Current mood:	awake
Current music:	"Boston and St. John's" by Great Big Sea
Entry tags:	canada, politics

Boston and St. John's
I am frequently asked why I opted to move back to Massachusetts, rather than remain in Northern California or back to Toronto or somewhere entirely other. (Back to Texas just really wasn't an option). I generally reply something about appreciating the knowledge-loving culture of Boston, noting that the overheard café conversations are excellent.

Recently, Sarah Vowell pointed me to this unique tidbit in the Massachusetts constitution:

Chapter V, Section II.
The Encouragement of Literature, etc.

Wisdom, and knowledge, as well as virtue, diffused generally among the body of the people, being necessary for the preservation of their rights and liberties; and as these depend on spreading the opportunities and advantages of education in the various parts of the country, and among the different orders of the people, it shall be the duty of legislatures and magistrates, in all future periods of this commonwealth, to cherish the interests of literature and the sciences, and all seminaries of them; especially the university at Cambridge, public schools and grammar schools in the towns; to encourage private societies and public institutions, rewards and immunities, for the promotion of agriculture, arts, sciences, commerce, trades, manufactures, and a natural history of the country[...]

Well, huh. Apparently the local character was actually deliberately intended.

Meanwhile, you know something's going on back in usually cool, calm and collected Canada when it's showing up near the top of Google's worldwide news articles with reports of government turmoil and the Governor General rushing back from Europe to attend to the situation.

Allow me to muse.

The centre-left Liberals and left-wing NDP, with the support of the separtist Bloc Québécois and environmentalist Greens, are trying to depose the current mimnority government of the centre-right* Conservatives by forming a coalition government.

Although similar events have happened in Canada before, the current situation is essentially unprecidented, as evidenced by lots of yelling and head-scratching in the blogosphere regarding whether such a thing is legal, possible, or democratic. There's many arguments why it's wrong, chief among them that Canadian democracy requires that the winner of a plurality of seats gets to be Prime Minister.

It's slowly sinking in that Westminster-style parliament is not a direct democracy, the same way in November 2000 it was slowly sinking in that the U.S. president is not elected by direct popular vote (and that close races are not determined without a hand recount).

Me, I'm in favour of it, and not just because it ousts a PM that seems to have been reading too much from the Bush playbook. When learning civics in high school I thought the parliamentary system was bonkers and gazed wistfully at the U.S. system, but over the years I've come to appreciate the checks and balances that are part of the Canadian system. This is one of them.

It also occurs to me that many of the people shouting about how the current situation is undemocratic haven't been properly balancing their American television viewing with British shows. Too much West Wing and not enough Yes, Minister will give you a skewed view of the Anglosphere.


* While many Canadians might wish to argue that the Conservatives under Harper are hard-right, I will argue that they're still observably milder than their south-of-the-border cousins. The removal of the anti-choice plank in their party platform a few years ago is my favourite illustration.