There's trouble brewing in Canada.
It's difficult to perceive on first glance. In Toronto, the air is clean, crime rates are low and healthcare is universal. Yet an undercurrent of anxiety courses through the country's public discourse and its media; it dominates conversations in coffee shops and university hallways. A volley of recent polarising political developments has led many Canadians to ask whether their country's reputation as a toleran environmentally conscious international peacemaker is suddenly in doubt.
A harsh crackdown on illegal immigrants has belied the notion of a country open to incomers. Quebec has elected a separatist provincial government, triggering political violence. The extraction of oil from the vast tar sands of Alberta has proven hugely controversial, as has the marginalisation of the country's First Nations indigenous people. In foreign policy, Canada is increasingly toeing the US line, most recently cutting diplomatic ties with Iran. And its Afghanistan deployment has been tainted by allegations of complicity in the torture of detainees.
Some, though not all, of this tendency has been blamed on the country's conservative leadership, which gained a parliamentary majority in May last year. The prime minister, Stephen Harper, has tightened immigration policy, struck a hard line in the Middle East and adjusted environmental policy to encourage controversial oil extraction programmes in the country's vast northern hinterlands.
"Everybody knew that Harper would have a different agenda from that of the Liberals," said Herb Grubel, a professor emeritus at Simon Fraser University and former member of parliament. "What he has been doing is putting into effect some of these ideas." » | Jonathan Kaiman in Toronto | Friday, September 14, 2012
