Canada’s toxic politics and drug epidemic
Parliament has been noticeably more parliamentary in the week since the Conservatives stormed out of Question Period when their leader, Pierre Poilievre, was expelled for unparliamentary language after calling Justin Trudeau a “wacko” – and refusing to take it back unless he could call the prime minister a “radical” or “extremist” instead.
There has been significantly less heckling from all sides. Parliamentarians have been able to speak without being interrupted, and interpreters have been able to hear what they’re interpreting. That’s good news for democracy.
But the Conservatives have refused to quit lying. And that’s bad news for democracy.
This week in Question Period, Poilievre continued to blame Trudeau for Canada’s drug overdose epidemic: “Does the prime minister believe in the decriminalization of crack in children’s parks, meth smoking in hospitals, or other hard drugs on public transit – yes or no?”
He was referring to the federal government’s 2023 approval of British Columbia’s request to temporarily decriminalize both possession and use of hard drugs in public – as well as the province’s recent request to recriminalize the latter.
Poilievre then claimed that “the prime minister’s government has been working secretly with the City of Toronto on that plan.”
But Toronto’s request to decriminalize hard drugs is not a secret. And Trudeau has been clear that the federal government will only consider decriminalization proposals from provincial governments. And Ontario premier Doug Ford has been clear that he won’t support it. So Toronto’s “plan” to decriminalize hard drugs is really a pipe dream.
Then Poilievre claimed it took “10 days and 66 more deaths” for the Liberals to approve B.C.’s recriminalization request. But Premier David Eby only formally submitted his proposal on Friday – and it was approved by the federal government on Monday.
Regarding the implication that it’s decriminalization – not new-age fentanyl and age-old despair – that is to blame for those 66 overdose deaths: It’s absurd. If it weren’t, Alberta, where hard drugs are very much illegal, wouldn’t have had more overdose deaths per capita than B.C. in April.
To be fair, toxic exchanges in Canadian politics are nothing new. Canada’s first prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, once barfed during a campaign speech before explaining, “I get sick… not because I get drunk, but because I have to listen to my opponent talk.”
But Canadians have a long history of stomaching political difference. From the mid-1960s to the mid-2000s, most Canadians ranked the trustworthiness of political parties they didn’t vote for only 20 or so points lower than the one they supported, or between 30 and 60 on a scale of 0 to 100. But by 2019, most voters scored them between 0 and 10 – the worst ranking on record.
So what happened in the last 20 years?
Former Liberal prime minister Jean Chrétien made it so that political parties could no longer receive big donations from businesses and labour unions, which sounds good for democracy. And former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper made it so that political parties would no longer receive big subsidies from the government, which sounds good for taxpayers.
But the actual result of these changes is that political parties now rely on relatively small donations from individual Canadians – which, again, sounds good… until you consider the fact that relatively few people donate to political parties.
So instead of concerning themselves with the business of governing, or holding the government to account, politicians are concerned with catering to the core of their base – because they’re the ones who pay their party’s bills.
And this problem has gotten worse in the age of Elon’s X, where the most extremely online yet politically illiterate members of the Canadian electorate consume a steady diet of videos depicting politicians they dislike set to spooky music and politicians they do like dissing them.
While all political parties fund raise, the Conservatives have mastered the art form: In the first three months of 2024, they raised $10.7 million while the Liberals raised just $3.1 million, the NDP raised $1.3 million, the Greens raised $400,000, the Bloc raised $340,000, and the far-right People’s Party – which doesn’t even hold a seat in the House of Commons – raised $240,000.
But money isn’t everything. The truth is still a factor. As Kendrick Lamar recently warned Drake, “The audience is not dumb.”
When the next election is called, we’ll find out if Kung Fu Kenny is right. With all that has happened since the rise of social media, the overdose epidemic and the affordability crisis, it’s an open question: Is there still a plurality of voters who can separate fact from fiction?
More importantly, are there still enough Canadians who care about the difference?