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More political upheaval coming

Again, I invoke the patience of the readership as we all grow used to the new ways and means of creating a column.
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Again, I invoke the patience of the readership as we all grow used to the new ways and means of creating a column. After struggling all week to grasp the nettle of an idea that would survive the tsunami of change brought on by a federal election, a light finally came on: to quote the great Marshall McLuhan, "the medium is the message;" and in this latest national contest, it was clear that several different paradigms were being offered, manifested by the actual parties.

Let's begin with the Liberals and the Conservatives. If you ask the rank and file what they really think about their respective leaders and policies, derision bubbles to the surface. Indeed, a true believer in progressive or conservative values has nowhere to stand in either tent, as both lack convincing or principled platforms. They are too similar because they represent two sides of our oldest paradigm: confederation, framed by questions of culture, or by questions of law.

Defining Canada culturally, with laws following behind, has been a Grit specialty since the end of the Second World War. Tories haven't had many chances to offer an alternative, but defining powers in the hope a trickle-down effect on culture might ensue sums up many policies.

The New Democratic Party and the Green Party based their platforms on a paradigm that might be called postmodern notions of state and citizen. For the NDP, which was founded as populist and agricultural prairie socialism fueled by non-conformist Protestant ideals, the best thing to pursue is fairness. Their base has changed, but the fundamental theme noted above has not, as everything from identitarian intersectionalism to affordability are constantly cited.

For the Greens, the tool of the state and conscientiousness of the citizen are to be used in order to preserve the world. Canada is not a place where "single issue" parties last, yet the Greens have the longest serving leader, and the plethora of signs showed strong support. While the Dippers start with a quasi-rationalist premise, the Greens are semi-empirical-evangelists, pointing to the flora and fauna as evidence that we must change our ways, or face extinction.

Thus, we have at least two of the paradigms: is Canada working for us vs. how to make Canada work; and making man's world fair vs. adjusting to our natural world. The last viewpoint comes to us from Quebec of all places - twice in fact: self-interest, as a group or an individual.

Many will accuse me of finding symmetry where there perhaps is none. Of course those silly gooses have forgotten that the only good Liberal, who brought the Grits out of obscurity and made them a powerhouse for a century, was Sir Wilfred Laurier. He was both a Francophone and a free-trader; without him, we could not possibly have either the Bloc du Quebecois or the Peoples' Party of Canada, both asking completely sincerely, "what do I get out of any of this?"

This position is defensible on several grounds: if the whole system seems rigged against you, or the impracticalities of the Dominion constantly increase the taxes while actual progress seems nowhere to be found, or if one elects various parties without any kind of measurable change in policy, the people saying "I'm getting mine and getting out," start to make sense. In the case of Quebec, their intransigence has given them undue influence for no less than fifty years.

The PPC has simply adopted this method of getting more liberty for oneself at the lowest denominator - the individual citizen. Canadians are not famous for their selfishness, productivity, or "profit motive," but it's been a growing area of concern for many as costs and debts increase.

Thus, in this most recent election, Canadians actually had six parties to choose from, all of which were helping frame no less than three different paradigms. Far from being a waste, this latest contest will likely be recalled as the first sign that great political upheaval was on the way.