Welcome to Politics in Canada

What do you know about politics? What you learned in your Canadian history classes through high school? What the newspapers, television and the radio talk about?

To truly understand Canadian politics it’s essential to understand our mixed culture but also to appreciate that Canada was founded by two European nations, Britain and France. This mixture affects Canadians today in our daily lives as evidenced by the bilingualism on our products as a simple example. It affects us on a larger scale by the fact that the underlying principles of our two major political parties are essentially the same principles that were laid down by the British parties, Tories and Liberals, over 100 years ago. In this respect the parties today have something in common with the Republicans and Democrats in the United States. They evolved in a rather blurred fashion but fundamentally they have very similar philosophies which are elitist.

Does that surprise you? It shouldn’t if you refer back to your British history lessons. The Tories and the Whigs evolved in the late 1600’s but the members of parliament were still the privileged class. Human nature being what it was back then the concerns arising in these parties carried the privilege classes and the other classes (the lowly ones) were collateral damage in the process.

If you study the way of the Western World today, and in particular, North American politics you will note that there is very little difference about the process today. How many people today have investments on Wall Street? While a few people of your acquaintance, or you, may have some investments through your company RRSP plans the likelihood of your losing your nest egg on Wall Street was pretty slim. However the decisions made by President Obama and Prime Minister Harper that involved corporate bailouts in the billions of dollars will have an adverse effect on you for many years to come. How? With these bailouts taxpayers will continue to lose the few social benefits we have acquired over the last 50 years.