[promoted by BooMan]
Is it true? Did Canada take a swerve to the right? Did the media dialog carry the day? Well, no, not really. Things actually aren’t looking half-bad. At this point, it would probably require some major results tampering to wind up with a Conservative majority. The most likely result looks like a Conservative minority, with the balance of power resting with the Liberal party and the Bloc Québécois.
Detailed election results can be found on the CBC website. They have all sorts of interesting breakdowns and statistics. Most notable: the popular vote projections match the latest polls almost exactly. Looks like either Strategic intentionally over-estimated conservative support, or they really did peak too early.
If current projections hold, we Canadians are going to have a very interesting year ahead of us. The Conservatives are projected for 120 to 125 seats, well short of a majority and even worse off than the Liberal government last time. Harper’s going to have a tough time pushing through anything questionable, especially since another election’s likely in less than a year, so the leaders of the other parties are going to be waiting for him to do something stupid they can pounce on. Unfortunately, he’s probably between a rock and a hard place, and governing as a moderate won’t endear him to his base.
The Liberals are down to about 100 seats. Not good, but not as bad as many projections showed. It’s hard to say what will happen there, but given how badly Martin flubbed the campaign, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him out on his ear the next time the Liberal party has a leadership convention. The only real questions are whether that will be before the next election… And who will replace him. He’s spent the past 15 years purging competition, leaving his party weakened. Comparisons to the Progressive Conservatives after Mulrooney are probably going to be inevitable.
The NDP had a massive surge of support this election. They’re my party of choice, so I’m quite pleased about this. They went from 19 seats last time to an estimated 30 seats, possibly as high as 32. Despite the CW about Layton running a poor campaign, he appears to have delivered the goods. It’ll be interesting to see what he does with this. His party probably won’t have the balance of power, but he has shown them to be a viable alternative to the Liberals.
The Bloc appears to have done about as well as they always do.
Depending on how a few hotly contested seats play out, we may wind up with a very interesting situation: a minority government where any of the opposition parties can push the government over the magical 155 vote threshold. I’m not sure that’s ever happened before…
Update [2006-1-24 0:31:6 by Egarwaen]: Wow, two front-paged diaries in a week. I’m honoured! Thanks, Boo! Things just got even more interesting: Martin’s stepped down as leader of the Liberal party. I really don’t know what to make of that. None of the prominent Liberals really seem primed to step in as leader. Which leaves us with either a poor leader come next election, an outsider, or a backbencher.
Thanks for your post, Egarwaen. Much appreciated.
You’re welcome. 🙂 After doing some more digging, my riding got a 65% turnout by registered electors, or about 52% by population. A very good sign, especially since it’s got a high concentration of university students. (The NDP candidate won, of course)
I’m guessing – some Liberal voters wanted to send a message to the Liberal Party about not tolerating corruption and not getting complacent about taking being in power for granted, but couldn’t bring themselves to vote Conservative, so voted NDP to “send a message” to the Liberals.
And others were appalled/scared of the Conservatives’ social agenda and desires for closer ties to Bu$hCo and American foreign policy and voted NDP to say, hell no! that’s not the direction we want to go – going even farther to the left than they normally would to make that point because the growing strength of the Conservatives has them worried.
From comments over at dKos, some said that the NDP has a poor record when it comes to actually governing (in Ontario?). Although the NDP looks like a party after my own heart in terms of its leftishness, Liberals, whatever their current problems do seem to have a good record of governing – Canada and Canadians have done well while they have been in power.
Best case scenario perhaps? Liberals use the lesson of this election (both Conservative and NDP gains) to clean house and revitalize the party. They retake the majority or can form a strong minority government in the next elections. NDP becomes a strong and enduring enough force to keep them from straying rightward.
Your thoughts?
Federally, they’ve never gotten a chance, though Layton did manage some major legislative magic during the last year. Provincially, they’ve done pretty well. I believe the NDP government in BC, for example, was very successful, though I could be mistaken as I live on the other side of the country. The Conservatives definitely have a poor track record of late, both federally and provincially. Federally we had the Mulrooney government. Provincially, the Harris government did a number on Ontario, and was only recently kicked out.
The Liberals have done well in some ways, but not so well in others. They’ve been absolutely horrible for the environment, for example. Despite paying lip service to Kyoto, our carbon emissions are actually up.
I think that’s a best case scenario, and I think it’s actually pretty likely. Layton’s shown himself to be a strong leader, and he’ll have lots of chances to demonstrate that over the next few months. Martin’s stepped down, so if the party’s smart, they’ll do some major corruption-hunting, move their platform to the left a little (to put some space between them and Harper), and prepare for the next election.
