OttawaWatch: Pre-election reflections

By Lloyd Mackey

IT WAS three-and-one-half years ago, on April 15, 2005, that I wrote the following: "By God's grace, I hope to be in and around Parliament Hill for another three years at least, to cover the continuing story of the faith/political interface."

That quote was the very last paragraph in a book I authored, entitled More Faithful than We Think: Stories and Insights on Canadian Leader Doing Politics Christianly (BayRidge Books, 2005).

On next Tuesday, October 14, Canada votes. By late in the evening, we will know if Stephen Harper is still prime minister and, if so, whether he holds a majority or will continue with a minority.

For OttawaWatch and its writer, this week's piece represents the possibility of a turning point, no matter how the election turns out. That is why I began by referring to the end quote in that book.

Perhaps the best way to tackle some comment about the upcoming election is to back into it with a reference to a couple of posts on the OttawaWatch that appears on this website from The Reverend Malachy Egan. He leads a cyberchurch called Abba Ministries.

A few weeks ago, Egan suggested that your humble scribe had been hanging around Parliament Hill "waaaay too long." And, more recently, he wondered when I would be retiring.

My response, very simply is, I don't know what turn the path will take, for OttawaWatch and its writer, after next Tuesday. Nothing may change and three years of faith/political interface analysis, by God's grace, might run another three.

More to the point is that I will be watching with great interest what happens to the five political leaders, four of which have, to a greater or lesser extent, talked in public about their own faith/political interface. (The one who has not is Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe, who studiously avoids responding to questions on that subject.)

Faith, per se, has not been on the agenda in this campaign, although I suspect that many Christians have been praying quietly in their closets for a favourable outcome. That was quite unlike the US presidential election, where California megachurch pastor Rick Warren was able to get the two candidates on the same stage to talk about moral and spiritual values, for national television.

Listen Up's Lorna Dueck, in a much more modest way, attempted something similar, in co-operation with the Globe and Mail, offering two minutes of unedited video to the leaders, allowing them to tell how their faith impacts their politics. So far, only Stephane Dion, Jack Layton and Elizabeth May have responded.

But the Elizabeth May clip, if lined up with previous on-the-record comments from Stephen Harper, indicates that they both share the kind of personal Christian commitment that would be familiar to readers of OttawaWatch. But they each appear to have very different ways of applying that commitment to political issues.

That may be a factor that relates more to personality and responsibility than to anything else. Briefly, it can be summarized as: May talks and Harper listens.

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In the leader debates, Harper did a lot of listening, and I have often seen, or heard reports of, him often in such situations. Even when he challenges his opponents or critics, he does so in a way that offers clear hints that he is very interested in what is being said, even if he initially disagrees.

And, when people speak of his cabinet ministers and MPs being "muzzled", I tend to interpret that suggestion differently. He -- and the whole party-building apparatus -- has worked hard at getting their politicians to listen a little more and talk a little less.

The Tories have built up a formidable listening network. Michael Valpy of the Globe and Mail wrote about it recently (September 12: 'What the Tories know about you'). That network stops short of invading privacies, but it could be said that the listening itself is pervasive. (Valpy uses language that implies Tory McCarthyism: a careful reading of his story fails to offer evidence of such.)

* * *

It may be that Elizabeth May may (pun intended) turn out to be Harper's best friend, even though she is tip-toeing carefully around the election floor with Dion. The help for Harper could happen because of the vote-splitting on the left.

If the election was this week rather than next, we would likely have a Conservative minority. The house might not look much different to what it has for the past 33 months.

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But some interesting changes could happen, if there was a political will.

For about 30 of those 33 months, Parliament operated pretty well. Yes, there was the usual shouting, but a lot of legislation went through.

But, over the summer, some of the house committees became embroiled in tasks that, in this writer's modest view, belonged more properly in courts of law. It seemed that there was an attempt to attach an aura of illegitimacy to the new government that was more supportable by political rhetoric than by hard evidence.

For the Tories, there was frequent frustration that their listening was seen as lack of transparency, and that their attempts to avoid the mistakes of their liberal predecessors were being thoroughly misinterpreted.

No matter the makeup of the new parliament, there could be opportunity for collaborative governance, something that has grown out of the rebuilding of the conservative movement in recent years.

Something few have commented on in Canada, but bears some serious study, is the emergence in at least three countries, one in Europe and two in Africa, of interesting attempts at power-sharing.

In Germany, a "grand coalition" between centre-right and centre-left parties has been functioning for two years now. And in Kenya and Zimbabwe, where violence accompanied recent elections, power-sharing agreements between previously warring parties are being worked out.

And, it should not be forgotten, that that Stephen Harper, has behaved collaboratively on several occasions -- and so have Dion, Duceppe and Layton. The handling of the Afghanistan file, the First Nations apology and the Accountability Act are three excellent examples.

No matter the October 14 outcome, there might be a need to talk a little more about some new -- or renewed -- ways of doing things.

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Lloyd Mackey is a member of the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery in Ottawa. He is author of Stephen Harper: The Case for Collaborative Governance (ECW Press, 2006) and More Faithful Than We Think: Stories and Insights on Canadian Leaders Doing Politics Christianly (BayRidge Books, 2005). He can be reached at lmackey@canadianchristianity.com.

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October 9/2007