The country is in 'a very cantankerous mood'

The dollar is up, jobs plentiful, but Canadians are frustrated by a
political system they feel alienated from ROY MacGREGOR writes

By ROY MacGREGOR
From Saturday's Globe and Mail

(Airdrie, Alta.)  Ill wind or not, it's blowing hard enough down Main
Street to cause Dave Usherwood to hold on to his hat and his election signs
at the same time. Out here, nature provides -- even the metaphors.
"You remember that old Barbra Streisand song?" he all but shouts
into the swirling dust. "Enough is Enough!"

The part-time rancher and full-time consultant is loading his pickup with
lawn signs for Myron Thompson, the Conservative incumbent for the riding of
Wild Rose, who will win easily on June 28 -- but it will take much more
than a local statement to satisfy Mr. Usherwood. He stands, right hand
firmly on Stetson, beside the back bumper of his truck, a large sticker
saying, Defend the West: No Kyoto, No Wheat Board, No Gun Registry and he
shakes his hat and head at Prime Minister Paul Martin's immediate pledge to
bring an end to western alienation. "We listened," says Mr.
Usherwood.

"He's talked this talk since December -- but we haven't seen anything.
We want new initiatives out here. We want new policies. We're tired of
trying the old ways that don't work for us any more. Enough is Enough --
that's what it's all come down to."

There is no surprise here. The surprise may come election evening, when for
the first time in memory the votes from the West will matter past 8:21
eastern time and the chosen political movement of the West -
Reform-become-Alliance-now-turned-Conservative -- forms a minority or even
majority government.

The surprise is in the incipient anger that has taken hold across the
entire country -- "a very cantankerous mood," says William
Neville, head of the department of political studies at the University of
Manitoba, that is, oddly, "easier to describe than diagnose.
"There's a lot of anger out there," says Mr. Neville. "Some
of it, in fact, seems quite disproportionate to the ostensible cause.
"But if there's a common thread in all this, it seems to be in a sense
that people feel they've somehow been used or abused."

Whatever the root cause, or causes, it has reached a "fury" level
equal to and often surpassing that found by the Spicer Commission a dozen
years ago following the torturous Meech Lake experience. The most profound
difference between then and now was that the commission readily identified
a "lightning rod" in the prime minister of the moment, Brian
Mulroney, whereas today there seem multiple rods attracting this national
flash of anger.

To a travelling reporter, it seems at times like one of those hissy fits
small children throw in malls, when neither reason nor threat can calm and
the child ends up screaming and spinning in circles on the mall floor, no
longer even sure what set matters off in the first place.

The economy is strong and jobs plentiful. Interest rates are low, the
dollar up. National unity is not an issue. And yet pollsters had no sooner
identified optimism sweeping the land but they were out chasing fury, the
political class referring to the population as being "cranky."
Such a term, says Toronto historian Michael Bliss, is simply
"condescending," a facile dismissal of something significant --
especially when, in Mr. Bliss's considered opinion, "the anger is
perfectly rational and justified."

A quick pulse-taking across the land suggests it amounts to far more than
merely getting up this spring on the wrong side of bed. On a fine June day
in downtown Joliette, Que., Fernand Poirier parks his Cadillac, drops a
reasonable quarter in the meter and, with the slightest of prompting,
hisses, "Les Libereaux sont finis!" In a tidy neighbourhood in
downtown Hamilton, Gail Robertson places an NDP sign on her lawn, says
she'll vote, but adds: "It's reached the point where you don't know
who to believe."

On a North Vancouver street corner, Jason Flower hands out Green Party
pamphlets to passersby, surprised by how many take them and say they are
willing to consider all alternatives, from not voting at all to voting for
a political movement profoundly different from all that have gone before in
this country. "People are disillusioned," says Mr. Flower.
"They're disappointed and they're disenchanted."

But disillusioned, disappointed and disenchanted at different things. The
anger in Quebec is aimed at the sponsorship scandal; in Ontario at the
provincial Liberals and, especially, pledge-breaking Premier Dalton
McGuinty; in British Columbia at everything from the provincial Liberals to
the heavy-handed nomination processes of the federal Liberals; in Alberta
at anything to do with federal Liberals.

William Neville says he has sensed anger in Manitoba at the Conservatives
as former Progressive Conservatives turn on the merged Alliance and PC
party.
Anger is now being mentioned in the presumed-Liberal Atlantic, where there
is both fury over provincial health-care measures and a growing anxiety
that Eastern voters might be on the wrong side of fate in what the Prime
Minister has foolishly called "the most important election in Canadian
history." 
Winnipeg talk-show host Charles Adler says that the heat he feels from
callers is still directed mostly at the Prime Minister. "Martin is red
hot all the time," says Mr. Adler, "face flushed, jaws clenched,
teeth gnashed -- he looks angry and so he becomes the national anger
magnet."

