MPs watched in disbelief last Wednesday as Conservative House Leader Peter Van Loan faced-off against his NDP counterpart, Nathan Cullen, and Party Leader Thomas Mulcair.
Right in front of the Speaker, just to one side of the aisle down the middle of the House of Commons, they went at it hammer-and-tong. No actual punches were thrown, but on both sides, the crude insults and the aggressive body language were decidedly "unparliamentary."
The altercation followed a fairly minor procedural argument. But it reflects a deeper problem.
Since the last election, both the Conservatives and the NDP have pursued a strategy of partisan polarization. Their explicit objective is to drive all other participants off the political playing-field, so they can have it all to themselves. You see that strategy unfolding every day in the bitter polarizing tactics they both employ.
They argue that polarization would make politics so much "simpler" for Canadians. Every issue would be reduced to a mutually-exclusive two-way choice. No bothersome complications or nuances. No need to compromise. Everything would be straight-forward -- right vs. left, black vs. white, good vs. bad.
Simpler? Maybe. But better? Not so much.
A classic illustration of what you get from polarization can be seen south of the border. Americans are deeply divided between the Tea Party mentality on the right and the Occupy Movement on the left. Their political atmosphere is toxic. Decision-making is paralyzed.
Accommodation is seen as weakness. Even on the most critical issues -- like their looming "fiscal cliff" -- polarized politics in the U.S. makes them incapable of finding solutions that rise above divisiveness to earn broad-based support.
That's because polarization is all about driving wedges, not building bridges. It's about pushing people apart, into fiercely opposing camps, not pulling them together in common endeavour. It feeds off searing conflict. It gets personal. You learn not just to oppose the other side, but to hate them. Your goal is not just to defeat them, but to destroy them -- because polarization teaches you that you are "righteous" and the other guy is not.
And here's another damaging consequence. The deep-seated conflict that lies at the heart of polarized politics truly appeals to only a small number of the most extreme partisans, on one side and the other, who relish the constant fight. People like Van Loan, Cullen, Mulcair and Harper -- it turns them on.
But it also turns off large numbers of Canadians generally. They don't hold extreme views. Perpetual campaigning is not their thing. They don't like polarization or the hatred it breeds. So they just drop out of the political process altogether. They are the ones who stay home on election day.
But here's the good news!
Canada is far too complex a country -- too subtle and nuanced, too fundamentally decent, too full of hope and ambition -- to be content for very long with the polarizing wedge politics of division, greed, fear and envy.
People will look for something better. The greater Canadian instinct is to want to pull together to achieve goals that are bigger and more worthy.
The future will belong to those who blaze that trail.
Follow Ralph Goodale on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@RalphGoodale
Do you really think as we watch Thomas Mulcair stand up to the muckraking US tea party style attacks of the Harper neo-cons that we are doing anything but cheering? Your interest is in saving your party but our interest is in saving Canada.
I want a leader who has brains, backbone and a commitment to center-left positions. I want someone who can make an argument for Canada. That is not the Liberals that is Thomas Mulcair and the NDP.
Your a decent man Mr. Goodall, but you need to listen. Go away or merge for the sake of Canada.
I do agree that the political atmosphere in this country has become more partisan and more toxic. But the Liberal party has hardly been above the fray. If you've got a solution, then I'd love to hear it. It seems to me that we're caught in a vicious circle. The mainstream media thrives on conflict. They report on it almost to the exclusion of everything else. The more toxic things become, the more vicious you must be if you want to be heard.
I say we put numbers on the back of each member of parliament shirts and the logo of that member's parties three largest donors. Voters should be able to place bets on outcomes such as:
1st MP to draw blood
1st MP to to lose a tooth
1st MP to get knocked out
Let's not forget, odds for 1 on 1 battles.
Weapons permitted. Watch the ratings for CPAC skyrocket.
When the next election comes around, the Conservatives and the NDP will resume their traditional roles of combining forces to try to defeat the Liberals. Both parties still see the Liberals as the ones who stand between them and where they want to go.
They know most Canadians have a Liberal mindset. That's why both the Conservatives and the NDP try to act like Liberals whenever there's an election.
Of course the extreme partisanship of the US politics is unusual and IMO unbelievable.
Anyway Mr. Goodale's article was well under a thousand words disproving the old adage that each picture is worth a thousand. He managed one of the pot painting the kettle black in 530 or so.
And by your comment you prove once again the DEVISIVNESS of the right wing!
This country has never seen a more devisive government or political party like the CPC, when you have a government that says "if your not with them, then your with the child pornographers"
all to spy on us, and god knows what ever else they would do if this were to pass.
Wake up and smell the deceit and deflection from the truth of this devisive government. Take off the partisan blinders!!!!!
Ha, Ha, you LPC partisan ALWAYS think if anyone attacks a Lib, they are automatically a Con. Talk about tunnel vision. Maybe you ought to not only reread what others write, but maybe think a little more next time. I am no Con fan at all, but haha.