By: James Di Fiore

Canada appears to be changing, segmented between traditionalists, progressives and radicals. This opinion is nothing new, but the evidence has finally caught up to the theory, especially in politics and social issues. Sprinkled in the middle are Canadians unfettered by ideology and partisanship, but they are surrounded by a growing number of ideologues who are being prodded and influenced by media hell bent on making money by evoking emotion instead of dispensing facts.

These new sects of extremists (the opinionated kind, not the violent kind), are still far less in numbers than the reasonable folks but they shout at a much higher volume, creating the false idea that they are speaking for the majority. But this is Canada, where the majority of people remain apathetic and frustrated with the system as a whole.

So, born out of apathy comes new ideas by Canadians who are beginning to wake up from their political slumber. Some of their ideas are gaining traction and discussions are finally taking place. For example, many Canadians are starting to talk more about our connection to the British monarchy, openly stating their disdain for what they see as an out of date relationship. An easy way to break open that conversation is to ask how Canadians feel about the prospect of Prince Charles on our currency. Traditionalists are just as eager to talk about our history and the vital role the Brits played in our progress as a nation. Both have valid arguments, but the real caveat is the stark differences not in philosophy but age. If you are a younger Canadian you are far more likely to want to disown our British stepparents, but if you are a senior you can’t fathom the idea of breaking ties. Age is actually the number one barometer in different political opinions, and the slight erosion of apathy among younger people is making the conversation a more interesting one.

There are also good arguments for changing the Senate procedures, creating term limits and even abolishing the upper house. Provincial powers are currently being tested both by federal legislation and pressure from municipal governments who feel burdened by legislation irrelevant to their riding. Conservatives are finding it difficult to balance their long held notion of abolishing the senate with the current conservative government’s partisan appointments to the upper house. A widespread opinion that appears to also be gaining traction is the eventual implementation of an elected senate. In either case we are years away from any significant changes now that our country is in a constant state of political campaigning. Time will tell what kind of ideas will eventually surface and if those ideas are from the people or government officials.

Interestingly, questions are now being raised among a wide spectrum of Canadians pertaining to personal liberty and privacy. The Ron Paul candidacy in the American GOP primary has forced the conversation. Americans and Canadians alike are finding common views with people who are politically opposite, fostering a new discussion between Canadians who do not normally debate the issues gracefully. The most glaring examples of this common ground are foreign policy and the war on drugs, two subjects that are yielding universal support and capturing the conversation among Americans. This kind of cooperation is leading some Canadians towards reopening the debate on proportional representation as ideas and philosophies become more complex and less ideological. The terrain is strange in Canada. As apathy shrinks, ideology grows. There is a debate as to whether or not they are related, but the end result means Canada’s political class is shifting.

As Canadian parties adjust to their new placement in popularity, Canadian people are becoming more savvy in who to follow, creating a potential new shift in the landscape and a continuation of a newly awoken Canadian electorate.

By: James Di Fiore

Every four years America suffers from collective amnesia. Polarization, a national disease that will never be cured, transforms election years into psychotic hybrids – one part soap opera, one part football game. The plot flips back and forth, from gossip to bloodsport, until one man is left standing. If you didn’t know any better you would think winning the Presidency was some sort of gladiator mission. The media, equipped with editorial smart bombs and an appetite for dismantling any and all candidates, savours the slips, falls and general missteps of candidates with delightful glee. Indeed, their mission is quite clear: tear them down, make them suffer for sins of the past and shine the spotlight 24 hours a day in case they slip again.

Or in Ron Paul’s case, ignore him completely.

So much has been said about Ron Paul that it seems contradictory to claim his candidacy is being ignored by the American press. But when the most often repeated sound bite centers around the rhetorical question of ‘Should he be taken seriously?’, then redundantly answered by the very folks who thought the question was rhetorical in the first place, one must wonder what anomaly is this in American politics? Paul is a 76 year old Libertarian ideologue. He is also the only honest man running for president. America, despite the satirical image of ignorant and overweight citizens who can’t find the ocean on a world map, contain within its population an army of intellectuals hungry for liberty and an non-intrusive military. They include libertarians, liberals and moderate conservatives who may not agree on everything the Texas congressman believes in, but within their ranks are several intersecting beliefs at a time when commonplace ideals from typically opposite-minded groups is not only rare but completely unheard of in the modern, polarized America. The list of items uniting the left and right towards Paul is as interesting as it gets.

