The Collapse of the Laurentian Consensus

The following is a version of John Ibbitson's "The LRC Presents..." talk on December 5, 2011, presented in partnership with TVO's Big Ideas.

In 25 years of reporting, I have covered my share of municipal, provincial and federal elections. Too often I described them as the most important election ever. I am not alone in this bad habit. Journalists have a tendency to inflate the importance of elections. This is hardly surprising; we spend many weeks of our time and a great deal of our employers’ money covering elections, and of course we want to see our bylines on the front page. But the truth is, most elections are just elections. The two sides are not really all that far apart on the major issues; the only fundamental question is whether voters feel like kicking the bums out.

I can think of only four elections that I have covered that really mattered: the 1988 federal election, which was...