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By Lloyd Mackey
 FROM the perspective of collaborative governance, this week's federal election results could not have provided a better workshop.
Readers may recall that, last week, I wrote a bit about power-sharing, as it is developing in such diverse nations as Germany, Zimbabwe and Kenya. It would be hard to argue that Canada has, by any stretch of the imagination, reached the point where it needs to explore any such radical arrangements.
But all four of the leaders, whose parties elected members to the House of Commons on Tuesday night, spoke in one way or another of the need for working across party lines to make parliament function effectively.
They all know, even if it is not in their individual best interests to say so, that, for 30 months, the House did work and much legislation was passed with the approval of one or another of the parties, depending on the issues.
From where this is being written, 38,000 feet over Manitoba, on the way back from Saskatoon to Ottawa, there are some points worth making.
Firstly, it was not surprising that the Conservative party was re-elected with an increased seat number, a dozen or so less than a majority in a 308-seat House.
Further, it was interesting to note that, in the voting patterns, the Conservatives continued their political realignment process, incrementally drawing support from ridings in Atlantic Canada, Ontario and British Columbia which have been Liberal or NDP for the last decade or two. It would seem that, increasingly, the small-c conservative hinterland lengthens its tentacles into the suburbs of the large cities.
Meanwhile, the Liberals' support fell in the suburbs, to the Conservatives, and, to a lesser extent, in the cores of the large cities, to the NDP.
The talk of the pundits, with respect to Liberal leader Stephane Dion, is that he is soon to be toast. But that might be rushing to judgment. Surely, if the collaborative route is the way to go, Dion's weakness -- apparent lack of strong leadership -- can become a strength, as he permits the governing party to reach out with legislation that would find some measure of acceptance, because it is not incompatible with some liberal principles. Indeed, if he could give collaborative leadership to his party, working with Harper or at least not running too much interference with government fiscal policy, he could build a suitable legacy in the interim.
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Given the above, it is worth turning for a moment to the point that, in the three previous elections, the role of the faith-based social conservatives was used against the conservatives as a demonstration of the "scary" side of the political centre-right.
In three Vancouver suburban ridings, Richmond, North Vancouver and West Vancouver-Sea-to-Sky ridings, there was considerable collateral damage to the Conservatives from the targeting of other ridings in other parts of Canada by faith-based so-con groups. As it happened, the Tory candidates in those ridings, in 2006, were evangelical Christians, true enough, but had many other skill sets to offer. Some of the publicity with respect to those candidates centred around the very dubious suggestion that big American faith-based advocacy groups were suspected of bankrolling some campaigns.
This time, there was no such issue, and all three ridings went to the Conservatives. One of the new MPs, John Weston from West Van, was the target of the misplaced alarm in 2006. But it should be known, as well, that he is a Harvard-educated lawyer who has some very special skills in aboriginal treaty issues. He will undoubtedly be invaluable in assisting the prime minister and Indian affairs minister Chuck Strahl -- and the members of other parties, including NDP leader Jack Layton -- in implementing the actions that will flow from last spring's landmark residential school apology.
That Weston, as it happens, is an evangelical Christian, should be seen as an attribute that only helps to broaden his effectiveness.
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One more person worth mentioning is Dona Cadman, widow of the legendary Chuck Cadman, who took over his former riding of Surrey North on Tuesday, after it was held by the NDP, represented by her good friend Penny Priddy, since 2006.
The Liberals, for whatever reason they deemed necessary, attempted to portray the prime minister and the Conservatives in a criminal light, resulting in Harper filing a multi-million dollar libel suit against them.
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The suit has yet to be settled, but the Conservatives persisted in noting, quite correctly, that Cadman was their candidate, and that she and the prime minister have a genuine regard for each other's integrity and that rapport gives lie to whatever allegations have been put forward.
Cadman as the Surrey North MP, will demonstrate often, I believe, that rather than being an unseemly approach to inside politics, her story will be one of political redemption, renewal and reconciliation. And the model for what happened there is rooted in the Christian gospel.
Up to the point of Chuck Cadman's death, that story was told in Tom Zataruk's book, Like a Rock: The Chuck Cadman Story, which inadvertently created some of the turmoil that embroiled Dona's candidacy. I hope he will have opportunity to write the sequel, as Dona's efforts to continue Chuck's work continue.
I am not saying that either Chuck or Dona are or were your traditional garden-variety evangelical Christians. The story is too long to tell here, but the gospel is very much a part of their story and that of the people who have surrounded and worked with them.
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Lloyd Mackey is a member of the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery in Ottawa. He is author of Stephen Harper: The Case for Collaborative Governance (ECW Press, 2006) and More Faithful Than We Think: Stories and Insights on Canadian Leaders Doing Politics Christianly (BayRidge Books, 2005). He can be reached at lmackey@canadianchristianity.com.
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October 16/2007
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