Scott W. See. The History of Canada. Second Edition

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right-wing party in Canada. In 1993 the Reform party fell just shy of

becoming the official opposition in the House of Commons. Four

years later it succeeded. Manning’s leadership style generated a great

deal of criticism among his own party members, however, and despite

its efforts, Reform failed to make inroads with voters east of

Manitoba. Considered by many westerners the only viable party that

could save the country, Reform was often characterized as bigoted

and reactionary by easterners and Québécois, in no small part

because of the staunch moral conservatism of many of its supporters.

In an attempt to broaden its appeal to incorporate Conservatives, the

party changed its name to the Canadian Reform and Conservative

Alliance (Canadian Alliance) in 2000. Perhaps as a sign of its new

direction, an extremely right-wing and youthful Albertan named

Stockwell Day defeated Manning to become the new party’s leader.

In the election of November 2000, the Canadian Alliance retained its

status as the official opposition in Parliament.

Canada’s Regions and Provinces

at the Century’s End

Some provincial governments also took a hard veer to the political

right in the 1990s, while others moved to the left. Ontario experi-

enced explosive growth after World War II. Vast swaths of farmland

disappeared, the victim of developers’ bulldozers for housing and

shopping malls. In the midst of a recession, voters turned to a

Conservative government in 1995 under Mike Harris, who promised a

“common sense revolution.” To the cheers of middle-class taxpayers

and the chagrin of his many critics, Harris sliced deeply into social

programs and attempted to balance the budget by reducing govern-

ment spending. As a rich and populous p rovince, Ontario continued to

draw both the admiration and reproach of Canadians who were

removed from the country’s center of power.

The western provinces, quite distinct in their economies, politics,

and populations, also expanded their influence in the modern era.

Saskatchewan, still heavily dependent on its agricultural production,

was one of Canada’s few remaining bastions of the declining NDP.

First elected in 1991, Premier Roy Romanow cultivated a program of

230 Canada’s Regions and Provinces at the Century’s End

modified socialism and attempted to balance the provincial budget. In

neighboring Manitoba, a diverse province dominated by Winnipeg,

political leadership vacillated between Conservatives and the NDP.

Farther to the west, Alberta remained in the hands of Conservatives

since 1971. Starting in 1992, Ralph Klein’s government made

national news with its draconian cuts in virtually all social services

and programs. Few Albertans, or Canadians for that matter,

expressed neutral viewpoints on Klein’s conservative “revolution-

aries.” British Columbia remained a magnet for people across

Canada and around the rest of the world who wanted to relocate to a

bountiful and beautiful area. Vancouver absorbed thousands of

Asian immigrants, for example, especially people fleeing Hong Kong

before its reversion to Chinese control. For many years, the heartland

of the Social Credit party, a legacy of the Depression era, British

Columbia elected a series of NDP governments in the 1990s.

Unfortunately, both parties achieved notoriety for their scandal-

ridden administrations.

Although they exercised less influence in shaping the national

agenda in the recent past, the Atlantic Provinces were also immensely

diverse in economic, political, and cultural orientation. Swept by

fickle trade winds and the impact of industrialization, the region’s

resource-based economy suffered mightily. The four eastern pro-

vinces experienced dramatic out-migration, especially in the postwar

era to the 1970s, with thousands moving to Ontario and the

developing West in search of employment. Newfoundland in the

1990s had the country’s highest unemployment rate. Partially as a

result of the 1992 federally mandated moratorium on Atlantic cod

fishing, designed to give dwindling fish stocks a chance to regenerate,

the province had the country’s largest number of people per capita on

government assistance. The brightest economic prospect for New-

foundlanders was the 1997 opening of the Hibernian offshore oil

production project. Tiny Prince Edward Island also struggled to

maintain its traditional way of life in an era of rapid change. Small

farming, a vestige of the old tenant system, declined in the postwar

era. Correspondingly, the tourist industry became more important for

the province’s economy. Thousands flocked annually to visit the

Cavendish home of Prince Edward Island’s most famous fictitious

character, Anne of Green Gables, the creation of author Lucy Maud

Montgomery. The most notable change for the Island was the

Canada’s Regions and Provinces at the Century’s End 231

construction of a fixed link to the mainland after a contentious

plebiscite in 1988. Proponents of the bridge argued that it would

improve tourism and facilitate the movement of agricultural and

fishing products, whereas opponents maintained that it would

ultimately destroy the quintessential lifestyle of the island and pose

environmental risks. An engineering marvel that spans eight miles of

the Northumberland Strait, the bridge opened for traffic in 1997.

