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What about some canadian politics An election is coming this autumn, which means the next month will be crucial to the history of North America.

There in Canada (your servant having fled to California) we have five major parties, two likely to hold the power, three to make sure the Neo-Conervatives get a better position. (I say Neo- because thay are the New Conservative Party, as opposed to my good old Progressist-Conservatives - I miss you, Joe Clark! - who got absorbed by the ultraconservative Canadian Alliance a few years ago to form the New Con. Party)

Let me break things down, starting with the parliament as given by last general election (Jan. 2006):

The Neo-Conservatives, ruling like kings in a minority government with one third of public approval, taking advantage of the opposition’s division. They are basically a calque of Bush’s republicans, no exageration. They manage their party like a business and are rich as fuck. They don’t mind what electors vote for, they just want their vote. So they simply don’t talk politics in their campaign, they just try to destroy with anti-intellectualist propaganda. Their lone potential serious opponent is poor St閜hane Dion, whom I’m starting to like for that precise reason. One of their withdrawn publicities showed a bird shitting on Dion’s shoulder. You get the intellectual level. They also print their logo on Nascar cars.

This intellectual Dion (as opposed to our very down-to-earth C閘ine) was elected chief of the Liberal Party (remember, american friends, that they are not your “liberals” but a centrist party that goes from left to right depending on their chiefs — I still don’t know where that Dion is) two years ago, to the puzzelment of Quebecers. Why Because they hate him. Yes, most Quebecers hate him, even federalists, for his anti-nationalist actions (based on blind intellectual principles dear to the Liberals, like the funny idea that Canada is a bilingual country, so that each of it’s citizens should be bilingual and ablle switch from English to French and vice-versa anytime in a conversation — skeptic Click HERE. His English is the laughing stock of the ROC (a journalist’s expression = Rest Of Canada = not Quebec…), not for it’s incorectness, but for it’s synthetic character and nerdy accent. Dion’s campaign — some dirty tongues say it’s not the Liberals’ but lonely Dion’s — is based on the Green Shift, a 15 billion $ tax on carbon packaged with an equivalent tax cut. An easy prey to the Conservatives’ demagogy which relies on simplification: “Dion wants to tax you more, you average tax payer — vote for us, we are pious and virtuous and don’t try to confuse you with complex theories.” The problem is that the Liberals signed the Kyoto protocol (which obviously was rejected by the conservatives) and poor St閜hane was Minister of Environment when his party did nothing (I really mean nothing) to make it work. Again, piece of cake for the Conservatives: “You did nothing, so why should we do anything.” Canadians seem to agree.

OK, the NDP (New Democratic Party). Well. During the whole history of the party they oscillated between 10 and 20% of the popular vote and it never changed. They are, and have always been, green leftists. Their chief Jack Layton has the sympathy of everyone, but people just don’t vote for him. Quebec’s nationalists say the NDP is too centralizing (which means in our jargon that they want to give too much power to the federal government against the provinces), but this is probably too complex an issue for the average elector. Their main achievement dates from 1971 when they formed a coalition government with Trudeau’s Liberals and are responsible for the universal health insurance in Canada (based on the one developped by Quebec years before). Recently they finally got a deputy elected in Montreal.

Now the Bloc Qu閎閏ois. They’re a separatist party in Ottawa. They claim around 40% of popular vote in Quebec (of course they don’t have candidates elsewhere in Canada), which gives them some 10% on the federal scale. Now that the Parti Qu閎閏ois, the provincial separatist party, decided not to talk about separation for at least five years (oh dear, I just can’t wait for the next provincial election!), one wonders what they’re doing, since their prime mission in the early 1990s was to negotiate the separation in Ottawa. Now they say they defend Quebec’s interests and try to convince everyone to vote for them. The fact is that they became, like a right-wing separatist group, a clone of the socialist NDP — their chief, Gilles Duceppe, used to be a Trotskist, or so I heard… The problem is that this party used to be formed from a coalition of left-and-mostly-right-wing nationalist federal deputies pissed because of the failure of the Meech Accor (no, I won’t get into the pathetic story of the Canadian constitution). Oh, and they too are green.

Finally the Green Party. They’re green, that is all. 7% of popular vote. I ask more from a political party than being green. Their chief Elizabeth May may now go to the debate and just be useful to Harper by destroying the Liberals. Oh, she’s a woman, things are gonna change at the chief’s debate. Yeah, and Sarah Palin is a feminist, for sure.

I’ve been using percentages since the beginning, but this is pointless in our totally obsolete political system of regional representation which brings us back to medieval (and actual) England, without counting the symbolic authority of the Queen of England. In this system, each district is separate; in each district the candidate who gets the most votes wins, absolute majority or not. It has been calculated that more than 60% of deputies in Quebec had been elected with less than an absolute majority, which means that the majority rejected them. The party that wins most districts is given government. If it has a majority of seats, it does whatever he wants for four or five years. Since the Neo-Conservatives are alone on the right wing (though Harper laughably now styles himself as a center-right politician) against a bunch of more-or-less leftist parties who just immaturely devour each other, with 35-40% of popular votes they can have a majority of seats (the Liberals did it with 40% for 12 years, three elections). Necessarily, those who don’t want the Conservatives to win — that is, 65% of the population — have to vote strategically. But this won’t happen with the help of the other parties because no one is ready to make alliances.

I obviously won’t vote Neo-Conservative. Even as a Quebecer I won’t vote for the Bloc, for they are pointless — and I’m a separatist. NDP Just like voting for Ralph Nader in 2001. Green, never: I don’t vote for an activist group, I vote for a party with a global project. Liberals have gained my sympathy recently, only because the conservatives have been dishonest with them and I must admit I do like their tax on carbon thing. But they’re the Liberals, and as a nationalist, historical reasons forbid me to do so. The big question is wether I’m mature enough to vote for the project proposed, not the desire for revenge.

Probably it will depend on which district I am registered in as a foreign resident. Imagine how impotent non-ultraconservative Canadian voters feel right now. I’m waiting for advices.