Worst case scenario is that Harper somehow manages to avoid looking like a lunatic, but also manages to keep the support of his base, and gains a majority government next election. Somehow, I don’t think this is going to happen.
Well I for one am not very distressed by the results at all and in fact am quite pleased I was able to call Toronto & the 905 as well as I did, which, combined with Vancouver, denied the PC’s a majority or any mandate… 🙂
😉
Yup. I’m curious to see whether they’re going to claim they’ve got a mandate, though. If they do, it’s going to be an interesting few months, and probably a very short-lived government…
Absolutely. I was laughing at the emails Rex Murphy was reading last night on CBC from Canadians saying basically: listen scary-man Harper, we are pissed at the Liberals and giving you a tiny shot here, so you best not try any funny rightwing bullshit on us… 😉
They really have very little wiggle room outside of making a deal with the Bloc, which would really stir things up in the country… the Liberals and NDP just won’t let them gut any social programs or move the country too far to the right. It will be interesting to watch the next few months.
… and… the best part is that the PC’s didn’t get one damn seat in Montreal, Vancouver or Toronto. Kinda hard to claim a mandate to govern the country when the economic and cultural hubs gave you the finger…
They make a deal with the Bloc, they lose big next election. The Liberals (IIRC?) said that Harper’s federalist policies were “separatism in disguise”, and making a deal with the Bloc gives them plenty of ammo to repeat and amplify that message next time around. And that will not play well in Ontario, BC, or the Maritimes. I’m honestly not sure how it’d play in the prairies. I can see it being unpopular in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, but Alberta’s hard to call.
Didn’t stop Bush and, as I linked above, the conservative media’s already making mandate claims. I hope they’re shooting themselves in the foot, but we’ll see.
The one big difference that gives me hope is that Canada ain’t the US… and we have a much fairer national media.
I add my thanks.
Must confess, I was afraid to look at your diary for fear the world had “sickened” a bit more.
Congrats to your NDP!
Title amended to allay such fears!
Thanks, Egarwaen! I’ve been following this election with some interest, especially since I visited Canada for the first time last summer. I was quite startled (and depressed) by the sense of relief – as if a weight was lifting off of my shoulders – as I crossed the border, leaving my country behind.
Canada has since felt like a reminder that there are places in the world where basically sane, kind people are in the majority. (Did you see this by Spider Robinson? That’s what I’m talking about.)
I was worried that creeping corporate media mind-control was on its way to corrupting that light that gives me hope called Canada. Looks like for now, they’ve pretty much dodged that bullet. But vigilance is still required. Corporate media is a powerful force.
I hadn’t read that, but it matches my impression of my fellow Canadians very well. We’re generally nice, considerate people. Perhaps this is why I have so much trouble talking to Americans who are adamant that humans are fundamentally Bad People?
Unfortunately, we haven’t had a government that really represents our priorities for years thanks to strategic voting. People don’t want the Conservatives to get in, so they vote Liberal instead of NDP. Oops.
My view of the world and the humans in it has always been that most of us are fundamentally good, caring about others, doing our best to live our lives in harmony. After all, as a biologist who sees humans as a social species, what could be a stronger hard-wired drive than to love and be loved?
There are, of course, one must realistically acknowledge, bad people in the world, from sociopaths to ordinary selfish greedheads. They should be dealt with individually, imo, to protect the majority good folks. People who live as if surrounded at all times with evil ones, are in my experience very unhappy and neurotic.
Maybe that’s why I felt such a sense that I had “come home” when I went to Canada. There are days when I really, seriously wish that emigrating was a viable option for me.
JS, your feeling on crossing the border is one I’m sure I would share. Ergo, I haven’t made any plans to visit our northern neighbors. I’d be so overcome with the feeling that I’d be sorely tempted to stay on — & I doubt very much that they’d have me.
Jack Layton is urging unhappy Liberals to take the New Democrats for a test drive and try the party
“Lend us your vote while the party you’ve supported in the past cleans itself up,” he said in a speech yesterday at Centennial College in Toronto.
For a year or so I’ve been occasionally posting in the Orange place about my “just this once” campaign. I’m sure a search on that phrase will turn up Gooserock a number of times.
Orange? “Just this once?”
And has anyone noticed that Layton and Gooserock are never seen in the same place at the same time?
And how can I parlay this into expediting my immigration application?
