Monday's Federal Election in Canada was a smug affair, filled with knowing references to the relative efficiency of a process that, two hours after the polls closed in most of the country, had returned the incumbent Liberal Party to power with a comfortable majority.
For all the snide remarks about our admirably simple ballots, the Canadian campaign resembled America's current bout of constitutional chaos more than most of us on the northern side of the border would like to admit.
Despite operating under a very different system, in which voters chose only one local representative and the head of government is the leader of the party which wins the most seats, Canada is stuck in a political trap similar to that clogging its neighbor.
In both elections, opposing ideas about important issues such as health care, group vs. individual rights and the role of government became secondary concerns beside competing grievances, fears and the content of a candidates' characters.
As in the U.S. presidential campaign, the Canadian contest started with two very different views of government — the Liberals' "balanced approach" to state intervention and public welfare vs. the Canadian Alliance party's more individualistic emphasis on tax cuts and personal choice. As in the United States, the debate devolved swiftly into a personality contest.
The main difference is that the Canadian campaign lasted only five weeks and managed to produce a winner on voting day. For all five weeks, opinion polls unanimously predicted the result — a third straight majority government for Prime Minister Jean Chretien. The surprise was how easy a ride the Liberals had. Thus, no change is expected in U.S.-Canada relations no matter who wins the White House.
After seven years of Liberal government, a whiff of corruption had settled over Parliament Hill, amid reports of a parallel bureaucracy channeling public money according to party affiliation.
The pickings were there for the Canadian Alliance, a group formed this year from the old Reform Party in an attempt to displace the Progressive Conservative Party as the standard-bearer of the center-right.
Political pundits and other smart-alecks have long questioned the ability of the Reform/Alliance's largely western, faith-oriented political base to broaden itself. The more middle of the road Progressive Conservatives used a big tent to win two straight majority governments in the 1980s before they were annihilated at the polls in 1993 by popular hatred of its outgoing leader, Brian Mulroney, and the lingering hangover from the recession of 1990-91.
Critics from inside and outside thought the Reform Party was too extreme — too, well, Republican — to win a majority government in Canada. The answer was a new party and a new leader, Stockwell Day.
A provincial politician in both senses of the word, Day is a former treasurer of Alberta, the petroleum-rich midwestern province with a long-standing grudge over the historic manipulation of agricultural and energy policies for the benefit of more populous Ontario and Quebec. Southern Alberta is also Canada's Bible belt, its soil rich with a mixture of solid Pentecostal and Mormon stock.
In its eagerness for a savior, the Alliance lighted on Day's record of fiscal responsibility in keeping Alberta out of debt. (Considering its big tax take from royalties on petroleum extraction, keeping Alberta in the black is a feat about as remarkable as winning a poker hand while holding four aces, a king and a Glock 9mm.)
But the Alliance kingmakers and delegates failed to consider the second half of the equation: Stockwell Day, religious fanatic. A former administrator of a small-town Bible college, Day seemed unusually devout by the lax standards of most Canadians. The Liberals made Day's religious beliefs an issue early by commencing the official election campaign on a Sunday — when Day would not campaign. Canadians were puzzled but forgiving, having historically tolerated all manner of religious eccentricities. They were less understanding when the talk turned to how old the world is.
Day is a creationist. That means he believes that the world was created about 6,000 years ago. Offered a chance to dance around the issue, Day stuck to his beliefs and the game was over.
Canadians in Ontario are middle-of-the-road folks who place their hands upon their wallets before marking their ballots (by pencil — a technology apparently immune to this "chad" difficulty) and think twice before changing things in good times.
Canada's national myth focuses on stability and stewardship, which is expressed in its constitutional imperatives, "peace, order and good government" (instead of the more vigorous, indecorous "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness").
That myth is endangered by the breakdown of Canada's traditional two-party, spoils-based system. The rise of regional extremes such as the Alliance and the separatist Bloc Quebecois deprives moderate voters, particularly in the power center of Ontario, of a way to discipline the Liberals when they become too tired or too corrupt.
Next time, the center may not hold.
Gregory Boyd Bell is the news editor of GTA Today, a daily newspaper in Toronto.