It's time for Canadian parties to revitalize.

Angus Reid
Vancouver Sun

I can't remember a time when the Canadian political stage featured such a lacklustre group of performers as those performing on it today.

A couple of weeks ago, the three Liberal leadership candidates to replace Jean Chrétien came to Vancouver for one of their policy debates. It was an event so choreographed as to make the likes of Bob Fossey proud. I stood at the side of the Westin Bayshore conference room leaning against a divider that sliced the meeting room in half to create the impression of an overflow crowd.

The candidates on the playbill acted out their parts—Paul Martin, the clever prince in waiting; Sheila Copps, the compassionate friend of the dispossessed; and John Manley, the fool. The spectators had as much spontaneity as a "live" studio audience on Hollywood Squares. The nostrums of each speaker, no matter how pedantic, repetitive or off-topic, exacted wild enthusiasm from one part of the room or another as cue cards were held aloft by presumably paid cheerleaders. It was pure circus—and it wasn't even entertaining.

Later that night, I watched what was likely the worst of this month's reality TV offerings. Oh, the Tory leadership convention was a cliffhanger—the real drama wasn't the four ballots it took Peter MacKay to win, but the spectacle of Survivor-style self-mutilation it entailed. The winner outlasted and outwitted the rest of the pack—not by eating worms—but even more frightening, by making a deal with David Orchard. Now MacKay's arrangement with the Saskatchewan farmer and political gadfly is turning into a cartoon, except this time he's looking more like Elmer Fudd, forced to use Bugs Bunny as his guide while hunting for rabbits.

It's hard not to become cynical when considering the quality of political choices currently available to Canadians. The Canadian Alliance on the right and the New Democrats on the left are both stuck in the mid-teens in the polls, about where they finished in the last election. This is despite a growing list of Liberal misdeeds and boondoggles, and despite a Canadian public restless about the erosion of practically every institution in the country.

From Preston Manning to Stockwell Day and now Stephen Harper, the Canadian Alliance continues to unpleasantly surprise in its ability to find leaders lacking in either charisma or political judgment. As for the New Democratic Party (NDP), polls show most Canadians are hard-pressed to even name their recent leaders.

Where are the mighty political parties that once dominated Canada's stage and nourished citizen involvement, community debate and national renewal? Increasingly, they seem to have fragmented into largely irrelevant sideshows or become puppet acts at centre stage—where audiences never get to see the true identity and intentions of those pulling the strings.

Despite its strong political heritage and a culture that places politics second only to hockey as our national sport, Canada has only been able to produce one leader—Paul Martin—who currently enjoys anything approaching a national following. Ironically, it was Martin, as finance minister, whose actions generated the very issues that trouble Canadians most—especially our now chronic concern over health care.

The sorry state of affairs that has come to define our national politics is producing predictable results on the part of Canadian voters as an epidemic of apathy sweeps the country. In the three federal elections since 1988, voter turnout rates among eligible voters declined from about 70 per cent to 54 per cent. If this trend continues, the almost certain coronation of Paul Martin in the next federal election will coincide with the lowest turnout rate in modern Canadian history.

Can we regenerate a vibrant national politics or are we destined to a future of even further disintegration and an Ontario-based Liberal dynasty that rules Canada for decades to come?

For an increasing number of special interest groups, such as Fair Vote Canada, and for some of our political leaders, the answer depends on our ability to reform the Canadian electoral system and produce a better linkage between the will of the voters and the distribution of power. At the federal level, and in some provinces, the weakness of opposition parties is less a reflection of their ability to garner votes, but rather a function of how the system counts the votes and assigns legislative seats.

In the last federal election, for example, the Alliance received about a million votes in Ontario but elected only two members. The Liberals got about 50 per cent of the vote, but walked away with almost all of the seats.

In order to change this situation, proposals to provide for a higher level of proportionate voting are under active consideration in several jurisdictions. British Columbia, for example, is about to embark on a bold reform of the system of representation by using a "constituent assembly" that will be recruited in the coming months. Although the end result of this process will apply only to provincial voting in B.C., it could have far-reaching consequences at the national level.

But the most important and immediate antidote to the malaise currently gripping the country involves the political will of both the right and the left in Canada to forge new alliances and drop old ones. For Peter MacKay and Stephen Harper, there's an urgent need to unite the right regardless of the views of the many hotheads and cranks that populate their parties. MacKay should drop his alliance with David Orchard as quickly as possible and begin to demonstrate real leadership by working with Harper to forge a new national party.

The political arithmetic is simple. Without unity, Canada's centre-right is doomed to a marginalized role in Parliament that virtually ensures the Liberals will win in contested ridings because of vote splitting. With some form of unity, about 30 per cent of Canadian voters could quickly return a "Conservative Alliance" to major party status.

On the left, Jack Layton's NDP desperately needs renovation. For starters, he needs to drop his party's close ties to organized labour and instead reach out to the millions of Canadians who aren't union members, but who question the deplorable state of this country's health and social services. As he looks for a "new way," I suggest he look no further than the Gary Doer government in Manitoba, which has put together one of the most successful centre-left governments in Canadian history by doing just that.

With all the big finales wrapped up, the networks are now into the silly season. Many Canadians aren't even watching TV. That makes this the perfect time of year for parties to revitalize and reform in time for fall sweeps in the House of Commons. If they don't, the prospects are grim.

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