A new day for Canada

[blue-mangos.livejournal.com]

In yesterday’s Canadian federal elections Stephen Harper’s Conservatives won a clear majority, putting to an end 7 years of minority ruling that led to 4 elections. We also saw a rapid uprise in seats for the NDP moving them into official federal opposition status for the first time in their history.

For those that don’t understand our political system, you need 155 out of the 308 seats in the House of Commons to form a majority government. As we are not a 2 party system, or even a 3 party system this has proved difficult to do at times. If a party receives less than 155 yet still holds the most seats, that party’s leader becomes Prime Minister.

There is still much polling and analysis to be done to find out what exactly led to last night’s results. These are my thoughts on why it happened.

The current Conservative party was formed by the merging of the previous Progressive Conservative party and the Canadian Alliance, which took place in 2003, one year before the election that led to the first minority Conservative government. The Alliance leaned so right-wing (at least for Canada) that I feel many people were scared of giving a party that included these ideological views a clear mandate. As the years have passed and our worst fears have not come true people have become more relaxed in their judgment of the party.

In this election campaign, Stephen Harper, a very smart man despite my personal dislike of him and his dead-eyes, played to the centrist voters, voters that would have typically voted Liberal (who were devastated in the votes, they went from 77 to 33 seats and the leader, Michael ignatieff even lost his own seat). This became easier for him to do when the NDP surged in the polls. He was able to sway otherwise Liberal voters with a message of economic doom under a NDP minority opposition status. He also softened his stance on abortion, vowing to not touch the laws. As well, he made a great deal of significance early on as to the many years Ignatieff spent in the U.S., teaching at Harvard. The ads made him out to seem very Americanized, a charge that apparently rang true with many Canadians.

He also, and I admit this begrudgingly, has done a fairly decent job of keeping our economy afloat during the recent recession. We did not have as severe of an economic downturn as America but we have suffered. We are starting to become more stable and voters don’t want to do anything to jeopardize that climbing stability. Giving him a majority sends a clear message that Canada has faith in him to lead us to full recovery.

And finally, we are sick of elections. As I mentioned above this was our 4th in 7 years as when it is a minority either the minority leader can ask the Governor General to dissolve Parliament or the opposition can cast a non-confidence vote, as in the case of this election, leading to the fall of the government. I feel a lot of people were simply fed up with going to the polls and by voting Conservative ensured we will not have to do so for the next 4 years.

The interesting part now is that we have become almost a 2 party system, and 2 parties that are vastly different in ideologies. For all our fears of becoming Americanized we have moved much further towards an American style of government. It will be very interesting to see how this all plays out over the coming years. I am especially looking forward to seeing what mischief my darling Jack Layton gets up to as opposition leader.


btw, this entire post was because I was requested to do so by sealwhiskers and I’m trying to suck up to our new mod ;)

Comments

[whoasksfinds.livejournal.com]

come on, its canada. the conservatives can't be that conservative ;)

[blue-mangos.livejournal.com]

It's bad enough. Considering I vote NDP you can imagine my horror at this result.

[whoasksfinds.livejournal.com]

what, are you a commie?!

[blue-mangos.livejournal.com]

You know, I've never been called a Commie before joining t_p, yet this is the third time by someone here. I think that's awesome.

And no, I just believe very strongly in making sure those in our society who need help are given it, even if that's at everyone else's expense. If that makes me a commie by US standards, so be it. :p

[whoasksfinds.livejournal.com]

there is a little commie in all of us.

[blue-mangos.livejournal.com]

Agreed. ;)

[anosognosia.livejournal.com]

Canadian right meets American right:

[blue-mangos.livejournal.com]

lol, I have many more reasons not to vote for him, that's just my part of my personal distaste for the man, not the politician. That and his dumb sweaters which he puts on to try and appear human.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Frankly, given Harper's shown he's a political superior to the Canadian Left, is this result *that* much of a surprise? I mean Harper's pursued a consistent policy goals and hasn't completely flubbed the recession the way things have happened south of the St. Lawrence. What I found weird was that in 2006-10 the more conservative leaders like Calderon and Harper remain in power in Canada and Mexico but the USA elected the progressive leader.

Usually it's the other way 'round.

[dv8nation.livejournal.com]

I know. We might as well enjoy the chance to laugh while we can.

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

Mulroney/Reagan was one of the few times our leaders have been politically aligned for any duration. Harper barely knew Bush.

[lai-choi-san.livejournal.com]

Thank you for enlightening us about what made the Harper's victory possible. I was really curious.

I have a question. Someone sent me this link with an interactive map :
http://www.cyberpresse.ca/actualites/elections-federales/
How do you explain the different results between the provinces (especially Québec) ?

