The House is home to a lot of memories

OTTAWA—In the 1970s, anyone could walk into the Centre Block. Lately, it has become an armed camp. There’s no need for a lot of nostalgia—only recognition of how much things have changed. The ‘70s began with what was the biggest political cataclysm of the era: the FLQ kidnappings in Quebec, which led to police over-reaction in a crackdown in Montreal enabled by Pierre Trudeau’s imposition of the War Measures Act. One indelible memory is the scene of helmeted soldiers, rifles on their shoulders, standing on the street corners of Montreal. Twelve years later Trudeau, elected again, forever changed the state’s relationship to its citizens by bringing in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the official signing of the repatriated constitution taking place with the Queen in front of Parliament. Brian Mulroney’s drive to establish free trade with the United States, and later also Mexico, was another turning point. Across the street from the Hill, reporters stood in the cold at midnight on Dec. 31, 1988, outside Mulroney’s formerly named Langevin Block office as the contentious bilateral free trade agreement finally came into force. Then there was the night in 1995 when cars drove around Parliament Hill’s circular roadway in the dark honking their horns after the Quebec sovereigntist movement failed by the slimmest of referendum margins. Today, that cause seems quiescent—which certainly ranks as one of the biggest developments for Canada, and its Parliamentarians, in the past half-century. Security in those days was such that a man armed with a knife was able that same autumn to get into 24 Sussex, threatening the life of Jean Chrétien and his wife, Aline. That all changed, of course, with 9/11. A few days after the attacks in the U.S., thousands gathered on Parliament Hill in a mass expression, led by Chrétien, of Canadian solidarity with their American neighbours. In the years since, though, things have never been the same on that front. And 18 months after 9/11, Chrétien saved Canada from involvement in the U.S.’s Iraq disaster. On Oct. 22, 2014, the parliamentary district was convulsed with fear and uncertainty after Corporal Nathan Cirillo was fatally shot while on ceremonial sentry duty at the War Memorial by a would-be terrorist, who afterwards tried to shoot up the Centre Block before himself being killed outside the door to the Library of Parliament. Canada’s debates and political agendas were shaped as well by the collapse of Soviet Russia, oil shocks, recessions, Middle East crises, domestic scandals, immense changes in the developing world, and global trade liberalization—all discussed in Centre Block’s House of Commons and Senate chambers. Only one female politician, Kim Campbell, was able to make the hallowed walk down the timeworn stairs from the PM’s Hill office to the Commons—and her hold on the PM’s job was of course short-lived. The long right-wing campaign to remake the world in the Thatcher-Reagan mould seems to have peaked in Canada with Stephen Harper’s Conservative government. Ironically, it wasn’t Harper, for all his talk about austerity, who succeeded in decisively curbing the federal deficit. He was in deficit for much of his tenure. It was his Liberal predecessor, Paul Martin, benefiting from the needed combination of political support and a roaring economy, who actually as finance minister made the painful decisions required to balance the books for years. But it is arguable that, as far as politics and the economy are concerned, the pro-business, right-wing political phenomenon that morphed out of the mentality of former U.K. prime minister Margaret Thatcher and former U.S. president Ronald Reagan has been one of the most momentous developments in recent times. The assault on social programs, unions, and government in general combined with the shift in the economic landscape away from manufacturing to a globally structured, more service-oriented economy driven by stock market profits has created the post-good-employment situation seen everywhere in the West. And it has contributed to appalling wealth inequality. This, in turn, has fed an era of public discontent the dimensions and impact of which will not be fully known for years. Goosed up by the internet, which alters everything and alters it faster than ever, this wave of angry public demands for change has ironically so far proven vulnerable for the most part to exploitation by right-wing demagogues whose interest in average people is purely rhetorical. Justin Trudeau was elected before this upsurge (what I and others are loosely calling populism) materialized. Now, in the coming year, he will face re-election in a very different political context—one where an aroused citizenry is increasingly flailing about in a mix of anger, alienation, veiled racism, fear of the future, and an unfocused sense of betrayal and anti-establishment fury. Who knows what democracy will look like when Members of Parliament return to the renovated Centre Block a decade from now? Les Whittington is an Ottawa journalist and a regular contributor to The Hill Times. The Hill Times

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The House is home to a lot of memories

From the 1970s, when anyone could walk into the place, to the post-9/11 security boost, the soon-to-be-closed Centre Block has changed a lot.

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