Diversity, consensus

Editorial

Candidates for the federal Liberal leadership met in Vancouver on Sunday to engage in their first “debate.” By and large, the engagement was the sort of softball Canadians have come to expect from intra-party dialogues like this one.

The most contentious issue appears to have been the potential for the Liberal party to operate with the New Democratic party in order to oust the Conservatives in the next election. That position was taken by Vancouver-Quadra Member of Parliament Joyce Murray and rejected by the other candidates with varying degrees of vehemence. The consensus among the other Liberal leadership candidates is that the party will revive itself and return to power on its own resources, and it need not make accommodations with the upstart social democratic official opposition.

There is a lot of psychosocial baggage to unpack in the federal Liberal party. Murray’s idea of cooperating with the NDP can be understandably viewed as a significant come down for a party that was once dubbed the most successful political organization in the democratic world. Under any such cooperation agreement, the Liberals would be the junior party.

On the other side, the overwhelming rejection of the idea by every other candidate suggests that the old accusations against the party are as relevant as ever – that the party exhibits a degree of entitlement, arrogance perhaps, typical of an entity that was also once dubbed the “Natural Governing Party.”

A party of the centre is always on the edge of the abyss, even when it is in power. The nature of politics is that the spectrum can shift – and shift rapidly, as we have seen in Canadian politics over the past two decades – with left and right moving into the centre and usurping the constituency of a broad-based middle-of-the-road party. We saw this in British Columbia for almost half a century, during which time voters were able to choose either from a left-wing or a right-wing party with little choice in the middle. The more choice, presumably, the better, although this week’s election in Israel, with 32 parties on offer, still left many Israelis complaining that they had no one for whom to vote. So we should not put all our stock in the idea of the value of multitudinous choices. Nevertheless, all partisanship aside, it would be a tragedy of some degree were the Liberal Party of Canada to cease to exist or, as is more likely, cease to be a genuine potential alternative government. Both for historical reasons and for the plain fact that, in a world that seems to be polarizing in so many respects, a political force that challenges the strict duality of the left-right polarity probably indicates a healthy political system.

Despite this paean to diversity, there is also something to be said for unanimity.

Speaking in Vancouver Sunday night, the head of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, Shimon Fogel, noted that there is very little difference in terms of policy toward Israel between Canada’s Conservative government and the opposition parties. Certainly, the Conservative government under Prime Minister Stephen Harper has been the most vocally supportive government Canada has seen in terms of explicit support for Israel, but a review of policy suggests the other parties are not far behind.

Fogel made particular note of the manner in which the New Democratic party has mended fences with the Jewish community in recent years. Fogel said that the late leader Jack Layton began a process of rapprochement with the community that has been continued by current leader Thomas Mulcair.

It may seem contradictory to herald, on the one hand, a flourishing of political options in the form of strong and viable political parties on the left, on the right and in the centre, while, at the same time, celebrating the fact that effectively all Canadian political parties now line up behind a policy that we have been championing these many years. There is no contradiction. Support for Israel, which is threatened by autocratic, theocratic terrorist groups, is the only moral position available to a democratic political party or individual – left, right or centre. The time seems to have come when those who would stand against the Middle East’s only free democracy and stand instead with violent terrorists no longer have any mainstream political options. Those who voice these sorts of opinions are increasingly limited to the political fringes that protest outside of synagogues and hawk radical newspapers on street corners.

A diversity of political expression and options is healthy and desirable. It is also desirable, in a democracy, to stand united in favor of democracy and peaceful resolution to conflict, while standing against forces of political and theocratic extremism that employ violence. This is not political diversity with limitations; this is political diversity worthy of a democratic culture that is healthy and consistent.

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