Day 1: Peter Gartrell
Peter Gartrell is a 2011-2 APSA congressional fellow visiting Ottawa with fourteen of his colleagues to gain a better understanding of the United States' northern neighbor and its parliamentary democracy.
Anyone in our group who arrived in Ottawa thinking that Canada was the northernmost outpost of the United States was quickly assuaged of any misplaced assumptions by a few minutes past 8 a.m.
Monday marked the start of our packed week of meetings, lectures and seminars in Canada's capital city. Morning talks by political scientists Rand Dyck and James Ross Hurley, the latter of whom was later described by one of our hosts as Canada's institutional memory, highlighted the strands of French and English history leading to the development of this country's unique culture, national identity and parliamentary government.
By day's end we better understood why seemingly innocuous decisions in Congress and the White House are so closely followed by Canadians, who often feel the outsized effect our policy decisions can have on cross-border trade. With a $1.1 trillion economic relationship, businesses on both sides of the border peer to the other side to understand government decisions. But underscoring the difference of political predictability, U.S. diplomats here told us that the embassy has a few offices devoted to following legislative decisions in Parliament, while their Canadian counterparts have a whole floor of congressional liaisons.
It was striking to learn from officials with the Library of Parliament how party structures and decisions are made with such rigidity; and the seriousness with which Canadians cherish the country's Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which has paved the way for, among other things, legalized same-sex marriage and abortions. Neither issue, both hot buttons at home, are sources for debate among mainstream politicians.
There also was talk of fiscal policy; energy policy and the evolution of Canada's political landscape, which was shaken up in the last election by the rise of progressive New Democrats; the slide of long-dominant Liberals and continued rule of Prime Minister Harper's Conservative government.
We arrived in the capital at an interesting time. The tulips are out for the annual tulip festival; the Globe and Mail continues raising the issue of immigration as a way to fill a labor gap and Quebec trembles with ongoing student strife over tuition increases. Light posts on Parliament Hill were bedecked with the red maple leaves of Canada and blue Stars of David from Israel, a welcome for the President Shimon Peres.
He was quoted by the papers as saying, "I sense Canada is always positive, always positive and never neutral." True enough.