January 19, 2006

Canada's Election Highlights National Question Once Again

By Peter Brimelow

Recent reports suggest that Canada's Conservative Party, headed by Stephen Harper, may displace the governing Liberals or even win outright the Federal election to be held on Monday. This is a big surprise to the Canadian commentariat, but Canadian election campaigns are often volatile. (Anyone who is interested in more, plus the boring stock market implications, can click here to read my MarketWatch commentary, posted Wednesday morning.)

Poor Harper once unwisely said that he'd been influenced by my book on Canadian politics,  The Patriot Game: Canada and the Canadian Question Revisited. The full story is in Bill Johnson's recent biography of Harper, Stephen Harper And the Future of Canada,  excerpted here.  Among other things, I argued there that English Canada had been induced to sacrifice its identity in at attempt to appease the separatist-leaning French-speaking province of Quebec, and that this was abetted by a "New Class" of bureaucrats whose interest was in developing client constituencies. To a considerable extent, this is what is now happening in the U.S., as mass immigration impacts with diversity-worship in academe. Canada has invented many modern political diseases, and its modern immigration disaster is actually worse than that of the U.S., although Harper as a professional politician is too cautious to address it. Perhaps the real significance of this story is that it shows ideas have consequences—I have estimated before that this suggests we will have real immigration reform (or at least leaders who were once motivated by it) around about 2010.

While I'm blowing my own horn, my Canadian book is also discussed politely in another new book, Rescuing Canada’s Right: A Blueprint for A Conservative Revolution, (click here for excerpt). Authors Tasha Kheiriddin and Adam Daifallah then proceed to ignore the centrality of Canada's National Question in favor of wonkery about taxes etc. But, hey, it's a start.