I asked author and commentator Mark Milke whether he believes Canada is truly a dysfunctional nation.
The question followed a reading of his compelling new book A Nation of Serfs: How Canada’s Political Culture Corrupts Canadian Values (Wiley, $22.99) and a chat in which he repeatedly used the word “absurd” to describe much of our nation’s political, economic and social culture.
It’s a masterful historical and analytical work, taking us back to the ramifications of the War of 1812, right up to the election of Stephen Harper as prime minister.
Now, Milke, a former director of the Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation, is a perceptive fellow, and every patriotic Conservative should read this work.
Scandal after scandal is outlined in its 284 pages, as are missed opportunity on missed opportunity, and how Lib-Left pressure groups nefariously easing our nation in the wrong direction, courtesy of weak-kneed governments lacking true principles.
With chapter headings containing such words as the “plucked Canadian goose,” “business pork,” and how a “garrison culture reinforces inept government,” you can be pretty sure this work is not an accolade to visionary leaders or challenges conquered.
Far from it, my friends.
It’s an infuriating read, not because of any fault of Milke, but because of what he unfolds.
We’re over-taxed, over-governed, pretty much without direction, and don’t realize just who our true friends are. A pretty passive lot, as some of my puzzled American friends attest.
I was always amazed that when Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and his band of cohorts blew $12 billion of the Canadian taxpayers’ money setting up Petro-Canada—which didn’t find a single barrel of oil any of the established energy companies would have found for free—it hardly caused a stir.
It wasn’t really until Human Resources Minister Jane Stewart blew $1 billion on a bogus job-creation scheme that Canadians outside the Reform/Canadian Alliance sphere started to wake-up and realize the political and bureaucratic elite in Ottawa were out of control.
Then, amidst 101 other scandals that began to seep through, and 1001 scandals likely yet to seep through, came the $332 million flag-waving sponsorship charade.
That $40 million of this amount has disappeared somewhere even our relentless auditor-general Sheila Fraser can’t fathom—although my suspicion is likely to Liberal coffers—should make every taxpayer livid.
Then there’s that $1 billion-plus into the gun registry.
We really are a nation not of bears or beavers, but sheep.
Yet, as Milke notes, New Democrat leader Jack Layton set the tone that politics is supposedly a far better calling than the business world when he assessed: “If the headlines show us anything, it is that the greed and cooked books of the corporate world are no substitute for public services.”
What a laugh.
Anyway, Milke doesn’t believe Canada is entirely dysfunctional, partly because, pushed by the likes of President Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, whose new directions influenced the entire world, including the Soviet Union, and in our own country Reform party founder Preston Manning, even the Jean Chretien/Paul Martin Liberals had to face some economic truths.
Despite a dismal, disjointed and dispiriting performance going back generations, Milke has hopes for our nation’s future if Harper can win two majority governments, which he likely will.
Milke sees Harper as being “intellectually brilliant,” “a strategic thinker” and a man who “doesn’t suffer dimwits.”
He views Harper as a leader such as Reagan and Thatcher—and curiously Trudeau—who were always thinking 20 steps ahead and so forced those opponents to fight on ground unfavourable to them.
Basically, the opponents were always in a defensive position.
Reagan, Thatcher and Trudeau were on the offensive.
Milke contends there is now a “tectonic shift” under way in our country in which, paradoxically, discontent in Alberta and Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia, will create the “perfect storm” that will realign our nation.
Let’s hope Milke is right in that assessment.
If he isn’t, we’re lost.
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