Moment of the Decade
Voting is now open in the first round of “Canada’s top political moment of the decade”. You can define that however you see fit, but the general goal is to find a political moment in Canada that was both captivating at the time, while leaving a long term impact on our country and its politics. So looking back at the aughts, what really stood out?
Thanks to everyone for the suggestions. From those, I’ve cobbled together a list of 30 events and will leave voting open for a week. You can vote for up to 10 of these each day, with the top 10 vote getters advancing to the final round of voting, where we'll crown a champion.
Thanks to everyone for the suggestions. From those, I’ve cobbled together a list of 30 events and will leave voting open for a week. You can vote for up to 10 of these each day, with the top 10 vote getters advancing to the final round of voting, where we'll crown a champion.
posted by calgarygrit at
8:14 a.m.
23 Comments:
Fun contest.
I'd like to encourage people to vote for Charest's first win over the PQ. For the past 30 years, Canadian politics had been defined by the "Quebec question" and the constant referendum fear. Charest's victory - more so than the Clarity Act - really gave us our first peaceful period in our country's history.
I'd argue it also set up Conservative wins in Quebec in 2006.
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JF, at 11:29 a.m.
IMHO the most important political event of the last 10 years was the use of Prorogue by S. Harper to hold on to his minority government. This will be studied by political scientists (that name always makes me laugh)and will come back to bite the CPoC in the *ss in times to come. I voted for the Clarity act because of it's long term effects as you didn't list Prorogue. The coalition could have been important if the liberal party brass weren't such cowards. Me, I would like to have Stephan Dion as PM. Choose him over M.I. in a heartbeat but then as my ex wife is fond of saying, "Scanner, you live in your own little world."
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Scanner, at 11:32 a.m.
I know it's my own fault for not participating earlier, but for long-term political impact in the last 10 years, I don't think you can beat the 2003 & 2006 amendments to the Elections Act.
Government and scandals and victories and losses come and go. The rules of the game change rarely, and when they do, rarely with such significant effects on who will win.
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Gauntlet, at 11:49 a.m.
Number 13 says: "2004: The GG's Adscam report stuns the Liberals, setting the Mad as Hell tour in motion"
Surely you mean AG's Adscam report. I know our current Governor General is activist, but not this active, and Sheila would be put out.
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Scanner, at 11:55 a.m.
Scanner - my bad. Yes, for all the accusations of medlesome governor generals, they've never gotten that involved...
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calgarygrit, at 12:09 p.m.
I notice you didn't add the first NDP government in Nova Scotia, but did add the defeat of the NDP in Saskatchewan.
With over a billion in debt and counting after just one year of Saskatchewan Party government, at least you'll have a candidate for next decade's poll (who said "one-term-wonder").
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A reader, at 1:44 p.m.
Has to be uniting the right. Otherwise there would still be Liberal hegemony.
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crocker jarmon, at 3:30 p.m.
"A reader" is ignorant of the current political situation in Saskatchewan. The Wall government remains enormously popular two years into its mandate, much to my dismay.
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gregoryv, at 6:34 p.m.
Adscam easily. Would anything that has happened since then be the same?
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Anonymous, at 7:33 p.m.
Yeah I chose Harper's 2006 win just because it was SO entertaining watching CBC journalists swallow their own faces while announcing their beloved Liberals had lost.
"The results are coming in, and in what will probably be our final broadcast, we're announcing a Conservative victory."
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Robert Vollman, at 10:22 a.m.
"The Wall government remains enormously popular two years into its mandate, much to my dismay.
How do we know that?? I have not seen any polls since it came out that his fiscal mismanagement has tuned a one billion dollar surplus into a one billion dollar deficit.
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DL, at 1:25 a.m.
Scanner,
A few things (you evidently do not know much about political science). Political scientists do not ponder current events - that is more the job of journalists, policy analysts, and in the case of prorogation, probably legal scholars.
While there is a sketchy side to polisci (we decided to call ourselves a science in part to get more NSF money - it does not appear to have succeeded), I would argue that the bulk of political science research is indeed science.
What is science? I would say science is the act of "making observations, producing empirical generalizations and testing them against data." Physicists look at the world, and see particular laws at work. They can explain more and with greater certainty than social scientists can, true, as their subjects are not self-aware. Still that is no reason to avoid systematic studies of things that do not fit that pattern. A conditional and qualified theory/prediction about something is better than no theory/prediction.
