Important Anniversaries, Overton Windows and The Art of the Possible

    In the months I left this little blog dormant a couple very important anniversaries passed by very quietly and with little fanfare but were both crucial events in helping to shape this country into the one I'm proud of (more often than not ;).

     July 14th marked the 35th anniversary of the final abolition of the death penalty in Canada and July 9th marked the 218th anniversary of the passing of the Act Against Slavery in Upper Canada- the first anti-slavery legislation passed in the British Empire. These two pieces of legislation, passed some 180 years apart are absolutely something to take pride in as Canadians. I also think that both of these events also highlight a critical aspect of governance that seems to be overlooked in recent debates - change does not come all at once in a democratic system. Rather change occurs slowly over time, with compromise and accommodation.

     The Act Against Slavery really was a landmark piece of legislation in a sleepy little outpost of the British Empire. In 1793 Upper Canada was almost entirely unpopulated and was rightfully considered the ugly stepsister to the older, and far more prosperous, Lower Canada. Regardless, the newly appointed Lieutenant-Governor John Graves Simcoe took to the new colony with a zeal that most aristocratic Englishmen wouldn't. He was also an ardent abolitionist who believed that slavery was a crime against God. One of his first acts as Lieutenant-Governor was to introduce anti-slavery legislation in his new colony. What should not be forgotten though is that the Act did not ban slavery outright. In order to get his Act passed through the Legislative Council, many of whom were slaveowners themselves, a compromise had to be reached. So the Act stated that while all existed slaves in the colony would remain so until death, no new slaves could be brought into the colony and any child born of slaves were to become free at the age of 25. As it happened, any remaining slaves were granted their outright freedom in 1833 when the British Parliament passed the Slavery Abolition Act.

    Similarly, the end of capital punishment in Canada did not happen all at once. It also happened in fits and starts culminating in that historic vote in 1976. Here's how CBC radio reported it as it happened. (By the way, if you have a few hours to kill, I strongly recommend poking around the CBC archives - it's fantastic). Between 1954 and 1963 Private Members Bills calling for the abolition of capital punishment were introduced in Parliament annually and while they were never passed, other important distinctions were. In 1961 murder was divided into two categories - capital and non-capital. Only capital murders - those deemed deliberate, or having occurred during violent crimes, or the murder of police officers and prison guards - carried the penalty of death. In 1967, under then Minister of Justice Pierre Trudeau, a 5 year moratorium was placed on the death penalty (except of course in the case of police officers and prison guards). The final vote that we celebrate, in 1976 was actually the final removal of the police officer/prison guard stipulation (military executions - in cases of treason for example - remained on the books, but never used until 1988). Even after all this incrementalism, the vote was exceptionally close - 130-124. Had an outright ban on capital punishment been introduced in Parliament a decade earlier, it would've been extremely unlikely to pass.

   Thinking about these two pieces of legislation got me thinking about the concept of the Overton Window. The Overton Window is a political theory which holds that politicians can only enact legislation on policies that fit within a window that the public finds acceptable. It is the duty of the reformer to push what is deemed publicly acceptable over to their side and the duty of the opposing politician to convince the public that such a shift is unacceptable.

Here's a diagram of the Overton Window.


     In other words, politics is all about making a new idea which is first thought of as unthinkable into a desired idea that is considered sensible.

   I think the two examples I gave are excellent ones to show how an idea which initially seemed beyond the pale eventually became seen as almost common sense. The trick to me seems that in order to convince people that your position is correct, you first need to introduce a lesser piece of legislation from which you can build upon. As the public gets used to your watered down position, building upon that initial legislation becomes easier and easier.*

*I think a crucial distinction should be made, that it is far more likely for you to convince the public of a policy option that is in keeping with the broadly liberalizing trend of the latter 20th/early 21st Centuries. One reason why anti-gay marriage initiatives from 2004 haven't been built upon is that they are, for lack of a better term, on the wrong side of history.

     A classic American example of this is the Social Security Act  introduced in FDR's New Deal. What is now seen as a central plank in the social safety net (to mangle metaphors) initially applied to a very limited group of people. As Paul Begala noted:

"It excluded agricultural workers -- a huge part of the economy in 1935, and one in which Latinos have traditionally worked. It excluded domestic workers, which included countless African Americans and immigrants. It did not cover the self-employed, or state and local government employees, or railroad employees, or federal employees or employees of nonprofits. It didn't even cover the clergy. FDR's Social Security Act did not have benefits for dependents or survivors. It did not have a cost-of-living increase. If you became disabled and couldn't work, you got nothing from Social Security."

It had to be, even with the sweeping reforms FDR instituted, he still had to get it through Congress - who were not going to give him everything he wanted. However, in time, Social Security became a cornerstone of American public life, and even with a strengthened mandate in 2004, George W Bush was unable to make even minor headway in his plan to privatize it.

    The point is (at long last :) that politics is all about the Art of the Possible. It is about compromise with those you may (probably) do not agree with/find yourself diametrically opposed. There seems to be a line of thinking in contemporary politics that if you don't get everything that you want right away, then you've somehow lost the battle, and capitulated to your enemy. That taking a watered down version of your bill that can nonetheless be built upon is a sign of weakness or failure. I personally think nothing can be further from the truth. These two Canadian and one American examples should show that actual change comes in increments, and as long as your end goal falls within an Overton Window that the public will eventually accept, then you'll reach your goal.

It just takes some time is all.

