The political parties in Canada are consumed by the politics of identity. The political parties are trying to gain the confidence and favor of the ethnic minorities in Canada. The parties are addicted so much to the identity politics that they are desperately making efforts for appealing to the minority groups such as females, gays, evangelical and the disabled population of Christians. The politics of identity that is prevailing in the Canada’s political parties is paving the way to the fragmentation of culture and promoting individualistic behavior instead of togetherness. The leaders of the minority groups are unable to fight for the rights of people their group, which is making the group members to feel isolated, aggrieved and they are less likely to pay attention on the wider concerned issues. Such identity politics, which is encouraging people for exaggerating and fixating on the persecution sense, is very destructive for the country because is giving rise to the culture of grievance and complaints. But, if the political parties use the identity politics concept in a positive way, it can create fairness movements universally and the objective of these movements is to help the individuals in a way that the families can live healthy life, get more education and become prosperous.
Because of the politics identity, corporatism is dominant in the Canadian politics that is creating harmony in the society in order to overcome the competition (Ornstein & Stevenson, 1999). But, the fact is that corporatist structures have limited role in the modern state, because they fail to eliminate traditional representation of the interest groups through the parliamentary and electoral arrangements. For example, during the Trudeau era in Canada, corporatist initiative was taken, but the state has sponsored the collaboration between the labor and business leaders. Presently, in Canada, at the federal level, the minority government is unstable, which is creating constitutional crisis for the government (Blondel, 1968). The people desire for stable government voted by majority of people. But, the recent situation is showing that the conservatives are deteriorating, and are creating a situation where Liberals and the Conservatives reached the equal number of the seats that is deadlocking the parliament.
The Canadian theorists associated with the politics have emphasized on the cultural politics. This is because, the citizens cannot give the allegiance and and identify the federalism of the country until the differences prevailing in the culture are recognized and acknowledged in the constitution, and also in the political and legal structures of the country (Nath, 2011). The Canadian political parties influenced by the identity politics, are not showing any serious concern about the people who have populated the country for the purpose of exploiting it. This disinterest from the position of colonies defines the relationship between the First Nation and the colonial community that ultimately degrades the people of First Nation. So, the political system is mocked and politicians are humiliated for not compensating the people of nation properly and maintaining the proper identity of politics. The political identities depend on the context, and entail the cognitive, motivational, evaluative and emotional components that are evoked in particular situations and circumstances, where they are emerge as more or less important (Risse, 2004).
In Canada, the political parties are dependent on context and they are promoting the concept of ‘impossible’, because the concept of the identity politics is just like a target that keeps on moving and it means different things to diverse people in varying places and times. Furthermore, the Canadian political parties lack accurate testing of the political identity concept, because this concept is used to describe various things at a time, such as the concepts of the national identity, belonging sense, attachment, sense of the importance, general and the warm feelings for the society and community and identification of the primary political parties. So, the need of hour is to ensure such a political system that maintain proper political identity and is accountable to the public.
References
Blondel, Jean. (1968). Party Systems and Patterns of Government in Western Democracies. Canadian Journal of Political Science, 1(2), 180-203
Nath, Nisha. (2011). Defining Narratives of Identity in Canadian Political Science: Accounting for the Absence of Race. Canadian Journal of Political Science, 44(1), 161-193
Ornstein, Michael., & Stevenson, Michael. (1999). Politics and Ideology in Canada: Elite and Public Opinion in the Transformation of the Welfare State, McGill-Queen's Press, Canada.
Risse, Thomas. (2004). European Institutions and Identity Change: What Have We Learned? Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, U.S.A.
