This Campaign is Over Already, Let’s Begin the Revolution
Adam T. Yoshida
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Forget the faint hope that the debates will turn things around for Mme. Dion (do you really think a man who can barely speak English is going to break through there? That’s like expecting Preston Manning to pull off a win in 1997 based on his performance in the French debate). Intrade puts the odds of a Tory win at 95%. I would put them higher than that. I would say that the odds of a Tory majority are, at this point, higher than 90%.
Indeed, if I were asked to guess where we’ll finish up at the end of the day, I would say that we’re looking at a very large majority. I think that two hundred is a realistic figure to be talking about at the moment.
Let’s look at the facts – the facts that I’ve mentioned repeatedly. As things stand, the left-wing vote in this country (even though that group includes a majority of the electorate) is divided three ways in English Canada and four ways in Quebec. What that means, as I outlined at the outset of this campaign, is that a “Great Silent Plurality” of small-c conservative voters can form a strong majority government that can hold onto the government in this country for as long as that split persists.
The Liberals are done for. No one wants to make Mme. Dion the Prime Minister (including, I would hazard, Dion based upon his dispirited performance so far). And we’re not going to make Jack Layton the Prime Minister either. That means that it’s Mr. Harper by default.
I think that we could sharpen it – and put further tarnish on the Liberal brand – by pinning Dion to the ground and knocking him absolutely senseless but, in the end, a win is a win.
What the Prime Minister has to ask now – and he really does have to ask it now, since he won’t have very long to do it – is whether he wants to be another Brian Mulroney, a brief interlude between long-serving Liberal Prime Ministers, or whether he really wants to change this country decisively.
A Conservative majority government, especially under a strong leader like Prime Minister Harper, offers a chance to transform this country beyond all recognition. The Liberals have been so successful in this country over the last four decades because they remade it in their own image, right down to the flag. They put their stamp on every institution in this country – a Maple Leaf-shaped boot stamping down across the Canadian face forever.
With a strong majority government – one not vulnerable to a confidence vote – the Prime Minister has the power to weather minor storms of public outrage and to use his five years to change this country in ways which will prove both popular and nearly impossible to undo.
In particular, I recommend that a Conservative government focus on the following:
1) Institutional demolition: The left-wing in this country relies upon government to keep itself running. The Prime Minister has taken some vital first steps in this area by junking the Court challenges program and cutting funding to radical feminist groups but, with a majority, the best option would be to go much further.
Sell the CBC. Junk most of the cultural subsides. Get rid of the human rights Gestapo. These, in the end, are “stroke of the pen, law of the land” sort of things. If a Prime Minister with a majority government wishes them, they could be so.
Gut the CRTC. Indeed, as I recommended before, the Prime Minister should forget his own copyright bill and instead pass the most liberal, progressive, and loose copyright bill in the Western world. Yeah, that’ll hurt some people – but screw them, they’re not going to vote Tory anyways.
Do too much, rather than too little. Don’t shift these things around. Burn them down and salt the Earth. A future Liberal government won’t have the guts, the time, the wherewithal, or the money to recreate them all at once. Sell the land and the buildings. Shred the records. Disperse the staff. It’s easier to destroy than it is to create. A Tory government on a rampage could destroy in a couple of months what it took four decades to create – and what it would take another forty to recreate.
2) Base Creation: At the same time as well tear apart the old Liberal nation, we need to create new institutions to replace the old. With the money we’ll save, we can go to work on a new grand and nation-defining enterprise – rebuilding the Canadian military and turning it into the national symbol that it should be.
This is important not only for nationalistic reasons, but for basic political reasons. A large-scale buildup of the Armed Forces will do more than prepare Canada to fight in an increasingly-dangerous world, but it will also create a powerful military-industrial complex that a future Liberal government would be loathe to confront.
Set as a goal that military spending should be, oh, roughly 3.5% of the GDP. On the ground, translate that into an active force of 200,000 or so men – with all of the associated family members and spin-off jobs that will be created. Buy as much equipment internally as possible, even if that makes it more expensive, because it will build an industrial base that can become a powerful lobbying force.
Build big things. Canadians, for all that they claim to be a peace-loving people, want to love their country. That’s why, in the absence of a more compelling national identity, they hold onto the things that they do. Build a pair of Aircraft Carriers – giant, expensive, deadly, and useful symbols of Canadian pride that children can hang on their walls. Name them after Wolfe and Montcalm or something like that.
Oh, and well you’re at it, recreate the old individual services. Because it’s appealing – and because it’s a good and simple exercise of power.
3) Crime, Crime, Crime: The Tories are campaigning on this a bit, but they should be doing it more – and they should do even more as a majority government. Few things unify more Canadians than the conviction that our justice system is horribly soft.
As I’ve said countless times, nothing is better than forcing your opponent to – out of conviction – defend people who everyone hates. The Liberals the left in general really believe in our horribly deformed justice system and many of them will go to the stake defending it. What Harper needs is someone creatively evil to serve as the Justice Minister – or perhaps Deputy Minister (I’m not too busy!) to spend the next five years thinking up new ways of brutalize and humiliate criminals and which will send the left marching to the barricades time and time again to defend people who normal Canadians hate.
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Of course, this is probably all a dream. Stephen Harper has shown himself, in his time as both Tory leader and as Prime Minister, to be a cautious man. The odds are that, winning a smashing majority; he will naturally conclude that he should go on doing exactly the same thing.
I'm sure that some Tories are reading this and saying to themselves, "for God's sake Yoshida, don't write anything like this - it'll scare people." I wish, I wish. Like I said - we're only going to get something like this, or even a tiny part of this, if we struggle for it and push for it.
To the extent that we might see anything of this sort, we have to begin talking about it now, thinking about it now, floating these ideas now, because the window of time in which a new majority might act is pretty small - a year, I'd say.
He should watch out, though, because after Dion (and remember, it was me who first told many of you that it would be Dion) is the Second Coming. Unless we burn Trudeautopia to the ground, the son will soon be here to reclaim the legacy of the father.
Posted by Adam T. Yoshida on September 25, 2008 in Canadian Politics