New Brunswick also fought to remain competitive in the

postindustrial world. The Liberal party under Frank McKenna led

the country’s only bilingual province for most of the 1990s. The

expenses of providing all essential government services in two

languages led to an unpleasant backlash when the Confederation of

Regions party openly opposed bilingualism. The reliance on paper

and pulp industries led to overcutting of timber stocks in the

province’s interior. Attempts to develop mineral industries, especially

lead and zinc, met with mixed results. A growing telecommunications

industry, on the other hand, proved more successful. Finally, the

modern challenges faced by Nova Scotia mirrored those of its

neighbors. As the most populous and diverse province in the Atlantic

region, Nova Scotia adjusted to changing demands for its products. In

particular, Cape Breton’s coal and steel industry, once a powerful

engine of the province’s economy, was devastated by fluctuating

markets, environmental concerns, and mining tragedies. As with

Newfoundland, offshore energies provided a beacon of hope for

Nova Scotians, especially the development of natural gas from Sable

Island. Conservatives, Liberals, and New Democrats led various

colorful and often scandal-plagued governments in the 1980s and

1990s. Ultimately, they failed to provide lasting resolutions to the

province’s numerous problems.

Canadians Loo k to a New Century

The closing two decades of the twentieth century bought momentous

constitutional, political, and social changes to the country. With a

host of progressive rights bestowed on each citizen and with shifting

immigration patterns redefining the face of Canada, the political and

social landscapes of a century earlier were barely recognizable. The

232 Canadians Look to a New Century

Cold War appeared to be relegated to the past, a subject that would

hence be of greater interest to historians than to political scientists. In

the 1990s few would have predicted the magnitude of virulent

nationalism and anti-Western extremism in the Middle East that

would capture global attention in the dawn of the twenty-first

century. Dramatic and horrific events in New York, Baghdad, and

Kabul would serve to recalibrate Canada’s foreign policy. Issues that

were gaining prominence in the late twentieth century, such as

territorial sovereignty and environmental protectionism, would

rapidly shift to center stage in the first decade of the new century.

International markets and financial systems that had thrived in the

1990s because of an accelerated rate of trade would experience a

sudden and devastating collapse a decade later. After 2008

Canadians would be forced to cope with a global recession that in

many ways rivaled the catastrophic depression of the 1930s.

On the domestic front political parties seemed poised to tilt to the

right, a direction that reflected contemporary patterns in much of

Western Europe and the United States. The definition and location of

the boundaries that separate federal and provincial responsibilities

for a myriad of agendas and programs, from health care to resource

extraction, continued to shape debate as Canadians sought to

maintain the complicated balance that has essentially defined the

country’s nature since Confederation. Moreover, after almost two

decades of life under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Canadians

continued to seek a clearer definition to the nuances of their rights

through the courts and in the halls of parliament and provincial

legislative assemblies. Canadians greeted the new century with hope

and anticipation. Some observers, no doubt mindful of the country’s

consistent place at the top of the United Nation’ s annual comparative

ranking for quality of life during the 1990s, wryly wondered if

Wilfrid Laurier’ s famous pronouncement that the twentieth century

would belong to Canada would prove to be of greater veracity a

hundred years later.

Canadians Look to a New Century 233

Chapter 11

Contemporary Canada

(2001–2010)

Canadians Greet a New Century

It is axiomatic that contemporary events in any nation-state are

profoundly shaped by the past. Canada’s story in the first decade of

the twenty-first century was undeniably defined to a great degree by

long-standing patterns in its history; at the same time, new dynamics

and challenges from inside and outside the country seemed to unfold

at an accelerated pace that makes an assessment of what will have

lasting import and what will be ephemeral virtually impossible.

Nonetheless, in the recent past we can identify a striking political

transition to conservative agendas, which in many ways mirrored

European and American patterns as had been the case in the 1980s.

Regionalism, always an essential ingredient for understanding

Canadian history, remained an important factor in politics and the

cultural landscape. The issue of sovereignty-association appeared to

recede into the background in the early years of the new century, but

the separatist agenda of the Bloc Québécois remained intact; polls

regularly indicated that a significant proportion of Quebec voters

supported a form of permanent separation from Canada.

Individuals and groups persisted in testing the boundaries of the

Charter of Rights and Freedoms, now a quarter century old, in the

Canadians Greet a New Century 235

The icebreaker Louis S. St-Laurent makes its way through Baffin Bay in July 2008.

Source: Associated Press / Jonathan Hayward

courts and on the political front. The cycles of modern capitalism,

with the strengths and weaknesses of the world’s dominant economic

system on full display, would have a great impact on the country.

After enjoying several years of growth, Canada confronted the global

recession that started in 2008 and for a time threatened to rival the

Great Depression of the 1930s with its dismal unemployment figures,

damage to numerous sectors of the economy, and disruption of

trading patterns with the country’s key partners. Canada’s interna-

tional role, which since Confederation has been shaped to a large

extent by domestic policies, would be heavily stamped by swiftly

moving events in the Middle East. In addition, the issue of sovereignty

in the Arctic and along the border with the United States continued to

be of great importance, especially because they were so thoroughly

linked to environmental agendas and resource development. In 2010,

according to practically any political, social, or economic criteria,

Canada remains one of the world’s strongest, most tolerant, and

culturally attractive countries.