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french wedding cat, at 5:16 a.m.
There were a pair of polls out a month or two ago that showed Wall as one of the most popular Premiers in the country in his home province. Both had him poised to increase his majority if an election were held today.
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calgarygrit, at 12:44 p.m.
Those polls were before the truth came out about the provinces finances two weeks ago - makes a wee bit of difference. Wall is getting the first negative press since he became premier - and its pretty negative (read Murray Mandryk's recent columns on provincial politrics in the Regina leader post).
How many people remember that Bob Rae was the most popular premier in Ontario history for about seven months and the NDP was at 55% in the polls right up until April 1991 - then they brought in a budget with a $10 billion deficit, the press started dumping on him and within months the NDP was in the 20s.
ANYONE can be popular when they have a huge surplus and all they have to do is through money around on endless "bridge to no where"-style infrastructure projects. Where the rubber hits the road is when times get tough and a politician has to start making difficult decisions. Wall has yet to make his first tough decision.
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DL, at 2:02 p.m.
You have included "Chretien says Canada won't send troops to Iraq", but there is no mention of Canada signing up for milatary missions in Afghanistan.
I concur that the first is worth placing on the list. However, the omission of the second leaves a huge gap in light of how the Afghan mission has reshaped Canadians view of the military, the large increases to military spending, the detainee issue, and Canada's move away from being a peace keeping country. This is an issue that has dominated throughout the decade.
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Wheatsheaf, at 10:34 a.m.
Though I am not completely surprised with how many votes are going to the merger of the Alliance plus PC's, this will hardly be remembered as the top political moment of the 00's. Political alliances come and go, but how many people remember the merger of the Conservatives with the Progressive party back in 1942? Is that considered the dominant political moment of the 1940's?
However the coalition and the prorogation of Parliament will be taught in Canadian history classes for decades to come, as sure as our current students are still being taught about the Bing-King Affair.
After the Prorogation crisis, I'd say the CPC merger, Iraq war, Adscam and the Clarity Act round off the Top-5. Sorry folks but SSM won't be remembered any more than Canada's decriminalization of homosexuality under the Pearson government.
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Tof KW, at 3:41 p.m.
I do think the right wing merger changed the entire dynamic of politics, and set Harper's ascension and the Liberal decline in motion. So, as far as long-term implications, it might very well be the event of the decade.
But it certainly lacked the excitement of, say, Belinda-Cadman-confidence crisis or the coalition.
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calgarygrit, at 5:04 p.m.
Wheatsheaf - Yup, Afghanistan should have been included, especially since the mission lasted the entire decade and it was linked to the worldwide event of the decade (9/11).
It slipped my mind and no one nominated it.
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calgarygrit, at 5:08 p.m.
I would certainly argue that same-sex marriage becoming law will be the moment of the decade that will be remembered as the most important out of the above choices. Did it reshape politics in Canada? No. Indeed, thanks to the Supreme court decision it was going to become law one way or another. But it will be remembered as a rare moment when our government did something principled amid a decade that was full of partisan bickering, petty scandals and widespread distrust of politicians.
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HonestB, at 8:26 p.m.
I voted for the coalition crisis but it was really a group of moments leading to a climax with Stephane Dion's video and Harper visiting the GG. Will it have long-term repercussions on Canada? Probably not. But it was a week that captivated the nation after a historically low voter turnout a mere month earlier.
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Anonymous, at 9:33 p.m.
Tof KW writes "Political alliances come and go, but how many people remember the merger of the Conservatives with the Progressive party back in 1942? Is that considered the dominant political moment of the 1940's?"
Nobody remembers it because no such event ever happened. The Conservative Party simply changed their name. It was not a merger. The federal Progressive Party was already defunct by that time.
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Anonymous, at 6:45 p.m.
The reason the merger was so big was because for three straight elections the Liberals had false majorities, based on a fragmented opposition in Ontario. The minute the right re-united, they had to start working for their victories. Which is why I find it funny when the Chretien folks deride the Martinites, etc... abotu how JC won three straight majorities. He sure did, in Ontario.
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crocker jarmon, at 9:36 a.m.
This can't succeed as a matter of fact, that is exactly what I believe.
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www.muebles-camobel.es, at 3:19 p.m.
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