Lisa Hrabluk

Yesterday I went into Canadian Tire looking for enough Christmas lights to create a landing strip for eight tiny reindeer.

Instead, my path was blocked by the four horsemen of the Canadian political apocalypse.

Okay, so Harper, Dion, Layton and Duceppe weren’t literally in my local Canadian Tire store, but they might as well have been.

There, gathered around the Christmas lights aisle was a salesman and two customers yammering on about that mess up in Ottawa. They were mad. Raise your voice mad. I had to detour down another aisle to pick up my Noma outdoor lights and was still able to hear them going on about political party public financing, the role of the Governor-General and voter intent.

Retail politics on full display at a shopping mall near you.

Oh, the inanity of it all.

While partisan supporters have been quick to pick sides in this Harper vs the Coalition of the Willful, their numbers are dwindling as an increasing number of Canadians view the faux drama of this power play/constitutional drama as little more than a poorly constructed pantomime.

This amateur production has it all:

• A song and dance from the male lead Stephen Harper about the evils of separatist leader and former BFF (circa 2004) Gilles Duceppe. Although Harper was thrown off balance with the quickly formed coalition, he’s “back on my feet /Just a man and his will to survive“;
• There’s a second number performed by that slightly discordant duo of Stephane Dion and Jack Layton who believe they can live together in perfect harmony. “There is good and bad in evryone/ We learn to live, we learn to give/Each other what we need to survive together alive.”
• Audience participation via talk radio, quickly organized public opinion polls and my fellow shoppers; and,
• A traditional story line defined by a set of performance conventions. Welcome back to Canada Michaëlle Jean. A few short days ago she left for Europe a mere figure head and now return as a constitutional head of state.

We spent $200 million on a federal election and we end up with a House of Commons that appears to be held together with little more than a few pieces of hockey tape.

Someone owes us an apology.

We’re not likely to get it from a cast of characters that have displayed little character over the past two weeks.

Too strong to tell us they’re sorry. Too proud to tell us they were wrong.

Is it any wonder that Canadians don’t love politics that way we use to do?