Professor Yeti

In 1536, a group of Englishmen went on an expedition to what is now Canada. Due to a shortage of available food, most of the men turned to cannibalism — they’d quietly kill and eat another of their group, and then pretend the victim was killed by a wild animal. Their ship was essentially ruined, so sailing home wasn’t much of an option. But then, the very night that they prayed for help from God, a French ship arrived. Somehow in their weakened state, the Englishmen managed to steal the French ship and sail back home. Even more surprising, the Frenchmen somehow sailed to England in the ruined English ship. Luckily for everyone the English king at the time, Henry VIII, agreed to reimburse the French sailors for their ship and cargo.

There are some lessons to be learned from this historical anecdote. First, truth is oftentimes stranger than fiction and, second, Canadian history is interesting and Americans have a lot to learn about it. Most Americans probably don’t know the date of the first European arrival in Canada, let alone the current state of Canadian politics. Not only is it a shame that there’s so much unawareness about a nation that’s right next door, but it also might be America’s undoing in the future if there isn’t some major education, especially about Canadian-American relations and current events.

So what’s new in Canada? The upcoming federal election is a good place to start. Because the minority parties passed a no-confidence vote against the majority party, The Liberals, a federal election has been called that will take place on January 23, 2006. That’s a little more than a month from now. (Don’t you think most Americans wish they could’ve called for another election at some point and then had it several weeks later? It would certainly have saved a lot of time and campaign money.) Calling for a federal election isn’t as strange in Canada as it would be in America: in Canada, politicians are elected for a term of five years maximum, but at any time the prime minister can call for another election. For example, if a Canadian prime minister thinks that he/she is pretty popular at the moment, he/she could then call an election. Hooray! Reelection! If the prime minister isn’t feeling so secure, it’s usually time to wait it out until a more crowd-pleasing moment.

But wait a minute — the prime minister didn’t call for a new election, the minority parties did. Here’s another difference between Canada and America: Canada has more than two parties. Sure, America has the Greens and other small parties, but do they really have any power in the federal government? Not really. In Canada there are two main parties, the Liberals and the Conservatives, but they also have the New Democratic Party (NDP), the Bloc Quebecois, and the Green party. The reason why the minority parties could call for a new election is because there are more seats in Parliament held by Conservative, NDP, and Bloc Quebecois party members than are held by Liberals.

These minority parties called for a new election because they’d all like more power, obviously, and because they think there’s a possibility that they might get more of it. Their argument for new leadership in the government is also backed by a sponsorship scandal, in which some Liberal leaders are accused of receiving kickbacks. The current leadership hasn’t been proven to have any involvement in this scandal but it could affect the public’s perception of Liberals nonetheless, which is what the minority parties are hoping.

At the moment the average Canadian seems a bit fed up with the federal government (sound familiar?). In the last federal election, which was last year, only about 60 percent of those eligible voted — a bit low by Canadian standards. Now there’s going to be another election already! Not only is it quite soon after the last election, but it also comes just after the holiday season. This is the time of year when people want to think of bright shiny lights and family togetherness, not political mayhem. In other words, a low voter turnout in this election wouldn’t be a big surprise to anyone.

Because of a possible low turnout during the holiday season, it’s hard to predict who might be elected of those running. The current prime minister — Paul Martin, the leader of the Liberals — is running. There’s also Stephen Harper, of the Conservatives, Jack Layton of the NDP, and Gilles Duceppe of the Bloc. One likely possibility is that Canadians will mostly vote the same way this election as they did before and Martin will be reelected. Another possible event would be the election of Stephen Harper — after all, the Conservatives are the second-most popular party after the Liberals at this point. This outcome would signal that for the most part, the Canadian people are ready for a change.

In order to understand the effect this will have on America, it’s important to know a little about the most important issues between America and Canada. One major American-Canadian issue relates to the lumber trade. To make a long and somewhat complicated story short and easy to understand — America needs Canadian wood, and charges a tariff on Canadian wood when it comes into America. Canadian wood producers thought that this tariff was unfairly high. The WTO and NAFTA panels decided that tariffs should be lower, but America disagreed and didn’t want to refund any of the tariff money that they collected in the past. This obviously did not make Canada happy. Martin has taken a strong position, even going so far to say that he’d take America to court. This made Canadians happy. Would there be any change in this matter if a Conservative majority were elected? The Conservative party in Canada, much like the American Republican party, generally supports business, so if elected it could mean more aid to Canadian lumber companies, but probably not a huge change in policy otherwise from Martin. Although it’s a long shot for him to be elected, NDP’s Layton has been talking about raising export taxes for oil and gas to the US — not so great.

Another issue was featured recently in the Canadian weekly magazine Maclean’s. The cover story was entitled: “America is Thirsty.” The main point, as one might imagine, is that there will be limits to the amount of freshwater available in America as the climate changes. When American wells run dry, the nation will inevitably turn to their close neighbor and water-rich friend, Canada. The story notes that Canada has about 20 percent of the world’s freshwater supply and 0.5 percent of the world’s population, but at present Canada doesn’t appear terribly excited about sharing its water with America. This won’t be a major issue for a while; for now, America isn’t begging for a sip of water and it might be decades before the nation needs water urgently. But it wouldn’t be a bad idea for the American government, businesses and individuals to start thinking carefully about ways to conserve the water available. And it might be a good idea for America not to cut itself off from those who can help it in the future.

The softwood lumber and water issues are only the tip of the iceberg in American-Canadian relations. At this point America and Canada are each other’s largest trading partners, although this fact could change in time. From a practical standpoint, America and Canada need each other. Recognizing the importance of American-Canadian relations is essential for America’s future, and the more we learn about each other, the better this relationship will be.

Melinda Cameron is happily married to a Canadian.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 14th, 2005 at 11:43 am and is filed under Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.