[Canadian Election Results] Harper vs Iggy vs the 'stache

[katmai]

Results in Yukon are still tight - but the good guys are up by 200 votes with 1 poll remaining.

NDP! yay!

[katmai]

Lol either of you guys live in the one little orange riding in sea of blue in Alberta?

[Barrister]

Lol either of you guys live in the one little orange riding in sea of blue in Alberta?

Neil.

[katmai]

Lol either of you guys live in the one little orange riding in sea of blue in Alberta?

Neil.

I figured, as it was NDP last time out too iirc.

[Barrister]

Lol either of you guys live in the one little orange riding in sea of blue in Alberta?

Neil.

I figured, as it was NDP last time out too iirc.

[Zoupa]

C'est incroyable comment ces gens ne comprennent rien parce qu'ils ne veulent rien comprendre! *hoche la tête*

Ce qui m'étonne toujours, c'est l'assurance avec laquelle on se prononce sur les forces et les mouvances québécoises, en n'en ayant que ce qui m'apparaît qu'une compréhension finalement limitée. Il ne viendrait à l'idée de personne de pontifier sur la vie politique d'un pays étranger dont on ne comprendrait pas la langue, et pour lequel il faudrait se reposer sur de rares commentaires d'interprètes autorisés. Je lis l'anglais, et je m'intéresse à la vie politique canadienne (ce qui déjà n'est pas commun au Québec...) et je suis toujours très prudent à avancer des analyses sur ce qui peut bien expliquer la politique ontarienne ou britano-colombienne.

C'est une attitude assez specifique a Toronto. Bizarre, mais c'est ainsi.

[viper37]

Well there's a number of people who must be getting slightly nervous in Quebec right now.  First and foremost: Pauline Marois - so long as Duceppe was in Ottawa he wasn't a direct threat to her... shall we say lukewarm leadership.  But now he's suddenly available.  Yet the worst thing the separatists could do at this point would be to start fighting amongst each other.  They need to concentrate all their attacks on the provincial Liberals.  These I suspect are also quite nervous.  The collapse of the Bloc didn't benefit 'their' brand and in fact it freed a lot of 'enemy assets' to return to the Quebec front...

The next few years should prove interesting.




G.

Could the man who destroyed the Bloc be a good choice for the PQ?  I doubt it.  Not that Marois is a good leader, or was even a good Minister, but Duceppe ain't any better.

[viper37]

The NDP came to 100 voice of winning my riding.  I'm scared at so many commies around here.

[Jacob]

Which is why I didn't use the word "every", or even "none".

Uhm... you should probably go back to read the post that I replied to at the beginning of this exchange. It says:

Today, every Westerner loves Toronto and Ontario.

[Barrister]

Which is why I didn't use the word "every", or even "none".

Uhm... you should probably go back to read the post that I replied to at the beginning of this exchange. It says:

Today, every Westerner loves Toronto and Ontario.

Fair enough

[citizen k]

Canada's Conservatives win coveted majority
By ROB GILLIES, Associated Press

TORONTO – Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper won his coveted majority government in elections that changed Canada's political landscape with the opposition Liberals and Quebec separatists suffering a shattering defeat.

Harper, who took office in 2006, has won two elections but until Monday's vote had never held a majority of Parliament's 308 seats, forcing him to rely on the opposition to pass legislation.

While Harper's hold on Parliament has been tenuous during his five-year tenure, he has managed to nudge an instinctively center-left country to the right. He has gradually lowered sales and corporate taxes, avoided climate change legislation, promoted Arctic sovereignty, upped military spending and extended Canada's military mission in Afghanistan.

Elections Canada reported preliminary results on its website, giving the Conservatives 167 seats, which will give Harper four years of uninterrupted government.

"We are grateful, deeply honored, in fact humbled by the decisive endorsement of so many Canadians," Harper told elated supporters at the Telus Convention Centre in Calgary, Alberta.

The leftist New Democratic Party was projected to become the main opposition party for the first time in Canadian history with 102 seats, tripling their support in a stunning setback for the Liberals who have always been either in power or leading the opposition.

"It's an historic night for New Democrats," NDP leader Jack Layton told a delirious crowd in downtown Toronto.

Harper was helped by the NDP surge, which split the left-of-center vote in many districts, handing victory to Conservative candidates, especially in Ontario, where the Liberals were decimated in their last national stronghold.

Former colleagues of Harper say his long-term goals are to shatter the image of the Liberals — the party of former Prime Ministers Jean Chretien, Lester Pearson and Pierre Trudeau — as the natural party of government in Canada, and to redefine what it means to be Canadian.

Harper, who comes from the conservative western province of Alberta, took a major step toward that goal on Monday night as the Liberals suffered their worst defeat in Canadian history — dropping to 34 seats from 77, according to the preliminary results.

Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff congratulated Harper and New Democrat leader Jack Layton and accepted responsibility for the "historic defeat."

"Democracy teaches hard lessons, and we have to learn them all," Ignatieff told a somber gathering in Toronto.

Ignatieff, who even lost his own seat in a Toronto suburb, said, "I will play any part that the party wishes me to play as we go forward to rebuild."

Stephen Clarkson, a professor of political science at the University of Toronto, said the 52-year-old Harper should now be considered a transformative figure in Canadian history.

"It's a sea change," Clarkson said.

The New Democrats' gains are being attributed to Layton's strong performance in the debates, a folksy, upbeat message, and a desire by the French-speakers in Quebec, the second most populous province, for a new face and a federalist option.

Voters indicated they had grown weary with the separatist Bloc Quebecois, which had a shocking drop to four seats from 47 in the last Parliament. Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe lost his own seat and immediately resigned.