Where Conservative Leader Stephen Harper has the advantage, thinks Mr.
Adler, is in simply "not triggering anger. Skepticism, perhaps, but
not anger. He becomes the anti-Martin." Franke James, a Toronto artist
and writer, would beg to disagree, however. Her creative group, The James
Gang, has put up a website, http://www.whackthepm.ca, that invites
computer-linked Canadians to vent their frustration on the leader of their
choice by hammering them with a large wooden mallet -- Mr. Harper leading
the "despised" straw poll by a considerable margin late this week
over the four other leaders. "We don't play favourites," says Ms.
James in a press release. "All the candidates deserve a good
whacking."

Donald Taylor thinks the national testiness goes far deeper than leadership
personality, however. The professor of social psychology at Montreal's
McGill University specializes in intergroup relations and he thinks we are
seeing a natural lashing out by people who feel completely "alienated
by systems."

Institutions, from health care to political systems, have reached the
point, says Prof. Taylor, where "people simply cannot fathom" how
they work or should work, and this, he believes, is at the core of a
widespread sentiment not to waste time voting. "Individuals have a
desperate need to feel they somehow control the environment they live
in," Prof. Taylor says.

"If there is this perceived psychological control, then people feel
motivated. If there is no sense of personal control, then people say, 'Why
should I do anything at all? I'll do jack shit.' It's all about perception,
sure, but I think our political institutions have become so big, so
unwieldy, so complex that none of us feel we have any control. And that
leads to frustration."

To this sense of impossible size, the University of Manitoba's Mr. Neville
would add a feeling of uncontrollable speed -- the modern technology that
has, in fact, made people feel overwhelmed. "The public," he
says, "is more inclined to become critical and fed up more
quickly." Such volatility combined with a deluge of bad political news
-- whether provincial or federal -- naturally produces "a lot of
people wanting to mete out punishment."

John Atkins, who runs an on-line executive coaching and editing business
(http://www.workthatworks.ca), says there is simply something in the
Canadian psyche that believes "spanking someone seems more to the
point than making a positive investment." Canadian political history
is filled with leaders who came to office virtually by accident, from Prime
Minister Alexander Mackenzie in 1873 to Ontario Premier Bob Rae in 1990,
when the voters became so obsessed with the tossing out that they were
barely aware of the throwing in.

"The greatest country in the world," laughs Mr. Atkins, "is
still mired in 'spanking' its children for colouring outside the lines --
and being proud of it!" There is, indeed, a national urge to get out
the strap. The most blinding fury would appear to be applied to Ontario's
Mr. McGuinty, who signed a formal pledge not to raise taxes during last
fall's campaign and then cavalierly dismissed the promise in his first
budget. Historian Mr. Bliss still cannot comprehend how Mr. McGuinty could
be so foolish as to not leave himself a little "wiggle room" on
taxes. He marks the broken McGuinty promise as a pivotal moment in the
current malaise, in that the Ontario Liberals showed "not even a
pretence of integrity -- and I think this is kind of the last straw for
people.

"It's as though we've been suspicious for some time about what's been
going on in our neighbourhood massage parlour, and now they've just put out
the red light and the neon sign that says, Whorehouse." Little wonder,
then, that a poll last week by Leger Marketing found a remarkable 76 per
cent of respondents refuse to believe any of the multiple promises laid out
by any of the leaders running for office.

The electorate is also being churlish about intentions, as Leger found that
the plummeting Liberal support has not exactly shown up in the other two
obvious camps, the Conservatives and the NDP. With roughly half the
population saying they are still open to changing their minds before
Election Day, there seems almost an element of cat's tease to the increased
skepticism of the people.

"People are disgusted," says Anne Letain, a teacher and literacy
advocate who lives in the southern Alberta town of Coaldale. "Scandal
after scandal has worn away any semblance of faith in the process. The
'peeling of the onion' is so rapid today with the technology that's
available," says Ms. Letain, "that things that were in the back
room, buried or kept under wraps are now instantly visible. The average
Canadian who is checking his or her wallet to see if they can afford a tank
of gas for the car this week simply cannot understand some of the perks and
style of public office."

She runs off a list of examples: federal ministers at the Irving fishing
camp, HRDC, the privacy commissioner, the gun-registry costs, the
sponsorship scandal, a member of Parliament shoplifting a ring for his
lover... "Where," she asks, "is the high ground and high
standards the people in charge are supposed to aspire to?"


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