As of Monday night, the majority of the Canadian House of Commons is Liberal. The Liberal Party won 148 seats, giving it 184 in total, 14 more than necessary for a majority; an astounding victory, given the 36 seats they held before the election. While Canadian politics generally only serves the purpose of supplying Americans with threats like, “If _____ wins I’m moving to Canada,” there is a lesson to be learned from our northern brothers and sisters.
The Liberal victory is not important in ideological terms. Rather, its importance lies in the route taken by Canadian citizens to the unlikely Liberal victory. Canadian politics are highly unlike American politics. Canadians tends to sculpt political parties around the interests of the community rather than one (or in our case two) party representing an entire wing of the political spectrum. Here in the US, third parties and beyond are usually reserved for outsiders who are a bit crazier than the “establishment”. In Canada, there exists myriad provincial parties, but the major parties in the Canadian House of Commons are: the Liberal Party, the Conservative Party, the New Democratic Party, Bloc Québécois (specializing in Quebec sovereignty) and the Green Party. We don’t seem to have that level of specialization. You’re either a member of the two major parties, or an unaffiliated voter weighing the options.
On Monday night, the people of Canada decided that after nine years of Stephen Harper it was time for a change. We don’t seem to have that ability either. Time and again, I hear, “It’s time for a shakeup in Washington”, but the same representatives are voted in election after election. It stems from a fear of leaving the status quo. In terms of the House of Representatives, if you don’t like who you elected, in two years you can try someone else. The Liberal Party went from small minority with 36 seats to a powerful majority with 184 seats in one night. That would be like the Green Party taking control of the House in 2016.
We can’t be afraid of shakeup. We can either start to adapt to the continually changing political landscape or we can continue to elect someone who initially represented our grandparents. As John Steinbeck wrote in “Travels With Charley,” “It is the nature of a man as he grows older, a small bridge in time, to protest against change, particularly change for the better…We, or at least I, can have no conception of human life and human thought in a hundred years or fifty years. Perhaps my greatest wisdom is the knowledge that I do not know. The sad ones are those who waste their energy in trying to hold it back, for they can only feel bitterness in loss and no joy in gain.”