Will the Harris bounce jump the border? If only

CHELSEA, QUE.—It isn’t only auto parts, dishwashers, and computers that flow unimpeded, every day, across the “longest undefended border in the world.” It is also emotion. For the last few weeks, southern winds have been blowing hope our way. Kamala Harris hasn’t just revived a fretful Democratic Party, in the opening weeks of her presidential campaign, in her own country. Her arrival has lifted a palpable weight from the shoulders of many Canadians, too—especially, but not exclusively, women. Suddenly, Donald Trump, and his “nasty” style of politics doesn’t look so inevitable, so unavoidable. He is shrinking before our eyes from dangerous to laughable, from fierce to frantic. Turns out there is another way of campaigning and behaving—less harsh, less personal, more focussed on helping people than destroying opponents. It might even work. That approach, that compassion and willingness to listen across the divide, was there all along—in Canada, without a doubt, where progressive/liberal/moderate voters have often been in the majority in polls, if not always in Parliament. But it isn’t only engaged voters who are dismayed by the ugly turn politics has taken; it is also decent, regular people who would never behave in their own lives the way their representatives do in the political arena. For all that, the energy, ferocity and anger of a crusading right—led by Pierre Poilievre, and his unsavoury online battalion, in this country—has put progressives on their back foot. The opioid crisis, homeless encampments in most cities, the lack of affordable housing for young and low-income people, wildfires increasing in severity and reach—it sometimes seems there isn’t a lot to boast about, after nearly a decade of liberal leadership in Ottawa. And, for the comfortably middle-class (never mind the despised “elites”), uneasy questions: why is my life so blessed, when so many are suffering? What injected hope—and, as important, joy—into dispirited Democrats south of the border, of course, was not some brilliant stroke of policy, some miracle cure for the moment’s many social ills. It was new, fresh and optimistic leadership. And that isn’t on the dance card for Canada. For better or worse, Justin Trudeau is staying. It is a bit jarring, therefore, to hear Harris repeat so many lines from Trudeau’s now tired playbook: diversity is our strength; government shouldn’t be dictating women’s reproductive choices; everyone has the right to love whom they love; government must be focused on helping the middle class (she hasn’t yet added “and those working hard to join it.” But that could come.) Meanwhile, her running mate, the affable Minnesota governor Tim Walz, has introduced a full buffet of Canadian-adjacent policies in his state: legalized marijuana, free breakfast and lunch for every public school student in his state, paid leave, child tax benefits, mandatory background checks for gun owners, respect for trans kids, labour protections, and, like Harris, a commitment to free medical care for all Americans. For this, he is denounced as a “radical left-wing extremist” by Trump’s factotums, but he sounds more like a mainstream Canadian. To be fair to Trudeau, he has helped lower rates of child poverty with his expanded child benefits, introduced $10-a-day child care, and made countless other gestures towards affordability for struggling Canadians. Trouble is, these gestures are often less than meets the eye (pharmacare, dental care, social housing), and the beneficiaries aren’t always well-organized enough to constitute a powerful lobby group, or motivated to express their gratitude at the ballot box. Policies aside, the divide that afflicts public life in the United States, Canada, and an increasing number of countries, has as much to do with human qualities as it does with ideology: neighbourliness, humility, good manners. And joy, too, which has been almost entirely missing from public life, as vice-presidential hopeful Walz has pointed out. Those admirable traits (not always consistently reflected in years past, to be sure) have been replaced by increasingly mean rhetoric, vulgarity, shameless lies and a rigid border between warring camps, patrolled by thin-lipped partisans carrying rhetorical flame-throwers. (Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner, often admired as an independent-minded politician and defender of gay rights, recently posted photos of a costumed Justin Trudeau, including a closeup of his tear-streaked face at a memorial for Gord Downie, with the inscription “weirdo.” Hard to recall a time when someone would mock genuine sorrow to make a political point.) In every corner of the country, especially in the summer when many travel, you discover kindness, courtesy, and curiosity, more often than anger, rudeness or name-calling—whether you are a Quebecer in Alberta, or an Albertan in Toronto, or a northerner down south. In that respect, certainly the true nature of the country is not reflected in our federal politics. Of course, that open border is affected by other weather patterns, too. Some of the most extreme American right-wing media personalities and influencers regularly trek north to address the faithful here in Canada. They have a perfect right to do so, although they often only augment the river of online vitriol, conspiracy theories and wild accusations that have no boundaries, in any sense of the word. We’ll see what happens in the U.S. in November. If Harris and Walz win, it isn’t likely to have a direct impact on the outcome of the 2025 election here. At this early juncture, it seems the only thing that might give Liberals a lift would be a new leader, but—see above. It is faintly possible that the Harris/Walz campaign, if it continues in its sunny ways—if it displays the warmth and humour of the launch last week—will make Poilievre’s small meannesses and heavy sarcasm even less appealing to voters here. (Sarcasm isn’t humour; its source is bitterness.) Meanwhile, progressive voters here can look on, a bit wistfully, wish Harris well, and hope a new U.S. government can clean up the toxic tailing pond that Trump will leave in his wake. If nothing else, it is good to be reminded that a more decent, sane, and serious kind of politics is still possible. Susan Riley is a veteran columnist who writes regularly for The Hill Times. The Hill Times

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Will the Harris bounce jump the border? If only

Kamala Harris hasn’t just revived a fretful Democratic Party, in the opening weeks of her presidential campaign, in her own country. Her arrival has lifted a palpable weight from the shoulders of many Canadians, too—especially, but not exclusively, women.

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