JaredMilne JaredMilne:
I might swear by Trudeau when it comes to bilingualism, the Charter of Rights, multiculturalism and the social safety net, but I swear at him when it comes to his ghastly financial mismanagement, his general fumbling of the economy (which even John Ralston Saul criticized), the National Energy Program and all the other ways he crapped on Western Canada, the 1969 White Paper and his mishandling of the Quebec issue. There's a reason his name is mud among the Franco-Quebecois. And with my admiration for Preston Manning (I was voting for him in spirit when I cast my first ballot for the Canadian Alliance in 2000), I know full well that change was badly needed at the time.
The interesting thing about the NEP and Petro Canada is that, much in the way King Laius' attempt to thwart prophecy by ordering his son Oedipus killed in fact set in motion the events that would see it fulfilled, Pierre Trudeau's and Marc Lalonde's quest to keep Alberta and Western Canada from rising in wealth and influence had the opposite effect. The Reform Party and the (non-Progressive) Conservative Party that succeeded it were very much the children of the NEP, the other parent of course being Brian Mulroney and his pre-occupation with courting and pleasing Quebec's soft nationalists. If there had been no Pierre Trudeau, we would not have Stephen Harper as Prime Minister today, and the Laurentian Consensus may in fact have held.
It's a shame that Joe Clark wasn't more successful in selling his "community of communities" concept. I found it outrageous and borderline laughable that when the Harper Conservatives came to power, the notion of a federal government actually respecting and abiding by the constitutional division of powers (particularly in social programs) was portrayed as radical and extreme by the media and chattering classes. That's how twisted our perceptions were from decades of Liberal intrusions into provincial jurisdiction. It just seemed normal to us.
JaredMilne JaredMilne:
Your point about technocrats and social engineers in government is well-taken. On the other hand, writers like Richard Gwyn and John Ralston Saul have written about what they view as the social engineering of conservative governments, and of the technocrats that they believe run organizations like the World Bank and the WTO.
Globalized trade requires some sort of governance, but I wouldn't exactly call myself a fan of the World Bank and WTO. Nor for that matter am I a fan of the UN, which has become dominated of late by despots and terrorist states.
JaredMilne JaredMilne:
Political technocrats and social engineers can be shown the door when citizens get tired of them, as you noted with the swings to support leaders like Reagan and Thatcher. But what about the leadership of the larger organizations who make decisions that affect millions of people but have no accountability? It's stuff like that which gives the Hugo Chavezes of the world their ammunition. The results of the new consensus, as I've already noted, seem to me to have been very mixed overall.
It's always a problem when so-called "referees" play favourites. And I agree, it has helped the Chavezes of the world in building the narrative of the big bad First World gringo.