Quebeckers said separatism was still an important force, despite the province's rejection of the Bloc.

"I would caution anyone to think that the independence movement is dead at any time," said Bruce Hicks, a political scientist at the Universite de Montreal. "This is one of those burning embers things. It takes very little to ignite it, but right now it's only embers."

The Green party won its first seat ever in the House of Commons with leader Elizabeth May winning in a British Columbia district.

The Conservatives got 40 per cent of the vote, compared to 31 per cent for the NDP and a dismal 19 per cent for the Liberals.

The NDP's gains marked a remarkable shift in a campaign that started out weeks ago looking like a straight battle between Harper and Ignatieff, a distinguished academic, with the 60-year-old Layton recovering from prostate cancer and a broken hip.

Harper counted on the economy to help hand him the majority. Canada has outperformed other major industrialized democracies through the financial crisis, recovering almost all the jobs lost during the recession while its banking sector remains intact. He said he would continue his plan to create jobs and growth without raising taxes.

He campaigned on a message that the New Democrats stood for higher taxes, higher spending, higher prices and protectionism. He called the election a choice between "a Conservative majority" and "a ramshackle coalition led by the NDP that will not last but will do a lot of destruction."

Gerry Nicholls, who worked under Harper at a conservative think tank, has said that having the New Democrats' as the main opposition party would be ideal for Harper because it would define Canadian politics in clearer terms of left vs. right.

The Conservatives have built support in rural areas and with the "Tim Horton's crowd" — a reference to a chain of doughnut shops popular with working class Canadians. They also have blitzed the country with TV attack ads, running them even during telecasts of the Academy Awards and the Super Bowl.

Lawrence Martin, a political columnist for The Globe and Mail newspaper and author of "Harperland: The Politics of Control," calls Harper "the most autocratic and partisan prime minister Canada has ever had."

But to remain in office through the longest period of minority government in Canadian history, Harper had to engage in a constant balancing act. The three opposition parties combined held 160 seats in the last Parliament, while the Conservatives held 143. The Liberals held 77, the New Democrats 36 and the Bloc Quebecois 47.

Harper has deliberately avoided sweeping policy changes that could derail his government, but now has an opportunity to pass any legislation he wants with his new majority.


Associated Press Writers Jeremy Hainsworth in Vancouver, British Columbia, Charmaine Noronha in Toronto, and Selena Ross and Sean Farrell in Montreal contributed to this report.

[Oexmelin]

So I would like outside opinions.  How was Harper's speech?  He won the desired majority, but hardly overwhelmingly.  Was it statesmanly?  Did it reach out?

I am not the target of Harper's speech, but I rarely think his speech are statesmanly. They feel wooden, short and shallow, without breadth. "Lowering your taxes" rarely makes for inspiring moments or rhetoric; it seemed like a bad Throne Speech. Yet it looks like it's what conservative partisans like to hear, though he felt more human that his usual robotic-frozen self.

It was a nice touch that he semi-mocked his constant delivery of the exact same words. The weaving of the words of O Canada felt cheap. The last part was a bit more inspired, though.

It was strange that he needed to point out he would govern for everyone "even those who didn't vote for us". Well, duh. Lots of small hints of Harper's slightly twisted views (Canada's political life is turbulent??!?! It is time to go home?!? Didn't you just win the fight of your life?)

I especially thought the fearmongering was unbecoming ("this world is dangerous!, thank God Canada is an island of stability!").

[Gaius Marius]

I don't know what to make of Layton's speech.  It sounded more like a stump speech than anything else (not that there's anything wrong with that).

Wow there's some irony - "the NDP is represented in every province of Canada except for PEI and Saskatchewan".

The NDP was founded in Saskatchewan...

They had a pair of close results in Sask (<1000 votes) and a few other respectable ones (35%+). In a different year, the close splits might have worked the other way. But the voters wanted to end minority status, and enough of the rump Liberal voters in the west went over to the Tories to ensure NDP pickups were thwarted. A great showing in Winnipeg for the Tories, dislodging the NDP from all but one riding, the NDP in turn almost completing the extinction of Liberals. Probably in 4 years' time Rebecca Blaikie will unseat the Libs if her party doesn't abuse its new enhanced status the way the Democrats did to a great extent south of the border.

The NDP will have to reorient itself a bit back towards its CCF side if its going to keep rural Quebec ridings and build in the BC interior and  Saskatchewan at the end of the Conservative mandate. I'd suspect their distribution of sears is still too skewed towards urban ridings (St. Johns, Hallifax, QC/MTL, Toronto, Hamilton, Vancouver) when the current distribution of the 308 seems to favour rural areas outside of the GTA.

The Conservatives just have to resist temptation to move right socially when they promised to focus on the economy. Achieve that, and Ontario will deliver for them again in 4 years. They were close to picking up a few more Ontario seats.

I've never voted for the other parties before, so I'll leave their electoral futures to the prognostications of others.

[Grey Fox]

Sovereignty isn't achieve in Ottawa but in Quebec. An Harper majority will help the cause.

Why would you be a sovereigntist anyways?  Aren't you the kind of of guy who needs Canada to send money to Quebec so that they can support you?

No more then you. Mister Oil subsidies.

[Josephus]

Will there be a merging of NPD-Liberal Party?

No.

Not yet. The Liberals are too proud and will refuse to negotiate with the NDP from a weaker position. No, they'll run one more election. And though they'll probably gain seats especially in Quebec, it won't be enough to stop another Conservative victory.

Then the NDP and Liberals may reconsider.