Hope is the prodigal child of politics everywhere. Just when it seems gone forever, back it bounces.
For Canada as well as the U.S., Barack Obama’s health-care victory is one of those rebounds.
By frustrating some of North America’s most deeply entrenched special interests, the president is reinforcing the fading notion that politicians with good intentions can still beat the odds to make a difference.
Characteristic of this cautious country, the contest here is more temperate.
Up here we politely protest the arcane proroguing of Parliament while timidly trying to restore the democratic equilibrium.
Down there, racial slurs and “death panel” fear-mongering inflamed a debate that nearly denied tens of millions of Americans better access to a social service most Canadians consider a right.
Still, the similarities are instructive. Stripped bare, both struggles are about control of power and distribution of benefits.
Here we are having it out over Parliament’s eroding ability to hold the prime minister accountable.
There it’s about the president’s capacity to deliver a pivotal election promise so politically charged and divisive that health-care reform thwarted the best efforts of as skilled and cunning a predecessor as Bill Clinton.
Underlying both issues is the dominance of elites over very different systems nominally dedicated to the same purpose of advancing public well being.
In Canada, 50 years of rising prime ministerial power and falling respect for the utility of government have eclipsed the influence of MPs, the civil service and even cabinet ministers. Now filling that space are those with the influence that comes with private access - appointed officials, hired-gun consultants and a few top mandarins more likely to whisper what the prime minister wants to hear than speak truth to power.
In the U.S., presidents can only look north in wonder at the freedom of prime ministers to dictate their nation’s course. Encumbered by the checks and balances our Westminster system largely leaves to precedent and civility, the White House must manage a Congress too often beholden to lobbyists with obese bankrolls.
Even if the pressure points are unique, the dynamic is common. Parliament is flexing what little remains of its muscle to impose discipline on a minority Prime Minister refusing to accept the will of the majority. The president is pulling every available lever to overcome resistance, including much in his own party.
Neither process is pristine. In Ottawa, opposition parties sometimes seem more determined to score partisan points attacking ruling party autocracy than they are willing to face an unwanted election to defend a cornerstone democratic principle.
In Washington, health-care legislation has been so compromised by the necessary wheeling and dealing that the reforms are far less inspirational than the president claims and much more protective of the status quo than the medical lobby admits.
So where’s the hope? It springs from Parliament’s resistance to the continuing efforts of serial prime ministers to slip democratic bonds. It pushes through the hardened crust of U.S. privilege to at least partly fulfill a president’s promise to those who voted him into office.
Jim Travers writes for The Toronto Star Syndicate.