[blue-mangos.livejournal.com]

Just as in America, different provinces lean further to the left or right and some provinces have more ridings than others. So when you look at the Yukon Territory and it's showing as 100% Conservative, that's because they have only one seat. The big stories of the night are Ontario, and as you pointed out Quebec.

Ontario has the largest number of seats in parliament by far. 106 compared to between 1-36 for most other provinces, except for Quebec with 75. Ontario has always been Liberal so Harper made sure to spend a lot of time focusing on it, especially Toronto and the surrounding areas as we carry so many seats. I'm assuming it was fear of the economy that led so many here to vote Conservative. My riding is an anomaly now, we remained Liberal (although I voted NDP).

Quebec is much easier to answer. Prior to this election the Bloc Quebecois had a stronghold on the province, using sovereignty as their main platform. Separation talk has decreased in Quebec over the past few years so it was no longer enough to hold onto people's votes, especially when you consider the rest of their ideologies are not that dissimilar to the NDP, who swept Quebec. Also, Quebec people historically love a charismatic leader and they found that in Jack Layton.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

"Jack Layton" is quite a dynamic and charismatic name on its own.

"Hi, I'm Jack Layton." It just sounds good. "Jack Layton, action mayor."

[blue-mangos.livejournal.com]

He's a total BAMF

(http://pics.livejournal.com/blue_mangos/pic/0000ac34/)

[lai-choi-san.livejournal.com]

I must admit : he doesn't have "dead eyes". ;D

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

Jack Layton plays pool with Tony Stark.

[sealwhiskers.livejournal.com]

He's totally what we in Sweden would call "a gray panther"! (sexy older gent)

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

You mean I have to dye my hair gray to be considered sexy?

[sealwhiskers.livejournal.com]

haha, no, it's just an age reference I think.

[dv8nation.livejournal.com]

Hey! I loved that guy on "Simon and Simon."

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese.

[sealwhiskers.livejournal.com]

Thanks for doing this write-up (yay, something not about Bin Laden!). Some parts of these trends are similar to ones in Sweden, others fairly different. (But the term "the Alliance" and what it roughly stands for, is spookingly similar). I read somewhere that the voting turnout in Canada this time was at an all time low, btw...

[blue-mangos.livejournal.com]

It was actually not bad, at 61%. That's up 2% from the last election in 2008.

[anosognosia.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's accurate to characterize the Alliance as far right-wing, especially when talking to Americans. This is an accurate description of how the Liberals characterized them in order to campaign against them, but it's hardly an accurate description of the reality. The Alliance, via Reform, developed out of the social credit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_credit) movement, which Americans would almost certainly regard as not only not right-wing, but moreover as expressly socialist. If you look at the differences between the Progressive Conservatives and the Reform/Alliance, there's no compelling way to situate them on a more vs. left right-wing scale. The essential difference between them, particularly given that Reform/Alliance got their initial impetus in federal politics almost exclusively on the Quebec sovereignty question, is the fundamentally federalist orientation of the PCs vs. the fundamentally grassroots/democratic reform orientation of Alliance/Reform. This doesn't map neatly onto a left-right axis, neither in general nor in the Canadian context. The Liberals have a more strongly federalist orientation than the NDP, but we tend to regard them as being relatively to the right, rather than relatively to the left.

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

That's like saying Tea Party or these libertarian types are lefties. In a way you're correct. But that's academic (theory) and we have populist understanding. Especially to an international audience like talk_politics heavilly populated with Americans, the tea party movement is certainly not leftist, nor are other libertarian groups. And niether was the Reform/Alliance.

Fiscally the Reform/Alliance was conservative.
Socially the Reform/Alliance was conservative.
And politically... reforming the Senate and encouraging small/less government are libertarian (conservative) ideals.

I agree that Reform came from the SoCreds. But so did the NDP. Reform (Manning in particular) was disillusioned with SoCred from the start. Senate reform was the main issue.

So the question is what part of Reform/Alliance was particularly socialist?

[anosognosia.livejournal.com]

"That's like saying Tea Party or these libertarian types are lefties."

I don't seem to be saying anything like this. Perhaps you could explain.

"I agree that Reform came from the SoCreds. But so did the NDP."

Indeed. That rather stands in support of my thesis that a facile left-right divide here fails to describe the facts.

"Reform (Manning in particular) was disillusioned with SoCred from the start. Senate reform was the main issue."

Manning ran on a SoCred bill, and Senate reform develops directly out of SoCred philosophy.

"So the question is what part of Reform/Alliance was particularly socialist?"

