Now that the election is over, how changed will things be in Canada? Not dramatically different, in many respects, says Colby Cosh in The L.A. Times. Mind you, Conservative Stephen Harper was elected Prime Minister, and while the Conservatives have more seats in parliament than any one other party, they are nonetheless outnumbered on the whole. Here's Cosh, issue by issue.

The A-Word: Canada currently has no laws in force concerning abortion; you can legally perform one in a shop window, though it's hell on lunchtime pedestrian traffic. When asked whether he intends to challenge this status quo, the new prime minister has often been quoted as saying, "Whoa! Look at the time! Hair appointment!".....he promised no new bills on abortion during his first term. And now, with a minority of seats in the House of Commons, Harper couldn't pass one if he wanted to.

Nouvelle Domesticity: The late Liberal government legalized same-sex marriage, but the new PM opposes it, if only because of the unbearable American gay-marriage tourists flooding our cities. (Gay Americans, recognized here as an oppressed class, can expect to be greeted with filial embraces. But they're still Americans, so we'll also be fumbling around in vain for the volume knob.) Harper is committed to holding a parliamentary vote on the issue; if his side wins, "civil unions" will replace "same-sex marriages," but existing gay marriages and legal privileges for homosexual couples would still be respected. Because he's outnumbered in the House by liberals and socialists, he's unlikely to win.

....Cheap (in Every Sense of the Word) Healthcare: The Conservatives have raised painful moral questions about a Medicare system in which all Canadian politicians profess undying pride until the day they get cancer and haul themselves across the border to the Mayo Clinic. Nonetheless, under our Constitution, healthcare regulation is handled at the provincial level, not federally. Harper may use his control of tax flows to discourage Liberal suppression of private medicine, but he has pledged to protect the monumental social contract under which every sick Canadian, rich or poor, can be stonewalled, misdiagnosed and exposed to hospital infections in any part of our great land.

....In sum: Canada remains in 2006 largely what it was in 2005 — a country where cigarettes are taxed 300% to 400% but heroin is free to addicts; where gay widowers have an easier time obtaining their pension entitlements than World War II veterans; and where a woman can go topless in public unless she has hate literature tattooed on her breasts.

I'm glad they're edging back toward the center, however modestly. Following Vancouver's lead, clearly.

TECHNORATI TAGS: CANADA, STEPHEN HARPER, COLBY COSH, ABORTION, GAY MARRIAGE, HEALTH CARE

Posted by Matt Rosenberg at January 27, 2006 08:02 PM