Seven Oaks Magazine.

Normally, the Victoria Day long weekend is a time when I like to sit back with an iced Earl Grey from Tim Horton’s and think about all the benefits we’ve accrued from the heritage of British imperialism in this country and around the world. In fact, I had just started thinking about whether it would be Tony Blair or Ahmed Chalabi who’ll choose the Iraqi athletes for the next Commonwealth games when yet another of those imperial benefits came tumbling through the newswire – the writ came down on Sunday, and the parliamentary horses are out of the electoral gates. Let the fox hunt for our next prime minister begin!

It’s been a long, hot year in Canadian politics; one which promises to produce a heated period of electioneering (as though it weren’t already in full swing). For the first time in a long while, Canadian foreign policy has absorbed the thoughts of many, with ballistic missile “defense,” the occupations of Afghanistan and Haiti, and Canada’s je ne sais quoi role in Iraq all figuring largely in the discussion already. In a move reminiscent of those nature shows where a snake swallows a goat, the Canadian Alliance renamed itself and re-elected a leader who still isn’t sure whether Indians smoke or curry salmon. A maple tidal wave is set to hit Ottawa from the Frank flank, with the Bloc Québecois fortified by overwhelming Québecois opposition to the war, anger at the sponsorship scandal, and the high-profile frog-bashing of media figures like Don Cherry and Conan O’Brien. And the mouse that seldom roared, our beloved NDP, seems to have elected a leader willing to articulate an agenda broader than Alexa McDonough’s single-issue “Health care” mantra (although the election material is still all printed in orange, indicating that the party is still a little too yellow to be Red). So, while no one’s done anything too wacky – no jettisoned Vietnam war decorations up here, thank you, although Belinda Stronach might have thrown away her “Participant” ribbon from the Conservative leadership race – things promise to be spicy on Newsworld this summer.

For many of us, the spectacle of American electioneering is a confusing one – we’ve watched as American leftists, drowning in a sea of Halliburton, have desperately latched on to the saviour-figure of John Kerry, a man best described as the wax museum replica of a bloated plutocrat. In the States, we’ve seen how the “progressive” candidate “campaigns right,” which is why Kerry (who will undoubtedly secure the “anti-war” vote) is promising to send even more troops into the Iraqi quagmire. A Democratic warmonger? Kennedy and Johnson must be spinning in their graves!

But as each of us knows from having seen Bowling for Columbine, Canada and the States are very different countries. Up here, each party campaigns ambidextrously, often with bizarre and bothersome results.

Take, for instance, the fact that the crowning of Paul Martin marked the ascendance of the most conservative elements of the Liberal party – conservative enough that Joe Clark was willing to offer his seal of approval after his party had been swallowed by the cowboy populists from the oilfields. And those same cowboys, led by Children of the Corn star Stephen Harper, are hellbent on convincing respectable Bay Street bluebloods that they’re moderate enough to run the country.

The outcome has been, quite literally, an absurdist “He said, He said” (StephenHarperSaid.ca, TeamMartinSaid.ca) in which the two pro-business parties engage in a wacky pissing match, using each other’s quotations to paint them as backward reactionaries. In the most surreal portion of the exchange, the Conservatives seem to be baiting the Liberals for questioning same-sex marriage and being pro-war. In the words of one-hit-wonder OMC, “How bizarre.” I suppose that even a broken sundial is right twice a day.

This weird and wild dog-and-pony show highlights what is probably the most important fact about this particular election: With the shadow of last year’s massive anti-war demonstrations, labour unrest in B.C., Québec and Newfoundland and other movements on the ground cast such a long ways, popular movements have a chance to help shape the discussion this time, albeit through the application of enormous pressure.

In the past three months alone, we’ve seen 25,000 in the streets of Vancouver to protest the war (March 20th) and more than 10,000 out again on the same streets for May Day – this element of sharp class antagonism shades in the one-dimensional polls anticipating a Conservative sweep in the province. In Québec, the worker’s holiday drew closer to 100,000, though the corporate press will continue to assert that sponsorship scandal is the only reason that easily-duped Québecois will be voting for the union-affiliated Bloc. Across the country, immigrant and refugee rights groups have been articulating irrefutable condemnations of the draconian legislation passed since 9/11, showing some of the cracks in the myth of the Liberal party as the safe haven of immigrant communities. And as the recent activism of the Native fighters of the Grassy Narrows First Nation in Ontario indicates, the explosive issue of Canadian colonialism can’t be dodged.

For years, the anti-globalization movement and its spokespeople have implicitly and explicitly downplayed the importance of state-centred politics, using amorphous swear words like “top down” to justify a travelling carnival from summit to summit as huge numbers of young activists wrote off the electoral process as an anachronism wholly unworthy of attention. But the constructive specificity of our demands in recent years – No to war and occupation, Yes to gay marriage, No to privatization, et cetera – have focused our energies and galvanized popular support to the point at which we might be able to change the course of debate and even policy. The means by which we may be able to do that involve a continued and vigilant activism with clear and accessible demands.

And in this, too, we may derive inspiration and guidance from the legacy of the British Empire. I believe it was the Queen who once said “We’ll keep on fighting to the end. Oh, we are the champions…” Indeed, your Majesty – I certainly hope so.