TORONTO—The holidays are about tradition, and no tradition is more enduring than the journalistic urge to define, in a phrase, the year that was. Notable this season is Lawrence Martin, who argued in Monday’s Globe that Canadian politics in 2007 was defined by inertia: no big policy initiatives out of Ottawa, no real gains or losses by any party, and nothing but political eye-gouging left to fill the column inches.

Martin’s right, as far as he goes — nobody will remember 2007 for the vigorous pace or sweeping vision of Canada’s then-prime minister. But if Martin is genuinely concerned about the inertia of Canadian politics, he needs to look a little further than Parliament Hill.

Consider another country seemingly plagued by inertia this past year. American politics in 2007 was comically dysfunctional: a lame duck president, his approval ratings in the basement, faced off against a newly Democratic Congress with approval ratings in — that’s right — the basement. Americans seem no more enamoured of the Democrats, who naively promised to bring the troops home from Iraq, than they are of the president who sent the troops there in the first place. With neither side able to claim public support, the result has been legislative and political inertia.

At least, the appearance of inertia. Away from the gridlock on Capitol Hill, both parties are seized by fierce, and hugely promising, debates — over immigration, climate change, foreign policy, and the role of God in politics, to name just a few minor issues. That’s partly the result of a freakishly competitive presidential primary season. But it’s also thanks to the tremendous industry and skill of advocacy groups, as well as state and local governments that will not be deterred by jurisdictional boundaries.

And driving it all is a public that’s both furious at the bungling in Washington, and eager to do something about it. As a result, Americans may remember 2007 as a year when a tired political consensus on key issues began to shift, if not shatter. All that remains is for political change to translate those shifts into policy.

In Canada, the inertia that matters is popular, not political. Take the most obvious example: for the first time in memory, a Canadian government sought to obstruct — not just ignore, but obstruct — an international agreement to protect the environment. The Conservatives’ mischief in Bali was not their only attack on the conscience of the nation (remember when our government opposed the death penalty?), but it was the most pernicious, the most obscene. Yet Canadians have largely let them get away with it — something we’ll have to explain someday, probably to our kids.

In the meantime, other parties are proposing innovative ideas to reduce Canada’s emissions. But without popular support for action — or, if you prefer, without popular resentment against Conservative inaction — it doesn’t matter. Politics shift when the political consensus beneath it shifts. The inertia that so riles Lawrence Martin may manifest itself in Ottawa, but it it doesn’t come from Ottawa. It comes from us. And it won’t change until we do.

If 2007 was our year of inertia, maybe 2008 will be remembered as the year Canadians got mad.

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Posted on Wednesday, December 26th, 2007 at 6:37 pm. Follow comments through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.