Darkness before the light?
For many years, Harris Decima pollster Allan Gregg has asked respondents whether they consider themselves conservatives, liberals or centrists, and he’s also asked them how they vote. In recent years, he told the Manning Centre conference, the number of self-identified conservatives has been growing. But what’s almost more interesting is that the political allegiance of self-identified centrists has shifted, too. In 1997, 41 per cent of centrists voted for the Chrétien Liberals. In 2008, 48 per cent voted for the Harper Conservatives. Two things have happened. As the population ages and is buffeted by polarizing events like the struggle against international terrorism, the centre has shifted rightward. And the Harper Conservatives have pushed the Liberals, sometimes with their hearty co-operation, off-centre.
Gregg found that 89 per cent of respondents, nearly everyone, agrees that “nothing is more important than family.” Sixty-seven per cent agree that “marriage is, by definition, between a man and a woman,” 60 per cent that “abortion is morally wrong.”
This is interesting to me for a few reasons.
The first one a seriously right shift in Canadian society over the last few years that I noticed myself, but more interesting is in this poll who is responsible for it. For a lack of a better term the Babyboomers, many of which would be considered progressive back in their 30s and 40s but now in their late 50s and 60s are aiming for “stability”. A loaded word when it comes to political ideology, if there ever was one.
It is interesting and scary to me on two levels. Firstly, there is the reality that over the last decade life, for many, is perceived as unstable and volatile. 9/11, the Financial Crisis, none of these are new things in the context of human history, but in North America it was like war had broken out. 9/11 hit Canada too, directly back then but the political repercussions are still being felt and with the Financial Crisis of 2008 it was amplified.
The election of one Stephen Harper four years ago into a Minority Government is proof of this. The old geezers are getting scared of what the future holds for them and so they regress back to a time when they did feel save, their own childhood, post WWII Canada etc. A time when there seemed to be stability and certainty, all things that the 2000s have taken away for good for most of them.
What can this mean for Canada? Nothing good in my opinion. Instead of brining Canada forward and trying to continue on a path of progressiveness, openness the value proposition will be turned towards a more conservative attitude, driven by the believe that one needs to hold onto as much as possible in order to have a future. The only thing that could save Canada from sliding down the Mountain again would be people in Generation X and Y who are willing to pick a fight with the establishment and want to bring Canada forward.
Will this happen? Unlikely, the old guard, as battered and scared as they may be now, have money and influence. That the
Aspers are on the verge of losing their empire does not change this.
Lots of younger people have pinned their hope on Social Media, especially in Vancouver. “Social Media is where it is at” goes the battle cry, though I have my doubts that it will have the ability to affect real social change. it is easy to be for something while you are sitting at home on a computer or in a coffee shop and all you need to do is press a button and you’re done. It is a much more difficult thing to actually change society for good. Look at the social unrest of the 1960s, people taking to the street, getting into fights with the authority in order to make sure they are heard. Look at the fall of the Berlin wall and the Iron Curtain. It happened because a critical mass went onto the streets and told their rulers that they had enough and that they didn’t want them anymore. Pressing a button has not even close the same power of statement behind it.
So what do I think will be happening? I am not overly optimistic about our direct future, the debt crisis that started in the US in 2007 hasn’t run it’s course (I am reading a funny / interesting book about this, more on this once I am finished) and “
The Automatic Earth” does a good job in chronicling the chaos that we are still in but that is currently hidden from most peoples view.
As the sea gets more violent, people will start gripping tighter onto things they think will prevent them from being swept away. For most baby boomers this will be a return to their childhood, or what they perceive as being the hallmark of it. The things that Harper’s conservatives are advocating, all the social progress of the past 50 years be damned.
How far will Canada fall? That is entirely up to people currently in their late 20s, 30s and 40s, they are the ones who have to guard Canada’s progressive future. That is, if they manage to put the iPhone down long enough to actually notice of what is going on.