The Nuances of Modern Politics

The first decade of the new century brought a shift from Liberal to

Conservative agendas in federal politics, yet the magnitude of that

transition was tempered. A degree of ambivalence among voters has

been apparent that since 2004 two minority governments have been

returned. Moreover, voter turnout declined rather precipitously from

a high of around seventy-five percent in 1993 to a record low of under

sixty percent in the most recent federal election in 2008. Although it is

premature to define with any measure of certainty the factors that

accounted for this change, some political scientists think that a

decline in voter attachment to parties has been a major element. The

role and impact of smaller, issue oriented, and regional parties

remained vital for understanding the complicated admixture of

Canadian politics. Once again, we can see a clear example of

contemporary themes that follow deeply etched patterns; in this case,

it demonstrates the power of so-called “third party” behavior since

Confederation.

The Nuances of Modern Politics 237

The End of a Liberal Run

Prime Minister Jean Chrétien continued his rather improbable run

into the early twenty-first century. Although he had been slighted

since the outset of his leadership as a less than stellar machine

politician, his detractors consistently underestimated his feisty appeal

among voters and his sometimes uncanny ability to navigate tricky

political waters. Chrétien’ s government focused a great deal of

attention on a permanent solution that would undercut the impulse

for separation in Quebec. In addition to the Clarity Act legislation of

2000 that stipulated an unambiguous question in the event of another

referendum, the federal government exercised its largess by investing

millions of dollars in programs and agencies in Quebec. The dynamic

of using federal funds to temper regional discontent was a page from

a well-worn playbook that had been used since the late nineteenth

century to cajole provinces into Confederation and pacify regional

critics. The complicated system of funneling federal dollars to the

province led to a series of high profile scandals, which in turn

triggered numerous official investigations into malfeasance. Federal

agencies and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police explored the

dubious nature of some of the programs that had been established.

The most widely covered, the so-called “sponsorship scandal,”

exposed corruption and the deliberate misuse of taxpayers’ funds,

particularly for advertising programs, and cast a devastating pall over

the Liberal government’s ability to govern effectively throughout the

country.

In a political maneuver designed in part to defuse the growing

discontent with the Liberal agenda, Chrétien stepped down in

December 2003 and turned the government over to his finance

minister,PaulMartin,Jr.Martin’s government, molded profoundly

by a disappointing election in 2004 that left the Liberals with a

minority status, never gained an effective distance from the

corruption issues. Moreover, Martin struggled to find traction

with a distinctive agenda that would give Canadians the sense that

the Liberals would be capable of confronting the special challenges

of the new century. In the twilight of Liberal rule, after over twelve

years in power, Conservatives seized the opportunity to retool their

platform to appeal to a broad spectrum of the electorate. In a federal

election in February 2006, the resurgent Conservatives landed on

238 The Nuances of Modern Politics

the right message and capitalized on the fatigue from seemingly

endless corruption scandals that had become a hallmark of the

hapless Liberals.

The Conservative Resurgence

After a number of years in the political wilderness of the late

1990s, struggling to advance their ideals of smaller government,

fiscal prudence, and social conservatism, Canada’s Conservatives

regrouped in the newly formed Canadian Reform and Conserva-

tive Alliance (Canadian Alliance) in 2000. The youth and relative

inexperience of the party’s leader, Stockwell Day, and the strong

western regional stamp on crucial elements of the party’sagenda,

proved to be twin factors for tempering its success in the first few

years of the new century. The tribulations of the Liberal Party

provided Conservatives a hopeful beacon for recapturing control of

the federal government, and in a well-orchestrated maneuver the

Canadian Alliance merged in late 2003 with the old arm of the

Progressive Conservative Party to form the new Conservative Party

of Canada [CPC].

The CPC’s platform was an amalgamation of the ideals of the

older Reform Party, vintage agendas of Canadian Conservatives since

the nineteenth century, and modern solutions for social and fiscal

moderation. It included classic language about the compelling

advantages of smaller and more decentralized government, proposals

for substantial tax cuts, a scheme for reducing public debt, an argu-

ment for the election of Senators, and a plan to encourage individual

ownership on First Nations’ reserves. Assuming leadership of the

reconfigured party was a former policy director of the Reform Party,

Stephen Harper.

Harper and the CPC won a minority government in February

2006. The Liberals were led by Stéphane Dion, a young politician

who made environmentalist policy initiatives, the so-called “Green

Shift,” a centerpiece of his campaign. Dion failed to kindle enthusiasm

and gain the support of voters, and although Harper’s demeanor

was often stilted and aloof, the conservative appeal to strengthen the

economy and plan to purge the country from years of corruption

carried the day. In a subsequent election in October 2008 the

The Nuances of Modern Politics 239