Toronto Star: Canadians fail democratic literacy test

[tuvor]

OTTAWA—Sit down, order a double-double decaf, swallow a Valium if you must, and think of this current political unpleasantness as a learning experience. Even as it lurches from partisan miscalculation to constitutional crisis, the power struggle still unfolding on Parliament Hill is teaching the country things about itself it badly needs to know.

Some of those things Canadians intuitively grasp and now must cognitively seize. One is that Stephen Harper, no matter how shrewd or wonkish, is proving too partisan, polarizing and mean-spirited to lead a nation of distant regions and diverse opinion. Another is that the Liberals, who missed the seminal point that Stéphane Dion is unacceptable as even interim prime minister, are far from ready to resume power.

Other revelations are less predictable. Of those, the most sobering is that our democratic literacy is so weak that suddenly concerned citizens are struggling and often failing to understand events in their capital. That makes them vulnerable to the spin, misinformation and remanufactured truth now inflaming passions and pushing tempers into the red zone.

Whatever its limitations, the proposed Liberal-NDP coalition is not, no matter how many times Conservatives call it a coup, undemocratic, un-Canadian or a threat to national unity. It's the unusual yet legitimate result of the elected majority imposing its will on a minority that recklessly squandered House of Commons confidence.

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http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/548083