Monday, April 28, 2014

The Quebec Election In Canada And Federalism Lesson For Sri Lanka

Colombo TelegraphBy Rajan Philips -April 27, 2014
Rajan Philips
Rajan Philips
Earlier this month the Province of Quebec, in Canada, had its one-day election after less than a month of campaigning.  As I have discussed in a separate article, India is just half way through its five-week long election ritual. Theoutcome of the Indian elections is widely expected to be a defeat for the ruling Congress alliance and victory for the opposition BJP alliance. The results in Quebec were a huge surprise with the governing Parti Quebecois of French Canadian separatists suffering a crushing defeat and the opposition Quebec Liberal Party securing a spectacular victory.
There is very little to compare between the French Canadian Province of 8 million people and the mass of humanity that is India. Yet there are commonalities between Canada and India as two reasonably successful federal states and societies, and in the functional containment of their internal national problems. Federalism, separatism and secularism were wedge issues in the Quebec election, and they are so but for different reasons in the Indian elections. The over-determining issues, however, are the economy and jobs. Corruption was big time on the election radar in Quebec and is even more so in India.
Along with Sri Lanka, Canada and India are long standing Commonwealth members. Soon after independence, Sri Lanka was a model state for ethnic co-habitation and economic potential in the Commonwealth. Pierre Trudeau held up the “State of Ceylon” accommodating two languages and four religions as an example for Quebec and Canada. This was when Trudeau was a trenchant political critic and before he won a seat in the Federal Parliament and went on to become one of Canada’s more famous Prime Ministers. Sri Lankans, or Ceylonese then, did not know much about Canada, and not enough about India – ignorantly laughing at their huge neighbor for its poverty and its English accent. 60 years later, Canada and India are mature success stories in their own ways, while Sri Lanka has the Commonwealth Chairmanship to boast of, but little else. Our cricketers, not the Board of Control or Selectors, are a different story and their well-deserved and long-awaited success in Bangladesh is doubly sweet because unlike in past finals there were no Rajapaksa government poobahs in Dhaka to bask in our cricketers’ glory.
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