Is it bidirectional?

[dr_kromm]

As I was reading about the upcoming Canadian federal election -- announced on September 7, 2008 and to be held on October 14, 2008 (year included to make a point) -- it hit me that the United States presidential election on November 4 has dominated the news for about a year, even here in Canada. Moreover, many Canadian news services still carry more information about the U.S. election than about the Canadian one, despite the U.S. freak show being half a month more distant and being year-old news. Weird.

I guess my question is this: Does the Canadian election even rate on the radar of the average American? I can name the two tickets in the U.S. election -- Obama/Biden (D) and McCain/Palin (R) -- without hitting Google, but can the average American name the leaders of Canada's major political parties? Can the average American name the parties? I'm just curious.

I'd get into issues except that I know most Canadians aren't even up to speed on the ones here at home . . .

Comments

[hackard.livejournal.com]

I couldn't even name the parties when I was living in Canada. I did see the news about the PM dissolving Parliament, which looks bad but apparently is more like giving everyone a couple of weeks off while they work on an especially nasty sudoku.

[dr-kromm.livejournal.com]

Yeah, dissolving Parliament isn't especially serious. Prime Minister Harper has led a minority government since 2006. A lot of Canadians who support him see this as a good chance for his party to seize a majority, and a positive thing. A lot of Canadians who hate him see this as an opportunity to turf him out, and a positive thing. Many people on both sides, as well as quite few fence-sitters, would prefer the stability of a majority, and welcome the chance to rectify the current situation. When you hear bitching, it's usually about the price tag of two federal elections less than three years apart.

[dr-kromm.livejournal.com]

(Er, that's "quite a few fence-sitters," not "quite few fence-sitters." Those of us with freebie accounts can't edit our comments. Sheesh.)

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

The last list of Canadian parties I knew included Progressive Conservative, Liberal, Social Credit, and I think at least a Quebecois secessionist party. I don't know who's running for any of them. I've been paying a bit more attention to the British party situation, where Labour seems to be falling apart quite badly, the Conservatives are likely to take over, and the Social Democrats seem likely to remain a third wheel.

[stevenehrbar.livejournal.com]

No, the average American can't.

For me, well, the answer depends; what counts as a major Canadian party? The Two Steves (Harper (C) and Dion (L)) are the only plausible prime minister candidates; Layton (N) and whoever the Bloc has in charge are not. And the Greens have an MP now, IIRC; so should they count as major if the NDP and Bloc do?

[chadu.livejournal.com]

The average USAnians is vaguely aware of the Canada. The Canada is to the north. It's all Moose, Mounties, and the MacKenzie Bros.

Even fairly hep to the jive USAnians (ahem) have no clue about Canadian politics or politicians -- it's not ever presented to us in our typical media, so we'd have to go looking for that info.

IMAO, of course.

[wombattery.livejournal.com]

The average American would be hard-pressed to name Canada, let alone anything in it. We're pretty bad about anything outside our borders.

[scimon.livejournal.com]

Of course the average Brit just looks confused and goes 'What they have elections in Canada?'

[dr-kromm.livejournal.com]

At dissolution:

Conservative Party	Steven Harper	127 seats
Liberal Party	Stéphane Dion	95 seats
Bloc Québécois	Gilles Duceppe	48 seats
New Democratic Party	Jack Layton	30 seats
Green Party	Elizabeth May	1 seat

There were also three independents and four vacant seats.

The Conservatives, Liberals, and NDP are all true national parties, running candidates in nearly every riding. The BQ is a regional party. The Greens lack the resources to run a candidate in every riding. What qualifies as "major" is a matter of opinion, but most Canadians rate the Conservatives, Liberals, BQ, and NDP as such. However, the Conservatives and Liberals are the ones who hand power back and forth; by that standard, everybody else is minor.

[martinl-00.livejournal.com]

I follow Canadian Politics, but I'm an expat.

As for relative awareness, I think simple population is a big deal here.

The US and Canada share a lot of media. Assuming media production is roughly proportional to population (big assumption, admittedly), they produce 10x as much media as we do. If we can make another big assumption and assume 20% "election leakage" in this media, there should be 2x as much American election as Canadian election on Canddian Media, and .02x as much Canadian election as American election on American media. Theses are admittedly rectally generated statistics, but they get the basic idea across.

Add in that American elections get more media circus points, and it gets worse.

[sdharing.livejournal.com]

Nope, can't name the Canadian parties or candidates. Just another Ugly American, I guess . . .

[thebeardedone.livejournal.com]

I get to listen to a CBC programme called 'As It Happens' on Public Radio every Friday night. It was just this past Friday that I learned that there was going to be a federal election in Canada this autumn, but the show did talk about three of the leading parties involved (Liberal, Conservative, Quebecois).
I suspect that even knowing that much makes me an unusual American.

[notthebuddha.livejournal.com]

Average American unlikely to even know Canada *has* parties. "Don't they have a queen, like England?"

[notthebuddha.livejournal.com]

Naming Canada is as easy as naming pepperoni and extra cheese!

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

Sort of tangentially, in my Transhuman Space campaign, based in the independent city-state of Montréal, I had one scenario that involved politically motivated memetic sabotage of a popular musician's career. I needed to come up with the political parties that were contending for power in future Montréal. I ended up deciding that they were the Parti libérale, the Parti d'humanité, and the Parti infosocialiste. It was entertaining because the sabotage was funded by the Parti libérale candidate, who was the incumbent, and exposing it cost her the election—but most of the player characters detested the Parti d'humanité, which their client supported. I've always enjoyed conflicted situations like that. . . .