Military and Foreign Policy – Paul believes in a non-invasive foreign policy. He was one of few congressmen who was against the Iraq invasion from the start, and the only candidate who does not subscribe to the fictional idea that Middle Eastern countries “hate us for our freedom.” Always charting his platform back to the economy, Paul believes America can save hundreds of billions per year by removing troops stationed in countries like South Korea, Japan and Germany. While inspired by a slightly different starting point, many liberals agree with these principles and find common ground with Paul, especially regarding his views on why 911 happened in the first place. Paul often bolsters his position on foreign policy by quoting the neo-conservative hawks who place troops overseas to begin with. In a recent debate hosted by the American Enterprise Institute, Paul cemented his point of why Al Qaeda was motivated to attack America by quoting Paul Wolfowitz who once cited America’s military bases in Saudi Arabia as the main reason the attack took place. Paul’s philosophy on the military makes him a lone voice on the right in America but it is these views that allow him to garner so much support among liberal Americans.

The Federal Reserve – Likely the most well-versed politician on the constitutionality of the Federal Reserve, Paul’s criticism of the private bank has been on record for decades. He believes the Fed is the root cause of inflation, debt and the dominance of the financial institutions on Wall Street. With the support of ultra-liberal Dennis Kucinich, Paul has introduced several bills to audit the Fed, claiming it pays banks bigger interest rates to park their money at the Fed rather than loaning money to the American people and small businesses.

The War on Drugs – While his opponents and the media spin his words to seem like he is advocating recreational drug use, Paul’s stance on narcotics is actually classic libertarianism. He believes, like many far left liberals, that the drug war has been an expensive and colossal failure. His position, that liberty means being able to decide independently what you put inside your body, is echoed by millions of Americans.

Free Market Religion – This is the area where Paul loses common ground with classic liberals and even some staunch conservatives. Paul advocates a system that relies entirely on free market principles. He is rightfully considered an extremist on this issue, going as far as advocating the dismantling of all government run disaster response organizations like FEMA, claiming the bureaucracy is so inefficient that it can actually make disasters worse. He might be right regarding the incompetence of the organization, but Paul fails miserably to provide a viable, alternative solution to natural disaster relief. He has made blanket statements about individual states and private insurance firms providing relief and rebuilding homes, but Paul has not been pressed about certainties like claim denials and the enormous cost to state governments. It is this stringent ideology of a universal, unregulated free market approach that gives Paul much of his criticism.

Health Care – While health care can easily be included within Paul’s free market ideology, it is worth noting his background as a pediatrician has not softened his views on a for-profit health care system. Paul’s position is simple – let the free market decide cost and force individuals to take care of their own bills. In his book, ‘The Revolution: A Manifesto’, Paul says that doctors once understood the responsibility they had towards the less fortunate and free medical care was the norm. He believes that those who can afford it should pay either through purchased medical insurance or by simply covering their own medical expenses. It all sounds typically conservative, but Paul has not been specific on how the poor or elderly receive care if doctors simply refuse to donate their expertise to those who need it most.

The main caveat in Paul’s presidential run is the media and how they cover his candidacy. Some speculate his lack of coverage is due to his reluctance to embrace a more corporate-centric position that reflect the typical financiers of the Republican Party. That reasoning is flawed, however, as the Democrats garner more Wall Street support than the GOP and the mere notion of corporate influence on the media is much too conspiratorial for most people to accept. Within that context is a more factual answer – Paul’s honest position on foreign policy and crony capitalism lifts the veil off of the military industrial complex just enough for many Americans to take notice. The media, often too timid to delve into this issue with great depth that could be spun as covering conspiracy theories, opt for a hands-off approach and treat Paul like a wacky uncle who has no shot at the White House anyway. His support is often characterized as eager, vocal and tenacious. Missing from those otherwise complimentary list of attributes is the willingness to give credit to the size of his following. At no time in America’s history has a candidate’s financial coffers, audience support and internet popularity been dismissed as just a small group of over-enthusiastic followers.

With Herman Cain’s disastrous campaign over, Rick Santorum, Jon Huntzman, Michelle Bachman and Rick Perry are now the irrelevant foursome. Paul is now polling behind Newt Gingrich and virtually tied with Mitt Romney in Iowa. The media, doing their best to chew crow with their mouths shut, have grudgingly began to take notice of a campaign that really began in 2007. For the past four years, Americans in larger numbers than many would admit are gravitating to an honest politician.

