On a Canadian Conundrum - and Cannabis

If a Canadian federal election were to be held today, which party would you vote for – the Conservatives, NDP, Liberals, Greens, or Bloc Québecois? Well, if I were to vote now I would choose none of the above.  It’s a Canadian conundrum - and a real problem for discerning voters, because our federal parties keep to uncompromising and untenable platforms.

As ruled by the “Harper Government,” Canada is so undemocratic that a vote for a Conservative candidate borders on constitutional treason – just look for instance to the hack job on the CBC, which is now bereft of its editorial independence.  We live in a country that no longer has freedom of the press for our national public broadcaster.  Who in their right mind wants to vote Conservative?

Then look to the Official Opposition NDP. Stacked by soft Quebec nationalists à la Mulroney, the NDP Party under “Tom” Mulcair hopes to dismantle the Chretien government’s “Clarity Act”, now widely regarded as a success story (or the only thing federalists have going for them).  For Mulcair, the formula “50% plus 1” is enough to dismantle Canada, should a referendum on separation in Quebec actually happen.   It sounds to me that the NDP are a profoundly disloyal opposition; they very much deserve to return to third party status for this reason alone, aside from their Peter Pan dream of eliminating the Senate.

How about the Liberals under Trudeau?  Recently bolstered by caucus evictions of Senate Liberals, Trudeau wants to escape the Conservative “not a leader” caricature of his predecessors Ignatieff and Dion.  But Trudeau is still floundering on his party’s national platform to legalize marijuana.  Too bad he did not bother to check out his mother Margaret’s autobiography, Changing My Mind, before he adopted this “liberal” policy.  Margaret Trudeau suffers from bipolar disorder, and for two or three decades she was “addicted” to pot, which contributed to her chronic episodes of “extreme mania”.[1] It was only when Margaret Trudeau stopped smoking pot on her doctor’s orders that she got better and came into her own.[2]

In other words, Justin Trudeau has learned absolutely nothing from his mother’s experiences, which makes him look foolish, and now his policy on pot will contribute to any number of mental health crises among the vulnerable, once there is legal access to marijuana.  It is also well documented that marijuana use is an early trigger for the onset of schizophrenia, especially among those who are susceptible to this serious and tragic illness.[3]  Legal pot is a way of dealing with foreign drug cartels, but schizophrenics become our domestic victims, and they don’t vote.  Both the Liberals and Greens advocate the legalization of pot; that they do so is indicative of their poor grasp of mental health matters.  Pity.  Pot is also much like a Brave New World solution, where people take its equivalent, soma, in order to get a “holiday from the facts.”[4]  Moreover, the legalization of pot represents post-colonialism at its worst: instead of the disgraceful nineteenth-century Opium Wars, it is now the West which seeks further amusement and distraction, while the Chinese economic engine climbs to ascendancy.

Having eliminated the Conservatives, NDP, Liberals and Greens, there is only the hapless Bloc Québecois, which is not represented outside of Quebec.  That leaves no party to vote for, but many reasons to stand on guard against this Canadian conundrum. Allow me to suggest a remedy:  stymied potential voters should be allowed a “veto” on each and every ballot in the next federal election.[5]  

Yes, an extra entry on each ballot to say “I deny” should be considered by Elections Canada to give people of conscience a chance to express their dissent at oppressive party platforms.  It is a good to declare independence from leaders deprived of foresight, as well as hindsight.

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[1] Margaret Trudeau, Changing My Mind (Toronto: Harper Collins, 2010), p. 283.  Margaret Trudeau frequently describes herself in her memoirs as “addicted” to pot.

[2] Ibid., p. 240.

[3] For an introduction see, for example, David Suzuki’s CBC documentary “The Downside of High” on The Nature of Things.

[4] Aldous Huxley, Brave New World & Brave New World Revisited, intro by Margaret Atwood (Toronto: Vintage Canada, 2007), p. 224.

[5] Thanks to Wade, who probably watches too many Seinfeld episodes.