Sarmishta Subramanian, The Walrus: Is Canada Broken?
The country seems more polarized than ever. Here's what that means for the next election.
In May, with Brexit chaos and contentious EU elections in the air, more than 5,000 Europeans joined a novel social experiment. In cafés and parks in Poland and Italy, in Belgium and Denmark, they sat down to talk, one on one, with strangers from another country who held opposite views on a slew of divisive issues: Are there too many immigrants? Should Europeans pay higher gas taxes to address climate change? Is the EU good for Europe? This wasn’t debate club or a performative exercise; the aim was simply to have a difficult conversation, to share one’s experience and listen, for a while, to someone else’s.
Europe Talks was a partnership between seventeen European media organizations, including the website Zeit Online, which launched the project in 2017 with 600 such conversations in Germany. A UK version followed, billed by its unlikely cosponsor, the Mirror, as an effort to “bring the nation back together over a nice cup of tea.” In one rather stiff exchange in Yorkshire, captured on video by the Mirror, a third-generation lobster fisherman and a Syrian refugee turned cheesemaker talk about why he voted for Brexit and why she migrated; there’s a moment where he murmurs that she’s “more Yorkshire” than some people who were “born and bred here.”
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WNU Editor: I live in Canada (Montreal, Canada). I have never seen this country as polarized as it is now.
4 comments:
That article is the reason there is more polarization in Canada. The whole thing is just one giant hit piece calling Conservatives and white Canadians racist. And it plays loose and fast with its reasoning. For example, it talks about hate crime on the rise. Want to venture a guess as to who is perpetuating those crimes? Probably the same group that's causing hate crimes to rise in Europe.
I moved from Ontario to Saskatchewan. People out here are truly pissed at the Liberals and Trudeau. They want their own country. I don't recall separatism being this bad since 1995 in Quebec.
Take Alberta for example. Each riding after the 2011 census has 111,000 people on average. Quebec has 102,000 people per riding. Alberta has 6 senate seats. Quebec has 24 senate seats. Alberta pays billions into equalization. Quebec receives billions. This despite Alberta's economy being hit hard the last few years while Quebec's is doing better. Quebec's unemployment rate is 2% points less than Alberta's right now.
100,000 people loose their jobs in the oil patch. Trudeau doesn't care. SNC Lavalin got caucht bribing. Now there is a cause for the Federal government to protect jobs (because they're in Quebec). Ditto for Bombardier. Try to build a pipeline, or even just expand an existing pipeline like Trans Mountain to BC, and well Quebec opposes that. Fort McMurray has massive forest fires, it takes Trudeau a week to show up and his support is minimal. Quebec has floods, he's right there (although not very useful either).
And it extends into social issues too. Saskatchewan and Alberta have the highest per capita gun ownership in Canada. He campaigns on taking their guns away because of shootings in Toronto in Quebec. Trudeau designated 11 smaller cities to take in refugees in a pilot program. None of them were in Quebec and a bunch were in conservative strongholds. A cynic would say that was done purposely.
The arrogance that the federal liberals have towards people out West is astounding. Trudeau gets caught with blackface (in over 30 years I've never seen someone do that in Canada), and he comes out and blames society and white people as a whole. They simply don't give a damn and they don't even hide it.
This election is a joke too. Trudeau's right hand man was got having dinner with one of the English debate moderators, Althia Raj, last week. At least four of the five English debate moderators are liberals supporters in all but name. Two of three main debates are in french (despite French being spoken by only about 25% of the population of Canada) and all three debates (including the English debate) are being had in Quebec.
Michelle Rempel said in best. The West is being treated like a colony within Canada to be used mainly by Quebec (with some Ontario and Atlantic support) to be used and abused.
If we continue down this path, I believe in 5 to 10 years there will be a referendum in Alberta to secede from Canada and it very well may succeed. Ditto for Saskatchewan.
Maybe you can merge with the US flyover states, our civil war should be over by then and it sounds like we have more in common with you than our Northeastern and Western coasts. :)
The US is going to add more stars on the flag.
Well said sir.
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