Bon Jack

     There's a line in an old Tragically Hip song that goes "Where the walls are lined all yellow gray and sinister / Hung with pictures of our parent's prime ministers". I've always liked that line - it brings to mind a time when people really did put up pictures of their favourite politicians. I remember as a little boy there almost invariably being a picture of Trudeau in your friend's basement/laundry room/garage looking over you as you played. Trudeau's face (or sometimes the Charter of Rights...would my students believe me if I told them that people used to frame the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and hang it on their wall? Doesn't that seem crazy?) would serve as almost a religious icon...or at least he did in the homes of my more religious friends where he seemed, to me at least, to be held in equal regard as the Virgin Mary or Joseph. I'm sure that someone ten years older than me would remember Pearson watching over him as he played cars, and Diefenbaker or King for someone even older...

It's a look that Douglas Coupland got exactly right in his photo-essay Souvenir of Canada.

I don't think we do that anymore, and for the most part I think that's a very good thing. I think as a polity we have become a lot more aware of the fact that our politicians are not supermen - that they are probably just as deeply flawed and prone to mistakes as we ourselves are. I daresay you'd be hard-pressed to find an 8 x 10 picture of Chretien or Mulroney or Harper in too many workrooms. We support our politicians, we don't revere them.

I think that if anybody deserves to be treated in such a fashion, surely it was Jack Layton.

I've been thinking a lot about Jack since yesterday morning when I had heard he died. I've been somewhat confused by my response. I find myself getting choked up every time I read a eulogy or an obituary. This isn't someone I personally knew, he was a man that I saw only twice in my life - once outside the Free Times Cafe on College street. My only reaction? That he was shorter than I had thought. The second time was at the Bell Centre store in Montreal before a Habs game - he was trying on a jersey and I debated whether to ask him for a picture, me and Jack in our retro Habs jerseys. I balked.

I wish I had that picture now.

Jack never pretended to be anything he wasn't. He was a consummate politician, and never ever seemed to be "off". Even in the two brief instances I saw him, he was exactly how you'd expect him to be - like "Jack". He was also a little corny - or as the girl I overheard in the JCR on campus put it "he's like your friend's dorky dad who comes downstairs to tell you bad jokes and offer you PC brand root beer". In the end, Jack was Jack - and maybe that's why I've been so oddly moved by his death...even though I didn't "know" him, with Jack you always got the feeling that kinda, sorta, did.

Jack wasn't a superman, but he also was more genuine than any politician I can remember, and for that, he should be hanging above someone's washing machine.

"Canada's Obama"

First off, I'd like to apologise for the unbelievably long break between posts. First Christmas kept me busy, and then I came down with one hellacious cold that kept me off-kilter for most of January. The last month or so I've been kept quite busy with a teaching placement that runs through March. Between teaching, grading, and lesson planning I've found myself pretty drained and frankly couldn't think of anything interesting to write. But I'm back and I'm going to try and post regularly again.

One thing I've found challenging about teaching history to (mostly) first and second generation Canadian teenagers is how to make it relevant to their lives. Most of the things I'm talking about happened almost a hundred years ago in a Canada that looks drastically different from today. So in casting about for a way to explain why Wilfrid Laurier was such a transformational figure in Canadian history, and not just the dude on the $5 bill, I hit upon the idea of Laurier as Canada's Obama. Upon further reflection, I think that it's a fairly good way to explain both Laurier and major cleavages in Canadian history.

Like Obama, Laurier was an exceptionally sauve and debonair politician. He was a natural charmer who sought to elevate the tone of discussion - while Obama urged Americans to "be the Change you want to see", Laurier eschewed "stormy confrontations" in favour of "the sunny ways" of compromise.

[Laurier's "sunny ways" comes from the fable about the Wind and the Sun, who get into an argument over who is more powerful. They see a man walking down a path and they decide that whomever can get the man to remove his coat will be the strongest. The wind goes first and he blows as strong as he can, hoping that it will blow the coat off the man. Instead it only makes the man pull his coat tighter against himself. The sun's turn is next and he simply decides to smile on the man. As he smiles broader and broader it gets warmer and warmer and soon enough, the man takes his coat off. The wind had to concede that for all his bluster, he was unable to get the man to do what the sun did by being pleasant.]

Laurier also had the knack of being all things to all people. This no doubt was due to times in which he lived. Media not being what it is today, he could be the ardent defender of French Canada when speaking in Quebec while being the voice of reasonable accommodation to English Canada. Canada really was a nation of "two solitudes" at the turn of the 20th Century - the English and French were deeply suspicious of each other, a suspicion that was born of ignorance for the most part.

During the 2008 Democratic Presidential Primary I read an article in the Globe and Mail (one that I cannot find online alas) arguing that the success of Obama and Clinton prove that the United States is actually much more progressive than Canada as all the major Canadian parties were led by white men. I felt then that it was a pretty unfair article, not only because women have led two federal parties in the last 20 years (Campbell, McLaughlin and McDonagh) and that visible minorities have made exceptional strides in Canadian elections since 1960 - when immigration from non-caucasian countries began in earnest, but because it completely ignored the historical differences between Canada and the United States.

Having an African American win the Presidency is a big deal not by the simple fact that he is African American. It's a big deal because of that country's history with racial tension. I'd argue that an African Canadian Prime Minister would be far less transformational - Canada's history simply doesn't have the same level of racial acrimony. Slavery was never much of an issue and there certainly has never been anything akin to Jim Crow in Canada. (Now an Aboriginal Prime Minister...that would be something)

Instead of race, the major social cleavages in Canada were language and religion. In both these instances, Laurier was on the wrong side of the equation. Being a French Canadian Catholic in 1900 very much meant that the odds for electoral success were stacked against you. Remember that this was a time when the Orange Order held considerable (and very public) influence. That Laurier was able to thread the needle and convince English Canada that he was not a Papist conspirator who would be beholden to Rome over Canada was entirely due to his skills as an orator and politician. Winning four consecutive majorities in this environment is astounding.

No wonder he's on the five dollar bill.