenting system, TheirSay.

It is, by far, the best blog commenting system available.

And since I've been a trial user for all this time, I thought I should do my part in helping to advertise for it.

Their Say Blog Commenting.

Normally I try not to judge people by how they look...

But there's no way I could be an objective juror in a trial involving this guy or this guy. (regarding this case.)

I'd want to lock them up before I even heard the opening statements.

In practice

It's disturbing to actually see floor-crossing legislation enacted.

In theory, it was all fine and good to talk about floor-crossing legislation, but the NDP government of Manitoba is actually trying to make it law.

Now of course the Canadian first-past-the-post electoral system is deeply flawed in that voters are simultaneously asked to cast judgment on candidates, parties and party leaders, but that is the system that every province (and the federal government) still uses, and as long as that system is still in place, anti-floor-crossing legislation is deeply undemocratic because it gives more clout and power to the party system, essentially making MPs less representative of their constituencies.

Because it's impossible to gauge the extent to which voters balance the three factors before them as they vote (candidate, party and party leader) it's silly to make the claim that a particular constituency voted only for a particular party when electing a particular candidate. The reason the Liberal party did as well as it did in the past election was because of how many incumbents it had and how many of those incumbents had ties to their communities. There's also much emphasis placed on "star candidates" and their ability to secure more support than their party could ever manage by itself. Basically, candidates matter.

And unless and until Canada goes to a system that is based solely on choosing a particular party instead of choosing candidates (i.e. proportional representation), MPs should be able to floor cross whenever they feel like it. If enough of their constituents truly did mean to elect their party and not them as individuals then that will be known at the next general election. Canada has mandated elections (which happen less than 5 years apart), but too often people forget about that.

19 points!

According to a poll I just read, the Conservatives are ahead of the Liberals by 19 points in opinion polling. (19 points is almost a guaranteed majority gov't.)

I find this hard to believe, for several reasons.

Prior to and up until this past election, I had a fairly intense dislike of the Liberal Party.

Even still, I could never imagine voting for them... but my intense dislike of the Liberals has dissipated to some degree.

Wasn't the last election's result largely driven by people who were sick of the Liberals? So sick that they just had to get out and vote them out?

If it's harder to be sick of the Liberals (since they no longer occupy the seat of power), what continues to drive their polling numbers down?

Yes, they don't have a leader, but Paul Martin's favourability ratings were horrible anyway. It'd seem as if having him step aside would give them a boost, since they no longer have an indecisive and desperate man at their helm.

They also seem less devious now... no longer plotting sinister parliamentary moves in order to stay in power for as long as possible...

Or maybe Canadians just liked them when they were all devious and power-obsessed?

Sometimes it seems as if that's what most Canadians expect and even appreciate.

(What else could explain the weird phenomenom of so many people I know fondly recalling Jean Chretien's term in office?)