The Tories say goodby:
Bishop, Jordan
for directing a brick at someone's head? Or does being abused six). The Tories lost eleven seats in British Columbia, includ- as a child permit one to murder one's abusive parent? The...
...Corruption tion to a new government takes about ten days and is accom- and bossism persisted, but without a canny and disciplined plished rather quietly...
...That space is now oc4: 19 November 1993 Commonweal cupied by the nationalist Bloc Quebecois, whose position is some- focus on rebuilding New York as an "ordinary city...
...By comparison, in the most re- unforeseen consequences and many of the city's current ills recent Parliament the NDP had 20 percent of the vote but only sult from them...
...ment intervention in the economy...
...This time out, the avowedly separatist Bloc Quebecois, led by Unlike the Tories, the Liberals are a party that retains belief former Mulroney cabinet minister Lucien Bouchard, took fifty- in governance...
...Social Credit party: "Charisma without substance is dangerous...
...While the Liberals are fairly thin on the ground Plan of 1929, the deindustrialization of Manhattan was supin the West, they can, with justice, claim to be the only truly posed to be complemented by industrial zones in the outer bornational party...
...As much as or more than any monarchical capparty should form the official opposition...
...The Bloc may be something more than a protest New York-as-world-city has a long, interesting, and probvote, and it rankles some English Canadians that a separatist lematic history...
...2) the destruction of Tammany...
...Secession, and overblown rhetoric of the New York's may- now being pursued by Staten Island, is a temptation but not oral campaign, there was an unspoken but om- a solution, because the dismemberment of New York will not nipresent question: Is New York City governable...
...party, while the mildly left New Democratic party (NDP) lost While the Liberals have a solid majority, 177 of 295 seats, all ten of its seats and the Tories lost forty-two...
...majority to get rid of the Tories...
...The Liberals hardly needed to campaign...
...strategies were pursued: (1) the "deindustrialization" of Geography and the absurdities of Canada's "winner-take-all" Manhattan...
...adjudicate the peaceful coexistence of two distinct but nonetheMost of the electorate see New York as a city less interdependent urban cultures-the world city of Manhattan trapped within the structures and mistakes of its past, but there and the ordinary city to be found in Queens, the Bronx, was hope that the election-regardless of who won-might pro- Brooklyn, and Staten Island (Richmond...
...Now that represent a geographical embodiment of the thesis of Mickey Rudolph Giuliani has been elected, let me propose the follow- Kaus's recent book, The End of Equality, which argues that ing agenda: after almost an entire century spent creating New the new global economy will no longer produce a society in York as a "world city," the government, civic leaders, and cit- which "a rising tide lifts all boats," but rather one in which izens of New York should reverse their priorities and begin to economic growth and prosperity for some may coincide with, Commonweal 19 November 1993: 5...
...JORDAN BISHOP the bureaucracy, the proliferation of interest groups, and the Jordan Bishop writes frequently for Commonweal from orderly access of new immigrant groups to positions of poOttawa...
...who not only obeyed the laws in a dangerously demoralized What does it all mean...
...their perceptions about what can and, at the same time, provide an expansive array of services be accomplished through government are somewhat more op- to support and sustain the New York workforce (schools, city timistic than either their predecessors' or the opposition in the universities, hospitals, housing, health care, welfare...
...According to the celebrated New York Regional forty-three seats...
...The les- had made while campaigning for leadership of British Columbia's son from Los Angeles is: we have a long way to go...
...For starters, the ersatz character of time but acted courageously to protect the dignity and the rights the Tory campaign convinced nobody...
...They cautiously went through the motions...
...Angry voters savaged her and the preservation of Canada's health-care programs...
...The NDP, with 7 city agenda and pay its "social costs...
...This is the measure of the unAlberta, however, the Liberals got only four seats...
...Tory Progressive Conservative party, from New- advertisements ridiculed Chretien's proposals for job creation foundland to Vancouver...
...And in Quebec, where former Prime the Liberals relied mainly on the popular perception of what Minister Brian Mulroney's party had won sixty seats in 1988, they represent and the widespread desire of an overwhelming the Tories retained only one seat, that won by Jean Charest...
...For Lucien Bouchard ital of Europe, New York was consciously envisaged as a global himself, the position is something of a mixed blessing...
...And the Reform party, with 20 Of course these plans of New York's leading citizens had percent, got fifty-two seats...
...The habit of looking to government to resolve all the social problems caused by the world city's perpetual project of urban renewal resulted in a tradition of govMAKE GOTHAM GOVERNABLE ernment overload that made New York dependent on federal CONSIDER CLEVELAND...
...She also attempted the impossible: to turn her back on Mulroney without repudiating a single one of the policies and practices that had made THE TORIES SAY GOODBY him the most disliked prime minister in recent history...
...riots, men and women the Progressive Conservative party...
...But renew Parliament...
...the NDP has been there before, this is without precedent for There were many heroes in the L.A...
...Since Canada does not have a system of proportional repre- Reform or "fusion" liberalism was supposed to replace the sentation, pre-election fears of an Italian-style Parliament with Tammany political machine with an honest, efficient, and profive strong parties have vanished...
...There was, on October 25, a near-consensus form liberalism fragmented the Tammany machine without to the effect that the country is a mess...
...As for what it really means, we shall know political party to direct and control fiscal policy, the size of more in a year's time...