And for those who are frightened by Paul’s strict libertarian ideology, they can seek comfort in the one guarantee American politics gives them time and time again: Congress will most certainly water down President Paul’s agenda to just a fraction of its potency. The real question is which parts would be diluted, and can he be the unlikely American figure to unite the left and right on the issues that matter most. Time, money and votes will tell. 

By: James Di Fiore

There is no issue more controversial and misunderstood than the fight to legalize marijuana. Ever since the 1930s when Christian fundamentalist Dwain Esper produced the propaganda film, Reefer Madness, the North American public have been clandestinely led down a road where weed is the organic equivalent to heroin or cocaine. Historically there are several reasons for the demonization of the plant, including lobbying efforts from the textiles industry who feared the mass production of hemp, a superior raw material, would have sliced the overall demand of the competitive textiles industry in half. This first domino of misinformation created a political climate where marijuana, branded as evil and dangerous for children, fell into the inaccurate abyss of some of the more notorious and addictive narcotics.

75 years after Reefer Madness was produced, marijuana has come a long way. Once you look at the science, both socially and biologically, marijuana not only becomes an attractive substitute for more nefarious drugs like nicotine and alcohol, but as an attractive revenue source during a time when the economy needs it most. Detractors continue to falsely label marijuana as the dreaded ‘Gateway Drug’, a moniker coined by long-time Commissioner of the US Federal Bureau of Narcotics, Harry Anslinger. Anslinger, who also claimed non-whites were more susceptible to becoming marijuana addicts, cobbled together police reports from across America, arbitrarily connecting brutal murders with marijuana use while molding a national opinion that the plant was inherently evil.

It all sounds so ridiculous today. The public are more well-versed about marijuana, partly because of access to information not supplied by the government, and partly due to their own personal experience smoking or eating the plant. In any event, the most often cited argument in modern day marijuana activism is still the strongest – if alcohol can be sold on shelves and used as a substance of celebration and generally accepted by society, why not weed?

The answer is simple. After decades of bad PR, marijuana has had an uphill battle unparalleled to any other potential commodity. But a shift has been underway since the early 90s when polls began to show Canadians were softening their stance on marijuana. The most recent polls indicate a majority of Canadians now support fully legalizing and regulating the substance, a tipping point in society that could stimulate the economy and actually help shield children and teenagers from the easy access prohibition has provided. The people are more sophisticated, and the old arguments centered around addiction have mostly been removed from the public zeitgeist. While politicians have yet to decipher an effective messaging strategy that could break the backs of the old fashioned, out-of-touch crowd, whispers of legalization have been heard on Parliament Hill.

Most recently, the federal Liberal Party, reeling from an unprecedented defeat in 2011, have included legalizing marijuana as one of their main policy resolutions for their upcoming convention in January. It might have been just an experiment, a desperate ploy for new supporters, but the resolution is among the top ranked issues on their convention web site, a potentially surprising development that will force the party to create a modern, viable message a majority of Canadians seem to support anyway. The Liberals have an opportunity chart a path that neither the Conservatives or NDP can risk. The base of the Harper government is split between traditional conservatives who are out of touch on the issue and libertarians who care less about the potential adverse effects of the drug and more about keeping the government out of personal decisions like what citizens can put in their bodies. Meanwhile, the Layton-less NDP are trying to shed the label of being too ideological and won’t risk the potential communication gaffes on the issue. This gives the Liberals, if their communications department can competently deliver a sophisticated message, the opportunity to cultivate new supporters through an issue whose time may have finally come.

It won’t be easy and is riddled with potential risks, but if there was ever a time to mobilize Canadians by giving them more liberty it is now, especially when they are being told by their current government that growing a few plants warrants a tougher mandatory sentence than showing a child your genitals. Presenting that kind of contrast can not only sway non-partisans, but should be enough to rally enough Canadians to make the next election closer than you think.

By: James Di Fiore

I wanted to be there with them, shoulder to shoulder, as they marched to St. James Park in downtown Toronto. I hoped we were to stand in solidarity with the protesters in New York, participating in a conversation about corporate corruption and their governmental enablers. I, like many, felt like we were watching history unfold. The Arab Spring had planted a seed of revolution of sorts, and while we were a watered down western version motivated by different circumstances, apathy was being replaced with passion…and I liked it

And then I watched it all fall down.

