It is everywhere, in this morning’s Globe and Mail, overheard last night at a downtown bar, on the subway ride into work this morning: “If Harper forces an election…” Exactly how the prime minister will do so is little considered, not part of the speculative sport of the day. Instead, it is assumed that Harper has near absolute power, that he can easily orchestrate his party’s defeat and, subsequently, “force” a spring vote, that the master planner has mastery over all things.

Strange fruit, this talk. For the moment at least, the only way Mr. Harper could achieve his maximalist aim of an election followed by majority Conservative rule is to do something truly inane and, in so doing, scupper his own chances and well-managed credibility. For an election call one of two things must happen: either the opposition parties defeat the government in a non-confidence vote in the House; or, Harper takes a trip to Rideau Hall and says to Michaëlle Jean, “The country is ungovernable, I must relinquish the job of prime minister, dissolve Parliament, and ask the people to elect a new government.”

The second option would make Harper look weak and incompetent, it would represent an admission that he has lost control of the business of state. How likely is that? Harper is actually enjoying his prolonged stay in the spotlight, has campaigned enough over the past three years, and has plenty of cash in the bank to keep seeding the notion of Liberal disarray (through attack ads that will increasingly portray Liberals as Reds, as statist, centralizing bullies). New Pentagon-style campaign headquarters (in a suburban Ottawa bomb-shelter) or not, Harper prefers a slow revolution to one that could blow up in his face. He is having fun, sleeping well, and will not be visiting the Governor General of his own accord.

The first option, a vote of non-confidence, is more likely, but only marginally so. The Liberals and ndp voted against the Conservative budget knowing full well that it was a Liberal budget and that its passage was already assured. (Harper had accorded “nation status” to a people, the Québécois, and Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe, despite being a “progressive,” signed on with the new Western premier of la belle province.)

Now the issues are budget implementation legislation and the “new” Clean Air Act from “Canada’s New Government.” In both cases, Harper, for the moment a decentralizing Red Tory, will follow his slow build; that is, he is unlikely to present before the House anything so egregious or inane that his credibility as a purposeful steward is brought into question and that would “force” the opposition to unite against him.

Harper is in the driver’s seat to be sure, but not the catbird seat. In the strange fruit basket that is federal politics today that position rests with a united opposition, if they can unite for long enough to get something done.

Talk of the Town II

And the people come and go, speaking of Michelangelo… and cities, as it turns out. That talk, too, is everywhere, save and except for in the Conservative budget. Thus the talk of the town: cranky, anxious, and sometimes rather obtuse.

Despite its history and mythology of taming the wilderness; despite the post-card images of polar bears in the Arctic or grain silos on the Prairies or the majestic Rockies and quaint fishing villages, the recent census proclaims that Canada is an urban society, one of the most urban in the world, and will become increasingly so. The answer to the existential question of how we live, therefore, is, we live together, jumbled, clustered, and rarely with land of our own. And as Sartre, also cranky and perhaps having a bad day with Simone, put it: “Hell is other people.”

The talk, however, of how to deal with teeming masses inching toward demanding recognition as city-states (in, at least, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, and, soon enough, in other sponges), is curious. Words like “densification,” “functionality,” “end-use users,” and, my favourite, “spoke and hub,” populated (or polluted) the air as I eavesdropped last night on two urban planners discussing the future of Canadian metropolises. They were jaunty, jolly, and upbeat; trim, eager-looking, with things to say, erudite and confident. As they sipped their beers, their conservation followed the dictates of point-counterpoint, was impassioned and fluid and respectful. Few breaths were taken, in fact, and enthusiasm was clearly in evidence. “Verticality,” made an appearance or two, as did “blue zones,” “brown zones,” “the one cent solution,” “traffic vectors,” and “work-to-home.” Finally, a concept I understood, if only in the Marxist sense: I am not at home when I am at work, and not at work when I am at home.

Sitting there, mischievously listening in, I felt like a kid left out in the cold. Not being a part of this discourse, I got the sense of missing out on the next big thing. This is where the real thinking is being done: if 90 percent of us are going to be living cheek-by-jowl in cities, urban planning, one would think, is where it’s at. But what of this confusing talk?

Being everywhere and everything, discussions about the environment can become strange, amorphous, even alienating. It is so big that it failed to become the next big thing. That has changed now, but might the urban agenda fall prey to the same problem if arcane jargon is allowed to dominate?

Ken Alexander
Editor, The Walrus

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Posted on Wednesday, April 4th, 2007 at 10:37 am. Follow comments through the RSS 2.0 feed. Comment or trackback.