Canadian and NZ elections

[Lurker]

C'mon Vison give Harper a chance!
I'd rather have him as PM than Dion (I'm French Canadian and half the time I don't freaking understand what the heck he is saying. ) or Layton...that...that....argh I can't say it or else I'll get in trouble again.

Have you heard that Harper used the word sepratists in English and Soveriegnists in French during his speech last night.

Albertans are getting upset about this.
Princess said it's okay just as long as Justin Trudeau is PM. Sure... let's all rally behind the pretty boy.

[vison]

Why should anyone give Harper a chance? He called an election nobody really wanted - and then the first thing, what does he do? He tries to throw his weight around, bringing in business he must have known the opposition wouldn't support.

Staggeringly poor idea, actually. Hey, bud: you don't have a majority in the House, why would you try this? Never mentioned it during the election campaign. What was the rush? Like, there are no more important problems in Canada right now?

I think he should resign as Conservative leader and maybe they'll get someone in that I can actually respect and support.

He brought this on himself. Pride goeth before a fall.

[Túrin Turambar]

So as any of you who have been following world events will know, the Harper Government’s Budget was defeated on the floor of the House of Commons on March 25, forcing another election. It will be Canada’s fourth since 2004.

As for the details, the opposition parties voted down the budget because they didn’t like it for various reasons, and because they held the Government to be in contempt of Parliament following the proroguing incident in 2009. I have no idea what they are trying to achieve – Canadians aren’t exactly dying for another election.

The election will be on May 2, but even though I try to keep abreast of foreign current affairs I don’t expect this one to be that exciting. Stephen Harper can sing and play the piano, but he has a good claim to being the most boring leader in the western world. That said, he’s chugged along steadily as the leader of two minority governments, the Conservatives are ahead in the opinion polls, and he may get a majority this time.

The Liberals, the chief opposition party, absolutely baffle me. At least in Michael Ignatieff they have a leader who can speak clear English, unlike his predecessor, Stephane Dion. But Ignatieff, for all his accolades as a writer and academic, is going to be absurdly easy to paint as elite and out-of-touch. Prior to winning a seat in the last election, he’d spent the previous 27 years in various academic posts in the U.S. and U.K., writing books on foreign policy and human rights. And he even manages to make Harper look animated at times. How the Liberals plan to sell him to a Canadian public nervous about the country’s economic recovery and irritated and getting another election pushed on them is a mystery to me.

Harper isn’t any sort of political genius, but the Liberals have truly made an art of finding some of the least-electable politicians in Canada to throw against him. The main question is whether he’ll be able to form a majority government, and even that isn’t enough to really get me engaged with this.

[vison]

Same here.

I, personally, would vote for Satan himself if he could beat Harper. But Satan isn't running.

[Hachimitsu]

I used to think Harper would have a chance at a majority this time. But after talking to several people, it only appears that more people get this control freak/dictatorial vibe from him. Not to mention he is more from a socially conservative part of the Conservative party and at least some people are afraid that will come out in full force if he gets a majority. He has been careful about hiding and concealing those two things, but not careful enough Also Harper's singing is not that good.

Ignatief, it's not just that he is boring, it's that he was out of the country for almost 30 years and he only comes back when there could be a chance at being Prime Minister. That gives a very negative impression about him, and I do not think he can do anything to fix that (short of turning back time). He talks a smooth game, but everyone I have spoken to is not buying it.

All the rest of the leaders have not changed since the last election and there is nothing appealing about them either.

All the leaders are the same since the last election, and it seems the public's feelings on them are pretty much the same as last time. No one likes any of them enough to think any of the current parties deserve a majority.

[vison]

Let's give Iggy a chance, I say.

[Túrin Turambar]

Well, he’s done it. CBC is forecasting that the Conservatives have won 168 seats, more than the 155 they needed. The Liberals have been decimated, winning only 33 seats. Ignatieff may have even been defeated in his own riding. The NDP will form the opposition. And in an unexpected development, the Bloc Quebecois have been wiped out, going from 49 seats to 2.