I don't know. That seems like an odd question.

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

Um, I have a completely different take on this election.

First of all, in Canada we don't have any abortion laws. Nada. Zip. Zero. Ziltch. So any promise by Harper was not to touch laws we don't have, because that would be impossible. Harper's promise, which he has kept, remains not to introduce any abortion laws. It was a promise that quieted Canadian fears about him, and pushed his party to the left.

During Harper's reign as minority Prime Minister he has slowly and steadily done this on a number of issues. He's quieted fears put out in vicious attack ads in previous elections while pushing his party further into Liberal territory.

This has resulted with the Liberals without a centrist platform by Canadian standards. The NDP are on the Left and not moved. The Tories became Centrists. And the Grits under Ignatieff leadership became lost, without any vision.

Quebec for a number of reasons went NDP. Yes, separatism is no longer all that important... but that's been true for many elections now. Quebeckers by and large have been bored with the same-old same-old year after year. DuCeppes certainly has charisma (concensus says he has won just about every leadership debate in the last decade) but that wasn't enough. Quebec wanted to try something new and Layton has been offering a new reinspired vision for Quebec for some years now.

Ignatieff hasn't inspired anyone. He defended his candidate who in criticizing minimum sentancing said there was rape and then there was rape-rape. And he certainly didn't try very hard to be heard by Canadians. Iggy refused to grant national interviews several times. Why would he turn down being on Adler?

Harper has instilled confidence. Unlike the other party leaders, Harper didn't freak out when the US mortgage crisis hit. He's proven himself far less scary then those fear mongerers talking about American style healthcare would have had us believe.

Glimmer of hope you forgot. Elizabeth May became first Green elected to Parliament. All those years of hard work finally paid off. Although overall support went down, Green candidates placed second in at least Dufferin-Caledon (Ont) and Wildrose(Ab). If May can keep the momentum going by the next election Greens could be where the NDP was last week.

I could go on, but that's enough fodder for now.

[blue-mangos.livejournal.com]

That's fine, I was hoping someone else would give their opinions as well. As I said, these were just my own personal thoughts on what went on and from an Ontario standpoint at that.

I agree completely that Harper has moved more to a centrist platform, I just hope that it was not just for the purpose of winning a majority government and will stay there.

And yes, I was very pleased for the first Green Party seat.

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

I can certainly hear your bias in your OP. I don't know if that's a typical Ontario viewpoint (I'm from Toronto, and my family is all out there) as much of Ontario voted blue Tory. When polls closed at 8pm Mountain time we knew Harper won at least a minority mostly from Ontario voters.

I'm just surprised how successful the attack ads from the last 7years have been with some voters like yourself. I mean where did you get the venom to say Harper has dead eyes? Harper is a good looking man, nice smile, etc. That and how you misrepresented the issues (of all the issues, you mentioned abortion. Seriously? I don't see that this was ever an issue. I mean not since 1979)

Yeah, I'm pretty confident Harper's Conservatives will stay centrist. Any move right will loose them support.

Yeah, I voted Green once again. I'm very pleased with May's seat.

[blue-mangos.livejournal.com]

Nice smile??? Are you kidding me? The man has all the charisma of a dead fish. I'm pretty sure the reason he's always late to the official G20 photos is he's in the bathroom practising how to smile like a human.

And yeah, I made no attempt to hide my bias, since it was an opinion piece I didn't feel it was necessary.

And I mentioned abortion because he specifically mentioned abortion on the campaign trail. It is a very real concern some women have about Harper, obviously, or it wouldn't have been needed to be brought up by him.

[anosognosia.livejournal.com]

"I'm just surprised how successful the attack ads from the last 7years have been with some voters like yourself... and how you misrepresented the issues (of all the issues, you mentioned abortion. Seriously? I don't see that this was ever an issue. I mean not since 1979)"

Like you say, it's the success of the attack ads. I know people who were in tears, absolutely distraught, both the previous election and again with this one, absolutely convinced that abortion will be completely outlawed in short order.

If you remember this stuff (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMsqEph7a8I), I knew a guy who started packing before the previous election, on the reasoning that "once the tanks are in the streets, we won't be allowed to leave."

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

This was very interesting, and informative (serious)

I have a friend in Vancouver who has been trying to explain Canadian politics to me for years. This was more easy to understand than anything Ive ever heard; unfortunately, I still don't get it (not quite so serious)

[blue-mangos.livejournal.com]

I did try to keep it as simple as possible for an international audience. As you can see from a discussion above, I skipped over some nuances that would have taken all of us much further into Canadian politics than I'm sure any of you want to go.