Laurentian elite

Laurentian elite also referred to Laurentian Consensus is a Canadian political term used to refer to individuals in the upper class of society who live along the St. Lawrence River and watershed in major Central Canadian cities such as Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto, an area which represents a significant portion of Canada’s population.[1] The term has been used to describe the belief that a general governing political consensus existed in Canada from Confederation until the early twenty-first century.[2]

Map of the St. Lawrence River watershed, which has over half of Canada's 338 ridings; this region is known to be influential in deciding federal election results

The term is generally attributed to John Ibbitson, who wrote extensively about the Laurentian elite following the 2011 Canadian federal election (though he has shared the credit for coining it with University of Toronto academic David Cameron). Ibbitson later expanded his coverage in the book The Big Shift: The Seismic Change in Canadian Politics, Business, and Culture and What It Means for Our Future published in 2013 by Darrell Bricker and Ibbitson, in which the authors argue that the Laurentian Consensus is on course to be replaced by a new political coalition consisting of Western Canada and suburban Ontario.[3] The term has since been adopted by other journalists and political commentators as a shorthand for the Central Canadian establishment.

Description

Ibbitson described the Laurentians as “the political, academic, cultural, media and business elites” of central Canada who were responsible for shaping Canadian identity.[4][5][6] He argued that Laurentians viewed Canada as "a fragile nation" kept together by the federal government but protected from the United States of America.[7] Ibbitson associated the "Laurentian elite" with the Liberal Party of Canada and sometimes politicians from the former Progressive Conservative Party of Canada while associating "The Conservative Coalition" with prairie populism that dominates Western Canada's politics.[8] He believes polices such as the National Policy and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms were a result of the Laurentians.[2]

Ibbitson points to the election of Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party of Canada with a majority government in the 2011 Canadian federal election without significant support in Quebec as a sign of the decline of the Laurentian Consensus.[2] He suggest that this gradual decline was due to infighting within the Liberal Party, immigration into the 905 region that shifted "Ontario's orientation toward the West", rising oil prices fueling economic and population growth in Western Canada, a weakening Quebec sovereignty movement, and a growing sense of patriotism.[2] However, Ibbitson caution against the idea that Canada was becoming conservative by arguing that the values of the people who rejected the Laurentians were instead "realistic, pragmatic, cosmopolitan, global, forward thinking" and that progressive politicians should tailor to them.[7]

The Laurentian elite has often been used as a polemical term by columnists such as John Weissenberger,[9] Diane Francis,[10] Jen Gerson,[1] and others, to describe a corrupt, out-of-touch, and power-hungry ruling class who govern for the benefit of a narrow set of elite interests and to the detriment of other Canadians, especially those outside of Central Canada. Although they did not use the term "Laurentian elite," earlier authors such as Peter Brimelow and John Porter have written critically about this class.

University of Toronto political scientist Andrew McDougall has identified the attributes of Laurentian rule as being in favour of "tariffs to support manufacturing [and] farming industries" (most evident in the National Policy) while being "tolerant to supportive of some internal trade barriers" and "generally pro-free trade" in the international context. With respect to the balance of power with the provinces, they are "supportive of cooperative federalism [and] shared cost programs" but still nonetheless hold a "bias towards federal power."[11] McDougall describes them as, historically, being particularly concerned with promoting the interests of Central Canadian industries.

Drawing on the work of Peter J. Smith and Donald Creighton, Michael Cuenco in American Affairs has traced the evolution of the Laurentian elite from the Confederation era to the present, arguing that they represent a distinct centralizing school of political economy, rooted in an early modern "court party" commercial liberal tradition, that carried over from the Conservative Party of Sir John A. Macdonald into the mid-century Liberal Party governments of William Lyon Mackenzie King and his successors.[12] This Laurentian tradition has been opposed by an agrarian "country party" tradition dating back to the Rebellions of 1837-1838 and which is given expression by contemporary populist movements, including the modern Reform Party and the 2022 Freedom Convoy.

See also

References
  1. Gerson, Jen (2019-03-06). "Opinion | Canadian Politics Aren't Cute. They're Corrupt". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-09-08.
  2. John Ibbitson (9 December 2011). "The death of the Laurentian consensus and what it says about Canada". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 1 October 2020.
  3. "Media Bites: Have You Heard of the Laurentian Consensus?". HuffPost. 2013-02-28. Retrieved 2023-06-19.
  4. John Weissenberger (26 November 2019). "The Laurentian "Elite": Canada's Ruling Class". C2C Journal. Retrieved 1 October 2020.
  5. John Ibbitson (22 March 2019). "Laurentian Consensus at the centre of Trudeau's missteps in the SNC-Lavalin affair". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 1 October 2020.
  6. "Time and again, Alberta's budget has been rescued by higher oil prices. Don't count on another repeat". The Globe and Mail. 29 September 2020. Retrieved 3 October 2020.
  7. speakeasy@websupport.team (2012-07-10). "John Ibbitson: In Canada, the Power Centres Have Shifted. Drastically". The Lavin Agency. Retrieved 2023-06-19.
  8. Ibbitson, John. "The Collapse of the Laurentian Consensus". Literary Review of Canada. Retrieved 2019-12-30.
  9. Weissenberger, John (2019-11-27). "The Laurentian "Elite": Canada's ruling class". C2C Journal. Retrieved 2023-09-08.
  10. Francis, Diane (2023-06-05). "Canada's Mediocracy". Diane Francis. Retrieved 2023-09-08.
  11. McDougall, Andrew (2020-12-01). "Stuck in the Middle with You: Is the Trudeau Government Really Representative of a Central Canadian "Laurentian Elite?"". Études canadiennes / Canadian Studies. Revue interdisciplinaire des études canadiennes en France (in French) (89): 11–39. doi:10.4000/eccs.3850. ISSN 0153-1700.
  12. Cuenco, Michael (2022-05-20). "The Canadian Ideology". American Affairs Journal. Retrieved 2023-09-08.
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