...And while there was never any Reform party rolled up a total of twenty-two seats and added danger of their forming a government, they came within two twenty-four more in British Columbia (compared to the Liberals' seats of forming the official opposition...
...Laws and new beginnings, could overcome the bitterness many felt without the strength of such citizens' lives and character will toward Brian Mulroney and the Tories...
...The Reform party had high hopes of becoming oughs, supported by comprehensive rail lines and working-class more widespread geographically, but it has only one seat east housing...
...The an- ing Kim Campbell's, and the NDP retained only two of its preswer is and must remain no...
...But neither rail lines nor working-class housing maof Manitoba...
...The Liberals' only constraints city (bridges, tunnels, mass transit, parks, cultural centers) are the limits of the possible...
...It is on such indi- Kim Campbell, projecting an image of youth (she is forty-six) viduals that the well-being of a society and a culture rests...
...While greatest" (New York Times, October 24...
...and compensation...
...OR PITTSBURGH aid and, when such aid was not forthcoming, the all-too-familiar situation of a city promising expansive services but delivering either fiscal crisis or the daily breakdown of basic services: garbage collection, pothole repair, and safe streets...
...The country has the stabili- gressive politics that would build the infrastructure of the world ty of a solid majority government...
...Not only were the Tories prove ineffective in a time of trial...
...They are pledged to reneIn Ontario, the Reform party-an extreme-right, populist party gotiate the trade agreement with the United States (FTA), led by Preston Manning of Alberta-divided the already weak- particularly since the proposed NAFTA agreement gives Mexico ened conservative vote to give the Liberals an unprecedented some leverage over resources that Canada does not have in the sweep in Canada's most populous province: ninety-eight out FTA...
...The Tories tried and failed to depict him as Mulroney years failed abysmally in the October "yesterday's man...
...Here, the reality of their economic utopia...
...The Tories got 17 per- al use of government funds and services to support the worldcent of the popular vote but only two seats...
...He promised jobs, as Mulroney had in 1984, 25 general election...
...His own capital, as the command center of the American corporate econpower is mostly symbolic, and given the realities of power, the omy, and also America's global contact point...
...As a result, they will not be granted the Denny verdict, "The law demands self-control, and this de- research budgets, nor will they be allowed to ask questions in mand is most important precisely when the temptations are committees without the agreement of other members...
...The five boroughs vide the occasion for the creation of a new agenda...
...not only of Manhattan but of the entire city...
...what enigmatic...
...Finally, the desire for stability of a majority government of ninety-nine seats...
...The consequences are recurrent fiscal crises, bloated bureaucracies, "balkanization," REPORT FROM NEW YORK CITY and ethnic conflict...
...But some laws demand adherence in all cir- The defeat of the Tories and the NDP was so total that neicumstances precisely because they forbid acts which put civili- ther got the twelve seats needed to qualify for official party statty and civilization at risk...
...In the Yukon, NDP leader Audrey weighed in determining guilt and then in calibrating punishment McLaughlin held her seat but the rest of the North went Liberal...
...Circumstances certainly should be vious seventeen seats...
...the opposition is such as to make the next Parliament a bizarre In the prairie provinces, the Liberals continued their sweep, affair...
...It had been hoped that of victims who wandered into harm's way...
...Jean Chretien, the new Liberal Prime Minister Kim Campbell's attempt to res- prime minister, is an old hand, although at fifty-nine he is hardcue the Tories from the unpopularity of the ly over the hill...
...In this campaign she demonstrated that a failed attempt REPORT FROM CANADA at charisma without substance is ludicrous...
...In three years without raising taxes...
...As Vaclav Havel writes blamed for the recession (not entirely a bum rap), but they have (Summer Meditations, Vintage), there is only one way to strive never been forgiven for the GST (Goods and Services Tax, a for decency, reason, responsibility, and civility, and that is de- national sales tax...
...For the rest of it, John, was elected as a Tory...
...and (3) the liberelectoral system are much in evidence...
...To this end, three move from the symbolic to the real will pose difficulties...
...The remaining seat went to the Reform in a race that fielded five major parties was also a factor...
...As Susan Estrich pointed out following us in the House of Commons...
...litical and bureaucratic power...
...In the Atlantic province of New even as Campbell stated that nothing could be done to lower Brunswick, only Elsie Wayne, the popular former mayor of Saint unemployment before the end of the century...
...The Reform party had pledged to eliminate the deficit in gaining eight seats in Manitoba and five in Saskatchewan...
...They are not dogmatically opposed to governfour seats, giving the Bloc the status of the official opposition...
...The Tories lost eleven seats in British Columbia, includas a child permit one to murder one's abusive parent...
...The fact that the Tories retain only two seats in terialized, and postwar highway construction and suburbanization all of Canada may be Mulroney's last testament to the party he confirmed the decentralization as well as "deindustrialization," took over in 1984...
...Campbell was haunted by a statement she cently, reasonably, sincerely, civilly, and tolerantly...
...In Canada, the transi- providing an alternative form of political authority...
...This was CHARISMA NEEDS SUBSTANCE made worse by a number of gaffes during the campaign, the most serious being a statement to the effect that a campaign is no place to debate serious issues...
...Reversing priorities, rebuilding New York by focusing on Underneath the promises, charges, countercharges, its identity as an ordinary city, will not be easy...
...percent of the vote, got nine...
Vol. 120 • November 1993 • No. 20
