Some planetary alignment must be happening. How else can one explain this extraordinary coincidence in which both the U.S. and the Canadian governments are in a place of waiting. One can almost sense, in the U.S., a palpable sense of liminality--to use an anthropological term--a period of transition which holds out the possibility of crossing a threshhold into a new identity. And it is a new identity that Americans--and the world perhaps even more--hunger for.
How different it is up here. While Obama issues a great and compelling call to work across differences, to unite to face a common challenge, Harper issues (I paraphrase) a sort of weasely Well, I hope the opposition agrees to work together. I'm ready. Right, Stevie. Can anybody think of even one reason to believe his words? He has been all about advancing his political advantage no matter what. Because it served his purpose, Harper demonized the PQ and thus the Quebec electorate; Obama, on the other hand, acknowledges differences as an opening to invite people to move beyond them. How is it Canada has a Prime Minister of such smallness, whose reluctance to collaborate diminishes in direct proportion to the rise in the possibility of his government collapsing?
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