tructible elite", in which they can both shape public opinion and make or break a politicians career. However, who controls the media? By far it is "Big Business". This is today’s answer to the wealthy aristocrats who were political elites in centuries past. It is quite simple; through the power of the almighty dollar big business can both influence and manipulate public policies. For instance, Irving Oil Limited used the media to shape public opinion about New Brunswick’s clean air laws. Big Business also is able to manipulate laws in order to spend the least amount of money as possible. "Without regulation, Canada’s corporate barons have played fast and loose with tax and security laws, and sometimes their actions have bordered on theft" (Francis, 1986). There is one last group of elites that must be discussed: certain groups of the Canadian people. Through interest groups and labor unions, the Canadian people can both influence government and big business. They can be seen as both pesky and incredibly powerful, due to the fact that they ultimately choose some of the people who will represent them in the legislature. It all depends on their size. Though it does slightly go off topic, Qubec nationalists can be seen as a type of interest group. It has come to the point where this interest group has its own political party. Their goal is simply to break up the country, and therefore they have a purpose. The Canadian people are as diverse as this nation’s physical geography. Though when they unite with a common purpose they can be just as powerful as the government itself. For the Qubec nationalists issue, if it hadn’t been for the conflicting opinions of other English, French, or ethnic residents of Qubec, our nation would have been broken by now. In conclusion, the middle-class needs elites almost as much as the elites need the middle-class. It is an unwritten rule of democracy that both undermines the teac...