Being a moderate, it is difficult to get behind any movement. Moderates can usually see both sides of a coin and view ideology as a barrier between problems and solutions. While I witnessed New York City mobilize against Wall Street corruption I was simultaneously witnessing Toronto ride the coat tails of that movement. At first I gave the protesters a pass for not having a coherent message. After all, conservative ideologues were already lobbing those kinds of critiques against Occupy Wall Street activists, ignoring the underlying issue of crony capitalism or the lack of prosecutorial vigour against white collar swindlers. But as the first week progressed it was clear that Occupy Toronto had lost any tangible or even symbolic connection with OWS, to the point that I found myself agreeing with some of the milder criticisms leveled by the likes of Charles Adler or Rex Murphy. When you are agreeing with the editorializing of Adler, you know something is not how it should be.

St. James Park’s tag line is ‘A City Within a Park’, but a quick stroll through the makeshift camp and it became clear what went wrong. For all the talk of other movements being co-opted by the Koch Brothers or public sector unions, rarely have we seen a movement so rapidly co-opted by Kensington Market anarchists and Queen and Bathurst squeegie kids, many of whom viewed St. James as a temporary hangout rather than a home base for serious political discussion. And let’s be honest; a leaderless movement has a quicker expiry date than organic sour dough, especially when participants spend more time worrying about tent pegs than political consensus.

And there is a list of problems Occupy Toronto could have spotlighted. Corporate welfare, the omnibus Crime Bill, campaign financing legislation, draconian drug laws, federal overspending, provincial overspending, and a host of other issues that directly place corporate favourtism over personal liberties, but when your movement is dependent on the communications savvy of an inarticulate, unsophisticated mob, your chances of making any political or social headway disintegrates.

All they had to do was create a comprehensive vision with the list of inequalities and injustices that already exist in Canada, but they opted for a disjointed and sloppy squat posse destined for failure. Not only did they fail at shining a light on any relevant issues, they may have succeeded in snookering the progress real activists had been working towards by becoming their accidental spokespersons, rallying an incoherent cry and killing all credibility in the process. 

Warren Kinsella retains his crown as Canada’s most attention seeking political operative

He implied he would sue me for saying so publicly, and that he would “own my house” if I did, but I personally believe Warren Kinsella is lying about an outlandish story he posted earlier today. Kinsella made the elaborate claim that Rocco Rossi predicted a Hudak loss last night and subsequently told key supporters that he was eyeing the leadership of the Ontario Progressive Conservatives. Quite a claim, only Kinsella has refused to actually provide evidence.

Let’s see if he is a man of his word, or just a political has-been who thinks mischief is a viable tactic in Canadian politics. You can read his claim and threat to me personally here. 

By: James Di Fiore

This is not your mother’s Canada anymore.

All across the country, from conservatives to socialists, the apathetic to political junkies, the universal response to Jack Layton’s losing battle with cancer was unmistakable. Not surprisingly, his supporters were quite emotional, tearing up on live television as they reminisced about their leader, their mentor. Liberal party members were next, echoing the sentiment and paying their respects, calling Layton their friend and a worthy adversary. Conservatives also showed the kind of class we should expect from our leaders, telling stories of battles waged in the House of Commons with a man they held in high regard. It was as if Layton’s passing could serve as a watershed moment of sorts, breaking down barriers between people or at least slowing down Canada’s slide into the depths of polarization. Liberals and Conservatives were certainly not about to trade in their red and blue for bright orange, but for once they were able to speak with civility about someone who they disagreed with politically.

‘Not so fast’, said the loudest, most ignorant and most extreme voices in the country.

In a surreal display of cowardice, and a testament to the internet’s greatest misgiving, up popped the lunatic fringe who expressed glee over the death of their socialist enemy. Sure, there are crazies everywhere, and the internet is crawling with them, but what once seemed like a tiny minority is now appearing to become a growing phenomenon. These aren’t your typical nut-jobs, pranksters or mentally disturbed people – they are regular, every day folks who have decided that since they no longer believe in evil concepts such as political correctness, they are now free to kick a man on the day he dies, especially if that man disagrees with their point of view.

