Author: Derek

How did you feel when you learned the Chinese had built a railroad to Lhasa?

For myself, I was astonished by the sheer engineering prowess of the project. The railroad rises to 16,000 feet above sea level, as high as light aircraft might fly, and enough to make it by far the highest railroad in the world.

Yet I’m also sickened by the thought that one of the world’s last truly unique cultures will be devastated by this project. For the first time in history, outsiders will be free to pour in to this previously remote region and dominate the culture of Tibetans. “Cultural genocide,” the Dalai Lama has called it.

Lest you think this is all too far from Canada for you to be concerned about, the railroad will run using railcars supplied by Canada’s Bombardier Inc. Good news for Canada. Bad news for Tibetans.

Bombardier Inc. is no stranger to, ahem, “co-operation” with governments. Indeed, it seems to make a specialty of it.

In Silent Partners: Taxpayers and the Bankrolling of Bombardier, author Peter Hadekel chronicles Bombardier’s pattern of purchasing government companies at bargain prices, often with government assistance, and later coming back to Ottawa for support to survive.

As for the Chinese, they are said to be currently taking a hardline policy on Tibet under such innocuous-sounding names as “patriotic re-education“.

The railroad opens July 1, 2006.

Oh. And by the way. That’s Canada Day.

With the political distintegration of Canada periodically appearing a very real possibility, Canada Day has become an occasion for those in favor of national unity to promote their cause.

July 1 each year is the Canadian national holiday once referred to as Dominion Day, and now called Canada Day. Except that in Newfoundland & Labrador it’s also Memorial Day, and in Quebec it’s also Moving Day. And, according to Wikipedia, among Chinese-Canadians it’s also referred to as Humiliation Day, in commemoration of a reviled head-tax that was in effect from July 1, 1923, until as recently as 1947.

You can get money from the government to assist you in celebrating, though in an effort to be all things to all people, the money doesn’t actually have to be for Canada Day. You can also use it to celebrate National Aboriginal Day (June 21), St. John the Baptist Day (June 24), or Canadian Multiculturalism Day (June 27), according to your preference.

And, if all this forced jolity gets too much for you, you can always go to Quebec, where you’ll find plenty of new friends only too happy to join you in ignoring Canada Day altogether.

À bientôt, mes amis!

It looks like my first attempt at political punditry has gone horribly wrong.

The four-way split in the vote (Liberal, Conservative, Bloc Quebecois, and New Democratic Party) that existed when the election was called in December still exists today.

But at that time polls suggested the election would result in no change at all. Canada seemed certain to elect another minority government with the Liberals at the helm.

What has changed since then is that there has been a massive increase in support for the Conservative Party.

For many years the Conservatives were regarded with suspicion. They were often accused of harboring a hidden agenda of social conservatism they chose not to reveal in their official platform.

Now voters appear to have overcome these doubts. Analysts suggest the Conservatives are within striking distance of forming an absolute majority in the House of Commons.

Conservative leader Stephen Harper, once regarded as a liability, has emerged as strong and confident in televised debates between the leaders of the four main parties.

Election day is Monday, January 23, 2006.

Comparisons with U.S. presidential elections are inexact because Canadians are voting, not state by state, but riding by riding for representatives in the House of Commons.

Still, some idea of the broad regional differences in Canada is given by this map showing the party with the most seats won in each province during the 2004 election:

After national aggregation, here’s how the seats added up a year and half ago:

          Liberals        135 seats
          Conservatives    99 seats
          Bloc Quebecois   54 seats
          New Democrats    18 seats
          Other             1 seat


The total is 308 seats, and a party would need 155 seats to form an absolute majority.

[From the diaries by susanhu. Wonderfully clear write-up, Derek. Thank you from a sadly ignorant U.S. neighbor.]

“Battle of Marston Moor, sixteen-forty-four!” our high-school history teacher would chant, grinning in the expectation that we boys would share in his merriment.

For some reason his enthusiasm for history failed to communicate itself, though I have to admit he was right about one point.

Countries are shaped by their history.

In the case of Canada, the country is a product of two events. The first occurred in 1763 when the British, having defeated the French, incorporated the people of New France into British North America. The second took place in 1867 when British North America — or Canada, as it had become — was granted its independence from Britain.

It is the first event that is the more relevant here.

The people of New France became the people of Quebec, and they remain intensively sensitive about their unwilling incorporation into the larger populace.

When it comes to election time, Quebecers have recently favored a party called the Bloc Quebecois — a party which, for obvious reasons, does not exist outside of Quebec.

In the rest of Canada — and, yes, Quebecers really do refer to it as “the rest of Canada” — voters are divided between the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party.

When you put Quebec together with “the rest of Canada,” what this means is that no single party now has the hope of forming a majority government.

Whatever the particular issues, it it really this structural problem that brought down the current Liberal government of Prime Minister Paul Martin. In Canada as in Britain there are no fixed terms for administrations. A minority government can be brought down any time all the other parties choose to gang up on it.

Whichever party becomes the next “biggest minority,” and so gets to form the new government after the January 2006 election, it is apparent that this structural problem will remain. Nothing can possibly change as a result of this election.