The Canadian government fell today in a vote of no confidence, clearing the way for spring elections.



What could be interesting to watch in this is the Canadian temperament or the Canadian condition. I live near Canada and do not think Canadians are boring. I think they are endlessly fascinating and are to Americans as loons are to ducks, they being the loons. But something they always have to watch out for: the subliminal drive to be just like Americans. It is a denial of Canadian character. There you find a PM who resembles Reagan, then one who resembles Kennedy, and born-again Stephen Harper, walking in the footsteps of George W. Bush. And they held with him a long time.



And right now they are thinking it is time to give up the pseudo-Bush thing and get on to the pseudo-Clinton/Obama path. That would be liberal leader Michael Ignatieff, who has spent most of his life working in Massachusetts as a Harvard professor and is the closest thing to an American NPR liberal one could find and still claim to be a Canadian.



Not that he would not be a good PM. But this is what I’ve seen: Canadians really are one of the most unique peoples in the world, and when they fall into the American tailwind Quebec will react. Quebec will demand that they come back to the fight between the Habs and the Leafs and leave the Americans behind. A liberal Canadian government following in the wake of Obama would bring with it a Tea Party reaction, and Canada already has one. It is called the Bloc Quebecois and it is the mother of all Tea Parties. I happen to know because I was there at the beginning and we based our American sovereignty efforts on those of Bernard Landry and the Bloc during the invasion of Iraq.