So a much more interesting result than I expected. Still, I’ll never know what the Liberals were expecting with Ignatieff.

[vison]

Well, he’s done it. CBC is forecasting that the Conservatives have won 168 seats, more than the 155 they needed. The Liberals have been decimated, winning only 33 seats. Ignatieff may have even been defeated in his own riding. The NDP will form the opposition. And in an unexpected development, the Bloc Quebecois have been wiped out, going from 49 seats to 2.

So a much more interesting result than I expected. Still, I’ll never know what the Liberals were expecting with Ignatieff.

Yes, quite the surprising night. Not so much that the Conservatives got their majority, but that the NDP took so many seats - especially in Quebec! Absolutely amazing.

So much for les separatistes.

I am no fan of Harper at all. The Conservatives could do better than this inanimate blob. But he's the PM for another stint, unfortunately.

[Hachimitsu]

I was quite surprised by the count at the poll I worked at and we had a very high voter turnout We had to keep pushing a ruler in the ballot box since it was so full). The almost no messed up ballots (I spoke to other DROs), voters had some thing to say and they were unambiguous about it.

While I am not happy about the result (Harper why are you so afraid of independent women?) I am at least pleased about the turn out.

The NDP being the official opposition is a stunner. Here is hoping they can hold the Conservative majority to task (like, the Conservatives being so scared of independent women).

[SirDennis]

Sadly it is only when we have a minority government that it matters who forms the opposition.

I'm pretty bummed that Harper has a majority (and with less than 50% of the votes cast, what's wrong with this picture?) The Conservatives were palatable as long as they were a minority government. Now the proverbial crud will hit the fan and there's nothing anyone can do about it.

We've had two decades of right ~ centre right rule and two decades of economic decline. That the Consevatives won by saying it would be gambling with Canada's economic stability to elect a New Democratic government is mind boggling. They are the only mainstream party who hasn't been proved to be bad for the economy.

[Hachimitsu]

About the NDP yeah, I know it does not really matter, but I can hope. I already know who my MP will be. I have spoken to him in the past, and he even visited the polling station. I have a feeling I will speaking debating with him quite few times in the future, to the point where he will curse my name.

I do think frequently going to elections pissed people off to much and if they never worked an election, they may not understand how things work and form very uninformed opinions about it. (One voter basically said, a group of people had redundant jobs when they didn't. they just were not executing the job properly. Because of that, apparently my job was redundant (I was a DRO) some people don't want stuff explained to them.

Many people were stunned to find out that we don't go home at 9:30 (pools close), and we count the ballots.On top of all that we don't get breaks except for the bathroom. Many people did not realize the job was that serious. My poll clerk even told one voter, that if votes go missing I get in big trouble. The voter was quite surprised and thanked us quite a bit for our hard work.

I really thought everyone knew ballots were counted by hand the second the polls close.

[Túrin Turambar]

Look at the Map, it’s remarkable. The Conservatives have stormed home in South Ontario, driving the Liberals into a handful seats in the inner cities. And at the other extreme, they’ve won Yukon and Nunavut! And the Greens have won a seat in B.C., too. Their first.

Quebec has gone overnight from a sea of light blue to a sea of orange. Hell, the NDP has carried rural seats in western Ontario. The only noticeable areas of red on the map are in the Atlantic Provinces.

For comparison, this’d be as if, in an American election, the Democrats suddenly carried Wyoming and the Republicans won across Los Angeles.

For comparison, you can see a 2008 map here.

Canadian politics is often boring, but when things happen, they sure happen.

[Hachimitsu]

L_M,
have you looked back in Canadian Politics when the Progressive Conservatives got reduced to 2 seats after the GST came in? Just was curious on your thoughts on that. The way you describe Canadian politics , you make is sound quite epic.

I wish I could be excited, but I am a sad, since women's rights are going goodbye, and environmentalism too. They backed out of Kyoto with a minority, goodness knows what they will do with a majority.


The Bloc getting decimated sounds interesting, but I am a bit depressed.

[vison]

I worked as DRO in several elections and also the Meech Lake vote. I enjoyed it, and always felt like I was doing something important.