So you’re, like… Bat-Layton or something?
so the Liberal leadership will take attention away from the new Prime Minister. Also didn’t Martin win his seat? So he will be in opposition giving Harper some payback.
Michael Ignatieff was asked about leadership ambitions tonight and he responded haughtily, “That’s a presumptuous question.”
He is a very ambitious man and he is a war hawk. I dread the thought.
It wouldn’t surprise me if the Liberals moved to the right, but I doubt it’s going to happen. I think they’re going to try to distance themselves from Martin as much as possible, and the only way to do that without turning into a carbon copy of the Conservative party is to move left.
The Liberals have a major strategic decision to make in the next six to eight months: whether to increase the share by moving to the right, which essentially means cutting into the Ontario Conservative vote and picking up a few seats in the Maritimes that they lost this time around, or trying to position themselves a bit more to the left, to undercut the NDP, which has absolutely no chance of forming a government, and holding and expanding their core vote in Montreal. A lot depends on how the separatist threat plays out in the next few months and to the degree to which the second Gomery Report, due in a few weeks, white-washes the outgoing Government.
A separatist retreat, which yesterday’s election demonstrated is a real possibility would open Quebec to a competition between two Federalist parties, the division being largely on cultural issues of the urban versus rural variety. In that case the obvious play would be fore the liberals to capture the progressive vote by moving left. Conversely, if the separatists surge, the best bet for them is to swing to the right.
On the whole, last night’s results are fairly satisfactory. The Conservatives won 10 seats in rural Quebec and around Quebec City, the Libs lost seats that were vulnerable and retained Outremont, which the Separatists had picked out for special attention (I worked in that election); the Conservatives have a minority that is so small that they cannot form a ruling coalition with any single party (other than the Liberals). That means status quo. Also, if Harper turns out to be more deft than his Party, it would be a good thing for Canada. If he doesn’t, then Libs are back in next time around.
All round, it’s too bads for Martin, but that’s politics. As to the rest, not so bad, and could have been much worse. I don’t expect to see much crowing from David Frum.
You’re assuming that the Conservative vote is actually conservative. All signs point to this not being the case. A lot of the vote for the Conservatives this time was people fed up with the Liberals who had been assured by CTV that Harper “wasn’t scary”. This only worked because the media obeyed Harper’s gag order on discussion of his party’s stance on same-sex marriage, the environment, and other social issues. After six to eight months in government, Harper’s policies are going to be front and centre in the public eye, and provided the Liberals can publically purge the party of corruption, they’re going to regain a lot of the votes they lost. Or Harper’s going to have delivered nothing to his base, and is going to be in big trouble there.
The NDP doesn’t have a chance of forming a government now, but they do have an excellent base to build on, especially if the Liberals don’t get their act together. A lot of people vote Liberal to keep the Conservatives out, but would vote NDP if they thought the NDP would win.
Even if the separatists surge, the Liberals’ best bet is to turn left. That could address their image problems in the Atlantic Provinces and the prairies. The Liberals’ failings there are because they’re perceived as being the party of Ontario and big Ontario corporations.
Being a glutton for punishment, however, here’s a question anyway. From the results, the Libs and the NDP easily surpass the magic 150 level. So I thought they could get together and form a government. But no.
Evidently the one party with the most votes gets to run things? Just like in Bushlandt?
While I’m on a roll, here’s another: you think the Libs will have to move left to differentiate themselves from the Cons. But the NDP is to their left. So doesn’t it seem like they’re on their way to being a party without a reason to exist? (Like the US Dems would be if the Green or somebody could ever get traction.)
They can’t, not without the help of the Bloc.
They’ve got plenty of room to move left. Under Martin, the Liberals came to be seen as a right-centre party. Very pro-corporate, pro-capital. They could wind up crashing and burning, like the Progressive Conservatives did after Mulrooney, in which case the NDP would pick up a lot of seats very quickly. However, this seems very unlikely.
Conservatives taking Canada?
Don’t ask me. Yahoo, for example, has headlines about voters “taking a chance” on Harper. Never mind that he got fewer votes than the “illegitimate” Liberal government did last time. (Though I just noticed that that article’s from Calgary, which explains the blatant bias) Voters didn’t take a chance on anything, they were just looking to punish Liberal corruption. I think it’s part of CTV’s ongoing “Canada turns into Nazi America” dialog. Sort of like Bush’s “mandate” after the 2004 election.
How did the Greens do?
All the small parties got no more than 5% of the vote, and no seats. No clue other than that.