February 4 anti-Mubarak protest in Alexandria, Egypt. Creative Commons photo by Al Jazeera English

In Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, even Italy, citizens are rising up, risking their lives to protest their corrupt governments. Egyptians, in a historical event, have proven they can be successful in overthrowing years of dictatorial leadership. Canadians were mostly cheering along (though our government wasn’t), but’s hard to put ourselves in their place—Canada, flawed though it is, is simply not Egypt. Corruption here is less pervasive; the military less present in our everyday lives; we have a functional political opposition. But since freedom, democracy, and human rights are on everyone’s mind right now, perhaps it’s time for a little self-evaluation session.

The uprisings in the Middle East should prompt Canadians to take a closer look at the state of our own politics. For just one recent example, see the recent KAIROS “not” scandal and assess how democratic our government’s behaviour truly is. Murray Dobbin on Rabble stopped just short of comparing Steven Harper to ousted Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, and called Harper’s Conservative cabinet a squad of “hit men.”

But would Canadians ever reach the point where we just couldn’t take it anymore? Could we rebel in  Egypt-like protests? Would our rants to friends or angry blog comments ever manifest as rebellion in the street?

Stereotypically, Canadians are polite and retiring; unconfrontational if you’re being nice about it, apathetic if you’re not. But there’s data to prove that we really don’t like things to get politically messy. Besides our dismal-and-getting-worse voter turnout rate, A 2000 General Social Survey by Statistics Canada found that only 9 percent of Canadians (age 15 and up) had participated in a public debate that year (things like calling radio talkback shows or writing letters to the editor). Half of those individuals researched information on political issues, and 10 percent volunteered for a political party. We also seem naturally more inclined to express our opinions with a group that we know will share or agree with our own opinions.

Historically, if Canadians take the time to understand a politcal issue, then get mad about it, we will find a way to express it. Like the time time the Conservative government decided prorogue parliament; a 63 day break while 36 government bills lay untouched. While plenty of us apparently didn’t know what the heck that meant, 200,000 Canadians got angry, logged onto Facebook and joined a group called Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament. Many attended actual rallies across the country.

If you were in Toronto in the summer of 2010, you witnessed Canadians in a more traditional form of protest during the G20 conference. Over 300 people were arrested and the images of Toronto streets seemed almost unrecognizable, as if it were a different country altogether.

The erosion of Western democracy seems to be everywhere you turn lately. Paul Krugman identified the union-busting tactics of Wisconsin governor Scott Walker as just the latest example of a hemisphere-wide push by anti-democratic forces: “What Mr. Walker and his backers are trying to do is to make Wisconsin — and eventually, America — less of a functioning democracy and more of a third-world-style oligarchy,” Krugman wrote.

Dobbin’s Rabble column sounds the same alarm for Canada: He calls Minister of International Cooperation Bev Oda’s corrections of the CIDA report “political thuggery worthy of a dictatorship.”  This seems to be just one example of our democracy moving backwards while citizens of Italy, Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen are actively involved in taking back control of their respective countries.

We’ve marched, oh how we have marched.

The “get back to work” signs now find their place in the closet where dust has begun to flirt with the climate-themed “350” signs of October and December. The proroguing of Parliament has left the country with no ability to act on any sort of climate legislation (though that’s not so different than when it’s in session). We also now have the launch of a popular movement for democracy, based partly on a collective desire to deal with a whole raft of issues, the climate crisis being one.

A failure of international politics in Copenhagen and of democracy domestically has left a situation that is indeed bleak, though also provides time for activists, and all active citizens, to regroup. Journalist Murray Dobbin wrote last week: “These politically opportune moments do not arrive very often and it is incumbent upon existing organizations to rise to the occasion, support the nascent movement and begin gearing up their own machinery to take the fight to Stephen Harper and his government.”

We now have an election coming up—if not April, then at some point soon. But are we really that serious about firing Steve, as many rally signs had proclaimed?

Dobbin continues to ask if this democracy movement is about reform in itself or will it include the specific goal of ridding Canada of its current Prime Minister?

The big elephant in the movement is the political siloing of the non-Conservative activists. Diversity of voice often brings strength, but a split of support because of the partisanship of most of us in the movement continues to pose a problem within Canada’s electoral system.

The Conservatives’ drop in the polls due to shutting down Parliament and the prisoner abuse scandal has been sharp and pronounced. While without much in the way of advertised policy, the Liberals have managed an upswing in support, with the NDP, Greens and Bloc all down slightly in the New Year. The now two-party race for government is something to keep more than an eye on.

While progressives are split within many parties, the weakness in civil society institutions and movement organizations is also harming the cause. The environmental movement itself within Canada seems to have more and more organizations working on similar climate ends, and there even exists more than one coalition/umbrella type group that focuses on federal climate lobbying: Power Up Canada, Climate Action Network, Power Shift, and so on.

Perhaps this can be used to advantage. Three main strategies present themselves to guide us to the ultimate aim of reducing climate change emissions immediately and in the long-run.

• Some organizations may wish to stick it out, putting continued pressure and policy work on the international negotiating system leading to Copenhagen 2: Mexico City.
• Others must work on focused action that directs the removal of high-carbon sources to our atmosphere like coal plants, tar sands projects and industrial projects, which could reduce emissions quickly and may influence positive actions in other countries.
• The remaining organizations can concentrate on lobbying and coalition-building that focuses MPs and political parties to bring the climate agenda far forward in preparation for legislative debate and the next election.

Organizations working on these three objectives should be ready to support each others’ goals, each with a focus that could bring results – a multi-pronged strategy that may well bring success in at least one area.

We have a unique opportunity.It is largely up to the size and tact of citizens movements whether we let the government keep pushing the climate around or we push the agenda over the top.

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