The comments from these regular folks reflect a new way of interpreting the now omnipresent political battlefield. Canada is experiencing a variety of social symptoms where the fabric of decency is being unraveled and restitched with ideological threads once seen exclusively during campaign season. Journalists like Dave Naylor and Christie Blatchford, desperate to differentiate themselves and provide an alternative perspective, tweeted jokes about Layton’s death or penned long winded columns about how the coverage (on the very day our Leader of the Opposition died, no less) was over the top. And while Blatchford has had a wonderful career and is a magnificent writer, her need to appear original and crafty actually made her look petty and amateurish.

Amazingly, and it is worth repeating, it was politicians who showed true leadership when the news broke. In fact, these moments in history often produce an ethical hubris where politicians act like statesmen while bias media organizations and maverick journalists take on the role of children, championing the classic public relations strategy of personal exposure through controversy instead of simply writing and reporting. Opinion news, the new and oxymoronic method of ideologues and partisans, has morphed from a watered down version of journalism to a full time, hatchet wielding concept meant to assimilate people into specific political philosophies. The aforementioned mainstay issue of those with opposite views of Layton is now political correctness. By hiding behind free speech, far right radicals are convincing regular folks to feel infallible if they cheer the death of someone they disagreed with.

Jack Layton’s passing is a stark reminder of how our leadership can sometimes shine, even if some of the people they are leading distort its reflection.

No sir, this is not your mother’s Canada.

Dear Mr. Mammoliti,

This past Sunday you exercised your right to film the Pride festivities in downtown Toronto. This action seemed politically motivated, even though it is the taxpayer who pays your salary.

Many Torontonians do not see much difference between your freedom to wield a camera and the individuals who march wielding signs. Your video shows people holding a banner that says Free Palestine, yet it does not show other marchers who held banners that said Free Iran, or Free Tibet. Why the selective scrutiny, and why do you now want to use this selective scrutiny to strip Pride organizers of their funding? Your crusade could result in a 16 million dollar loss in municipal taxes for Toronto, all because you want to show favourtism to one ethnic group over others.

We have come to a point where even having a conversation about a certain country overseas leads to name calling and race baiting. Your desperate actions echo a frightening sentiment that says there are certain rules for some people but not for others. Beyond the hypocrisy there is an unsettling precedent that stifles free speech and diminishes free expression. You purport that your video proves organizers were complicit with certain marchers, but a local conservative journalist witnessed organizers remove a marcher who was wearing a skirt that said “Queers Against Israeli Apartheid’.

This runs counter to your own claims which now appear political and therefore stained with bias and partiality.

Most reasonable people will refrain from wondering if your motives are entrenched in a hatred towards a certain demographic. That would be patently unfair. But the double standard is clear – a sign reading ‘Free Palestine’ is hate speech, but a sign reading ‘Free Iran’ is not. Your opinion is also clear, but the law, as well as the rights of Canadians, are not dependent on Giorgio Mammoliti’s opinions.

If our taxpayer dollars can pay for your renegade political stunts with a video camera, then I do not see why they can’t pay for a parade that actaully helps our economy, even if some people were holding controversial signs.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

James Di Fiore

Mr. Kenney,

I write you today with worry and a heavy heart.

You know the case the headline refers to, so I will not reintroduce you to the particulars of those involved. What I would like to discuss is your deflection to the Citizenship and Immigration Canada, as if you have no power to help influence the decision to deport this family back to Columbia.

We both know that you are well within your rights, and certainly within your mandate, to protect potential victims from harm’s way if it is determined there is a possibility of violent retribution towards individuals seeking asylum.

Please take a moment and think to yourself what the headlines will say if this family is indeed killed by murderous henchmen from the organization known as FARC. Inevitably, it will fall on your desk and rival parties will no doubt lay blame at your doorstep, and rightfully so.

Your hands are not tied, and there is still time to allow the Canadian embassy in Columbia to send the family back. Be innovative and brave…stand up for these people who are clearly not a mennace to Canadian society. By doing so you may save their lives and becomes a real statesman to boot.

No disrespect, but right now you seem callous and arbitrary. This could change quite easily if you do something to help.

