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Over the last two years, Bush Administration spokespeople have repeatedly asserted that history will judge the Presidency of George W. Bush. At first, the line was evoked as a way of deflecting important questions, as though we have to wait 50 years to decide if Iraq was a series of colossal mistakes. But lately it seems that President Bush has absorbed the mantra on a more personal level, taking refuge in the idea that although he is widely condemned at the moment, on deeper reflection and with the benefit of hindsight, historians will judge the Bush Presidency more kindly than today’s observers.  

Once again the situation in the Middle East has flared, with Israel launching air raids and ground incursions into Gaza. I find this particular action unsettling and risky for the simple reason that Israel does not seem to have defined what precisely they are trying to accomplish. Insofar as they have done so, it seems the offensive is unlikely to achieve the goals that have been set. In the meantime, the increased violence will only serve to strengthen radicals on both sides.  

I think it’s reasonable to assume that an overwhelming percentage of Canadians would claim that they are concerned about the future of our planet. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever met anybody who wasn’t at least a little bit concerned about our environment.

Canadian voting patterns, however, indicate something quite different. Election after election, Canadians tend to place the environment quite low on the list of election issues upon which they cast their vote. The economy has historically been among the top issues on the minds of voters, so let’s take a look at the environment through an economic lens.

There is no doubt that we are living in history-making times. But people have a habit of over-estimating the importance of the things that go on around them. With a bit of retrospect, events often seem a little less traumatic and leave less of an impression than we might have thought. Dust to dust, ashes to ashes. So it will be with the current controversy over prorogation.

Certainly, this will studied for years by constitutional lawyers and historians. But I believe the lasting effects of this have been overstated somewhat — we are not facing the end of parliamentary democracy or responsible government. The current “crisis” is a blip on the radar screen of history.

With that in mind, I have three pieces of advice for progressives across the country. Let’s calm down. Let’s be fair. Let’s be honest.

Prime Minister,

Well, that didn’t go as well as planned now did it? I’ll avoid the “What were you thinking?” speech. We’re here now, and despite our differences you are the Prime Minister for at least a few more days. Canadians depend on their Prime Minister to do the right thing, so I hope you’ll take some advice on this issue.

It’s clear now that the opposition parities are going to vote non-confidence in your government. It’s also clear that the Liberals and the NDP have an official coalition and are going to ask the Governor General to invite them to form the government. What should you do?

According to the headlines, Canada is heading towards its first inter-election change of government since the 1926 King-Byng Affair. 

Despite winning only a quarter of the seats and subsequently offering a resignation that was strongly accepted by his party, Stéphane Dion may become Prime Minister by the end of the year. Stranger still, he will head a coalition government that includes the New Democrats, who are the fourth largest party in parliament, and is supported by the separatist Bloc Quebecois. Combined, the Liberals and NDP only have 114 seats, 29 fewer than the Conservatives they are about to topple.

While there is no Canadian precedent for this month’s manoeuvrings, in mid-19th century Britain, governments were formed and dissolved on a regular basis. Until Disraeli and Gladstone created the modern party system, these governments featured even stranger bedfellows than separatists and socialists. Even though suffrage was limited to propertied males (about 10% of the adult population), the electorate was split on foreign and domestic policies, including free trade, Irish rights, Church-state relationships, and relationships with the various French empires and republics.

This past weekend, on a quiet hillside in Kyiv along the Dnipro river, Ukrainians and dignitaries from around the world gathered to mark the 75th anniversary of one of the darkest periods in modern Ukrainian history, and one the greatest crimes of the twentieth-century. 

The Holodomor is the name given to the famine that broke out on the territory of Soviet Ukraine in 1932–1933. The mass starvation that ensued claimed the lives of somewhere between six and ten million Ukrainians. What makes the Holodomor stand out is not the fact that a famine occurred or that millions died, but that the Soviet authorities were complicit in the deaths, and even intentionally caused them. 

On Tuesday, November 4, 2008 the Democratic Party managed to shatter the coalition that Karl Rove had hoped would create a permanent Republican majority in Washington. Rove’s strategy was to energize the Christian Conservative base while fracturing the opposition with “wedge issues” such as gun control, gay marriage, and abortion.

Stephen Harper has ambitions of creating a permanent Conservative majority in Ottawa. His strategy is very different from Rove’s. He essentially hopes to recreate the Mulroney coalition by holding grassroots Western support, winning over Québecois soft nationalists, and splitting Ontario and the Atlantic region with the Liberals and NDP. What lessons can the Liberal Party learn from the Democratic victory that might help them return to power?

Barack Obama’s election has changed Canada forever. Of course it’ll have a huge impact on the United States, but the influence on its northern neighbour will also be profound, albeit subtle.

No, Obama’s election doesn’t spell the end of NAFTA and millions of Canadian jobs like right-wing observers suggest. It does, however, shatter many of the myths that Canadians like to believe about themselves, especially vis-à-vis their giant neighbour.

With Obama’s election, Canadians can no longer pretend to be the more racially tolerant of the two countries. Tuesday’s outcome is both a triumph for Americans and a reason for Canadians to take a good hard look at themselves in the mirror, particularly when it comes to racial inequality within their own country.