This is a watershed election, for sure. And I do remember the Tories being ERASED a while back. What goes around comes around.

There were a lot of things about this election that angered me, mostly the adoption of US-style attack ads. They worked. So will we see more of them. That's bad.

[Túrin Turambar]

L_M,
have you looked back in Canadian Politics when the Progressive Conservatives got reduced to 2 seats after the GST came in? Just was curious on your thoughts on that. The way you describe Canadian politics , you make is sound quite epic.

One of the idiosyncracies of Canadian politics is the tendency of the voters to completely wipe out parties at elections. There's no comparison to it in the U.K., the U.S., Australia or New Zealand. What is a one-sided election by American or British standards isn't by Canadian standards. The 1993 election, when the PCs went from 151 seats to 2 is a classic example. 1984, when the Liberals went from 147 seats to 40 is another.

The sudden and rapid rise and fall of third and fourth parties is also a Canadian oddity. The Bloc Quebecois appeared out of nowhere in 1993 to win 54 seats, and were wiped out just as suddenly in this election. Since 1980, the voters of Quebec have overwhelmingly given their votes to the Liberals, then the Conservatives, then the Bloc, and now the NDP. It'd be as if four different parties won 40 of California's fiftysomething House of Representatives seats over 30 years.

[SirDennis]

Not very log ago the Conservative Party was wiped out, down to 4 seats. Much of their support went to a party further to the right called the Reform Party. Some Conservatives and Reform joined forces during the "Unite the Right" craze. They were called the Alliance party for awhile and then took the name Conservative Party again. Harper came up through the Reform side. His party is not the Conservative Party of years past, but the Reform Party. And they scare the poop out of me.

[Hachimitsu]

THanks Sir Dennis, for explaining stuff about the Conservative party. I was a teenager while that was going on, and they did scare the poop out of me too, which is why I am so bummed out about this.

I have explained this to my young friends and they actually are quite surprised when I tell them about the recent history of the Conservative party. A friend my age who was alittle wary of the Reform party is quite pleased with a Conservative majority. How quickly people forget.

Do you think there will be efforts to unite the left?

Also, L_M , I did not know wiping out parties was unique. Why do you think that is?

[SirDennis]

Interesting question. The NDP and Liberals toyed with the idea briefly just before Harper prorogued parliament (to avoid the Afghan detainee scandal) back in December 2009*. But it turned out that Iggy, like Harper, was not interested in sharing power. (Wonder if he's changed his mind since then? ETA: oh yeah I just remembered he quit politics and is hoping to teach again.)

Someone commented today on Cross Country Check-up (CCCup on CBC Radio 1) that most democracies around the globe are becoming polarized: parties firmly on the left or the right are surviving while centrist parties are in decline. Funny thing is for years I've viewed the NDP as centrist (more like the Trudeau Liberals), the Liberals as centre right, traditional Conservatives as right, and Harper's Conservatives (and Ontario's Progressive Conservatives) as far right.

Incidentally, on CCCup two ideas that were repeated a few times is that Harper proved he wants to govern for the people (his voters and the rest of Canada) and that people respect the way he dealt with the economic crash. But what they fail to acknowledge is that he had to behave the way he did, and handle the economy as he did, because he was leader of a minority government. Now that he has a majority I fully expect him to ignore the opposition and do whatever his caucus wants. As they are mainly far-right Reformers it does not bode well for any of us.

*interesting piece on the proroguing: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/pol ... le1415391/

[vison]

I agree with that. And we are stuck with him.

I could bear it better if: he would stop this idiotic idea of building more prisons, and if he would be up front about his social programs.

He does not deserve much credit for Canada sailing relatively unscathed through the Crash: our splendidly regulated and sober banks are the main reason.

You might remember that Jim Flaherty was pooh-poohing the whole crash for DAYS after it happened.

[Hachimitsu]

He does not deserve much credit for Canada sailing relatively unscathed through the Crash: our splendidly regulated and sober banks are the main reason.

I have talked to other people and they have said the similar.