Sincerely,

James Di Fiore

 By: James Di Fiore

Mostly obscure, staunchly far-right and completely unwilling to break away from dogma, Canadian writer Rondi Adamson is this nation’s version of Ann Coulter, minus the best selling books and television appearances. Her rantings are unwavering and sloppy, as if sloganeering her ideology were enough to keep her fledgling career afloat. She is typical in her undying efforts to brand Canada as subservient to the United States, openly expressing her distaste for the Chretien government’s decision to stay out of Iraq in 2003. Thousands of dead soldiers later, not to mention hundreds of thousands of dead civilians and her view has not changed. While pro-Iraq War personalities like Christopher Hitchens paint a somewhat reasonable case for attacking Iraq, one-dimensional writers like Adamson recite tag lines and stick to Bush Doctrine one-liners as if it were a religion.

After several online conversations with her I have concluded that hidden underneath her gaunt frame is a pull string, allowing her to recite unthoughtful and predictable talking points that could have, and likely were, plagiarized from Ms. Coulter herself. Among the more primitively expressed tid bits from Adamson are her notions that the Sun News Network’s most relevant facet is the attire of their female anchors; that Israel is the world’s greatest democracy (when she is questioned about Israel, she claims that she receives 1000 emails a week, an obvious fib meant to bolster her dwindling popularity), The United States is the best country ever while Canada is to be viewed as Canuckistan; that Liberal Studies are akin to recruiting Maoists and hippies; and finally, that American soldiers who flee to Canada are uniformly dishonest if they claim any wrong-doing whatsoever by the American military. Those miscreants should be deported immediately and tried for treason, according to Adamson.

Unfortunately, this blind ideological stance on everything neo-conservative is not uncommon among Canadian right wingers. Adamson is just a case study. She personifies a political paradox where debate and civil discourse are only relevant when participants are discussing methods of how to enact extreme right wing views. She tries to describe herself as a fiscal-conservative/socially-liberal hybrid, but the only evidence of a socially-liberal bent is her vegetarianism and affinity with animals.

Adamson longs for Canada to become either the 51^st state or a carbon copy of its American masters. She believes criticism of Israel is the equivalent to hanging a Hamas flag in your den, and like the Tea Party, she loathes President Obama. She refers to Obama as the Great Windbag (projecting?) and is incapable of rationally discussing any issue brought forth by the president. When conservatives moaned about liberals experiencing Bush Derangement Syndrome, I wonder if they knew they would manifest an accelerated version of the disease as soon as their boy left office. Adamson’s vitriol is so manic, she even expresses rage at the way Obama pronounces the word ‘Pakistan’. Apparently the correct pronunciation is much too Arab for her liking, and she presumably longs for the days when things were simpler, when weapons of mass destruction were ‘nucular’, and when young Canadian men and women in uniform were killed in scores. One wonders if her skeletal frame could even muster the required strength to hold an assault rifle, but her mouth appears just the right size to muzzle the barrel of military generals in scores.

All that and an apparent insatiable appetite for Italian soccer players makes this atheist neo-con (and a crazy cat lady to boot) Canada’s prime example of nutty political extremists. She has blocked me from Facebook after I dared to question Israeli military policies, calling me snide while applauding the violent, profanity laced comments made towards me by FOX News contributor and right-wing conspiracy theorist, Matthew Vadum. Vadum is the genius who stated that community organizing leads to trading crack-cocaine for votes. Here is the message Vadum sent to me after I was blocked by his best gal pal:

You’re a fucking loser. You’re no friend of hers. Leftist piece of shit. Go play in traffic.

But hey, let’s not be too hard on Adamson. She is nice when you agree with everything she believes in or when you talk about feral cats. At any rate, she is Your Daily Oddmanic’s very first Ideologue of the Week. Congratulations Rondi!

By: James Di Fiore

Canada is becoming a very strange place. Historically, our political landscape was shaped by the apathetic, sprinkled with some conservatives, liberals and socialists. Policies were drafted and negotiated based on the reality that ideologues did not yield power in this nation. Pierre Trudeau, Brian Mulroney, Jean Chretien – all of the most significant leaders this country has seen over the past 40 years have governed from the center, their base providing a lift and moderates providing their political survival. The apathetic played their role too – they stayed out of it. Canada had a brilliant international reputation as being fiscally prudent peacekeepers who brokered free trade agreements, hosted Olympic Games, milked internet bandwidth for all it was worth and extremely potent marijuana. It is cynical, but today we have a growing portion of our electorate who know how to say words like ‘socialist’ or ‘fascist’ but clearly have trouble defining either term. Ignorance may be bliss, but it is running rampant in the great white north.

