The Early Rumblings of a Political Earthquake

Since February 20th, share values on the Toronto Stock Exchange have fallen by one-third -- even greater than the stock market crash in October 1929. The global pandemic has caused a rapid economic shut down. Unemployment is soaring. There is no likelihood of a quick recovery.

Stock market values took two decades to recover from the 1929 crash during which the world experienced the resulting decade-long economic depression and the Second World War. The economic recovery was painfully slow and really only ended with the start of the war. Deep and pervasive unemployment and inadequate safety nets devastated the lives of millions.

The ’29 Crash, the ensuing Depression, and the experience of the war fundamentally changed the political landscape across the world.

In Canada, the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) was formed in 1933. It aimed at ending the two-party Liberal and Conservative hegemony. While the CCF and its successor, the NDP, didn’t subsequently form a federal government, they did later form government in six provinces and the Yukon and drove the country’s political agenda for most of the rest of the century. Arguably, it was the vision, drive and acumen of the CCF/NDP that lay the foundation for the best features of Canada today.

In the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected President in 1932 ushering in the progressive New Deal that lasted largely intact until the 1980s and Ronald Reagan. In Britain the change was slow but gathered momentum during the war. Labour won in 1945, changing the face of modern Britain. They joined a dominant group of social democratic and centre-left governments across Europe. Newly independent colonies generally adopted a social democratic approach in the post-war period. 

The road forward after the ‘29 crash was bumpy to put it mildly. In Germany and elsewhere, fascism was first to take advantage of the paradigm shift in public attitudes. But the public experience in most countries was that patience with rule by and for the rich elites ended. The public value of social and economic equality was widely elevated to a central societal value. Excuses that governments couldn’t find the money to respond to the crisis in millions of lives were swept aside with the onset of war. The public figured out the same could be applied in peace time. Governments took on the central organizing role during the war with wide public acceptance, and on the whole, did the job competently and in the interests of the whole society. 

In this current health and economic crisis, the public seems to have rediscovered the crucial and valuable role of government and the public service. Even now people are beginning to ask: if we can get together to confront this crisis, why can’t the world do the same thing in the face of the other existential crisis -- environmental and climate change? 

In the short term, we shouldn’t be surprised if the fear and anxiety pervading the public consciousness dominates our political choices. Fear and anxiety often engender caution. 

History tells us this won’t last. But the rumblings we are now witnessing may be the beginnings of a political earthquake. We need to be ready for that too.