National institutions and dominant elites can fail when they don’t accommodate change, or become severely detached from the lives of average citizens. In Canada, this has been the rule rather than the exception for the past 50 years, and the Laurentian Elite is largely to blame.
Beginning in 1968, coincident with the election of Pierre Trudeau, our elites adopted contemporary left-leaning economic and social policies. Federal government spending mushroomed from 16 per cent of the economy in 1967 to 25 per cent in 1984 when Trudeau Sr. departed — a vast increase in dollar terms. Simultaneously, the Canadian public sector became almost 50 per cent of the economy, with the programs implemented and institutions created almost too numerous to mention.
Using the twin yardsticks of fiscal management and national unity, the Laurentian Elite’s tenure over the past 50 years has ranged from poor to passable. As the Laurentians presided, their worldview — Ibbitson’s “Laurentian Consensus” — ruled. Lack of competition from a rival elite or elites increased their torpor and complacency.
Adopting globalism may actually have diluted the “Laurentian” nature of the class and boosted their disdain for national character. This may explain Justin Trudeau’s comments in The New York Times: “there is no core identity, no mainstream in Canada”; perhaps a riff on Paul Martin’s “country of minorities” or Yann Martel’s Canada as “the greatest hotel on Earth.”
The burning question is whether the Laurentian Elite is confusing short-term tactical gain with strategic accomplishment. Is it really to the elite’s fundamental and long-term benefit to beggar the region that supplies the lion’s share of financial lubricant that powers the nation? The past several years show that, despite its electoral success, the Laurentian Elite simply does not possess the “life experience” to manage current regional tensions and basic national affairs.
'Mediocre' is right!
I said this years ago. Too much power and influence shifted west under the Harper years and during the oil boom. Trudeau is a vessel for Eastern Canada's elites to regain their power over this Country and timed perfectly with a drop in global commodities prices.
You are all free to run for government Or crazy idea for the media but how about you stop promoting the same two parties as the only option? You are the ones entrenching the political class.
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