How did we get here? When did we go from affable to laughable, and who is to blame for our new trot towards the mindless recitation of talking points from talking heads? The Reform Party may have been the first domino – a stringent, ideological crew from western Canada made from a mix of Libertarian and Evangelical roots. They successfully dismantled the federal Progressive Conservatives, turning a reasonable right-leaning party into an ideological posse ripe with partisan beliefs and an unwavering philosophy. Former prime minister Joe Clark, once seen by his political rivals as a conservative stalwart, seemed not only tame but reasonable by his former opponents on the Hill. Alberta, disgruntled by Trudeau’s energy policies which cemented an air of resentment within the province, yearned for a voice better suited to the narrative being recited for decades. That narrative was stark, a sort of provincialism reminiscent of Quebec separatists only without tales of an unfair confederacy nestled inside the rhetoric. Of course, Albertan conservatives would disagree, claiming decades of injustice had passionate reactions among regular folks, but in Canada this was brand new: a dismantling of a Canadian political institution and the beginning of the new conservative indoctrination project.

The new Canadian conservative movement has been fueled by two incontrovertible facts. The first is an easy pick: Liberal Party incompetence. While Liberals tend to blame member infighting for their woes, the Chretien vs Paul Martin beef is propped up by residue from the sponsorship scandal and most recently exacerbated by two leadership conferences that produced two lackluster leaders. Meanwhile, the NDP has collected the scraps from the Liberal table and now sits at the head, creating a polarized Canada and the perfect storm for the Conservative Party.

But the most troubling recruiting tool currently being sharpened by the conservative right is the encouragement of demonizing political rivals by right wing strategists, pundits and politicians. Regular right-leaning Canadians are answering the call with American-inspired attacks on all who lean left. Evidence of this deliberate tactic is everywhere. The caricature is hockey grump Don Cherry who mused at Toronto Mayor Rob Ford’s inauguration about ‘left wing pinkos’ and ‘bike riding communists’. Message boards and comment sections on newspaper sites contain a treasure trove of vitriolic statements and ideological rants that not just disagree with non-conservative views but vilify and marginalize those who think differently.

Hardcore leftists are equally repugnant in their brief and rather unlettered manifestos, often describing Stephen Harper as a fascist while creating conspiracy theories about his ties to corporations and the state of Israel. Talk of Canada’s national identity being reshaped by fundamental Christians is complimented by maniacal claims of hidden political agendas and treasonous takeovers by oil companies.

And the Liberals, a party who had tried to brand itself as Canada’s only band of moderates, suddenly find themselves pushed aside. They deserve their political demotion, but the need for political moderation has never been more dire. Canadians are being driven towards polarization through the politics of fear, a dangerous yet potent ingredient in mobilizing party support in any country. But this task of extracting reason from panic is an uphill battle for the Liberals who have spent the bulk of the last 7 years focusing on their rivals rather than their constituents. Pundits who muse about a possible merger between the Liberals and NDP are dreaming out loud. Jack Layton is finally reaching his potential and would never relinquish his new found role as leader of the opposition. Nor should he. Nor could he. Ideologically, the NDP and Liberals are worlds apart, mostly because the Liberals do not have a well defined ideology.

Perhaps the old adage of finding opportunity nestled inside crisis is too idealistic for Canadian moderates, but the prospect of throwing in the towel would spell disaster for the nation. The Liberals are a blank slate – bruised, beaten and bloodied – but they have wiggle room. Without any real influence over their conservative and socialist counterparts they have no choice but to redirect their gaze towards the very people who voted them out, while simultaneously engaging the only constituency who continue to be unrepresented – the youth. Incorrigible as they seem, not since the 60s have we seen a climate where young people are finding their voice. Their sloth-like pace is a frustrating testament to the outdated method of engagement undertaken by politicians stuck in an ancient ritual of long expired recruitment methods. It may be a colossal challenge, but without young people there can be no base, and without that youthful base there can be no party.

It has been the better part of a decade since Liberals engaged honestly with Canadians, and the better part of two decades since they last showed an alliance with them. Canada is not the United States…yet. But the symptoms of drifting towards a two party system are ripe, and without the emergence of a new centrist manifesto we could be in for a dark age in federal politics.