Liberals 76 (26%), Conservatives 143 (38%), NDP 37 (18%), BQ 50 (10%), Greens 0 (7%), Other 2 (1%)
The Canadian election is all over and the result is yet another minority government for the Conservatives. The turnout was low and it looks like Canadians went with the devil they knew given the current economic climate.
The Liberals failed to make a dent, the NDP improved but to no effect. As is usual the Greens failed to garner much support on a percentage basis let alone win a seat and Bloc Quebecois did it’s usual thing in winning the majority of seats in Quebec.
Yes the Conservatives increased their representation and would like to claim some kind of mandate but a minority is a minority no matter how you spin it, so, Canadians will probably be back here again in a couple of years with the Conservatives vainly looking for a majority, quite possibly with a new leader – there is no question there will be a new Liberal leader; the academic Stéphane Dion failed to impress.
I suppose the good news is that any potential excesses of Conservative rule will be tempered by a wall of notionally progressive voices in the opposition benches; working together seems to be the political meme de jour right now anyway.
By the way, I was really interested in these hypotheses mentioned at the Poll Bludger because the Canadian election was mentioned.
Hypothesis one, from Peter Brent at Mumble: “Canada’s one-term government going for re-election (after only 18 months), amidst world economic turmoil, should provide some clue as to how Rudd & co might fare at the next election.”
Hypothesis two, from Adam in Canberra at this place: “It’s curious that the financial crisis seems to be working in favour of the incumbents in NZ (on the basis of one Morgan poll) and (I think so far) Australia, but against the incumbents in the US and Canada. That would suggest that conservatives are being blamed, not incumbents.”
Based on this one result it looks like the economic climate may favour the status quo, as long as they are seen to be doing something, so as Peter Brent mentioned, maybe this does hold a clue to the future for the Rudd government; now that it’s finally found a media narrative to run with.
Phil, re the Peter Brent hypotheses, some of the commentary I’ve read suggested the momentum turned against Harper because he refused to take any spectacular action to address the economic crisis, and was attacked by all the other parties on this basis, particularly in the debate. So the theory is that he threw away the chance of a majority by eschewing decisive action.
I’m also not very sure whether it has any relevance to Rudd’s chances. The next Australian election will not be held until the dust has well and truly settled – so while he will get points for acting now at a time of fear and uncertainty – the proof of the pudding will be in the eating. Ie – we won’t know for some time whether Rudd and Co will succeed in staving off a recession, and if they don’t, having said they would (more or less), that’ll be what they’ll be judged on, not the details of what they did in October 2008 – all though obvs it does give him a good base to build on to tell a story about leadership.
@Kim, oops, poorly worded sentence meant it in the context of the Rudd govt. I’ll strike but leave it in.
So have the Libs and NDP worked out a deal where they don’t run in each others’ ridings? I can imagine the non-Conservative vote would get split quite a lot. Of course, there’s the perennial “Greens as spoilers” problem under a First Past the Post voting system.
No probs, Phil.
I’m gonna get around to posting my results post in a little while.
On the economic front, I would argue Harper won in spite of the crisis, not because of it. Harper’s poll numbers went down as the crisis worsened, before returning. He was on track for a majority before the crisis.
On another front, no, the NDP and Liberals hate each other. The NDP has had some success in at least four provinces in forming governments. They currently form government in Manitoba and have formed government for the majority of the time since WWII in Saskatchewan.
It appears that the NDP’s strategy is to overtake the Liberals, which would give them the position to destroy the Liberals. In the meantime, any coalition deal would prevent them from overtaking the Liberals.
I had this to say on my site today in defence of “hypothesis two”. I would be interested to hear perspectives from people who do in fact know dick about Canada.
I guess I should have said “Dion’s disastrous television interview crystallised English-speaking voters’ doubts about him and drove them away from the Liberals“.
Yeah, that’s what I thought too, Ben. Harper’s position was Canadian economy fundamentally sound, banks well regulated, etc, no need to do anything – more or less. But given the integration and scale of the two economies, if America sneezes, Canada catches a cold.
I dunno about that, William. I think that was what the Conservatives were putting about. But I think Dion was a weak contender for a whole range of other reasons.
I watched the clip of Dion. The interviewer was the one who messed up by asking a poorly phrased question. Dion asked for clarification and it was clear he knew what the interviewer was asking but the interviewer was adamant that mixing tenses was a legitimate way to pose a question.
Liberals 76 (26%), Conservatives 143 (38%), NDP 37 (18%), BQ 50 (10%), Greens 0 (7%), Other 2 (1%)
Which simply shows that Canadians need MMP, or some other form of proportional representation.
Well, first past the post strikes again. To answer Sam’s question: no, Libs don’t have any agreement with NDP and/or Greens, although the Libs and Greens agreed not to run candidates in the seat of the other’s leader (not that this helped Elizabeth May, Greens leader, who I gather lots of people came to admire, nor improved Dion’s chances since he was in a very safe Quebec seat).
The first past the post thing and consequent vote splitting is what led to the merger between Reform and Conservatives. While Lib vote dropped a lot, most of it went to Greens/NDP, and would probably have ended back with the Libs in a preferential system.
I wonder if this might lead to Liberal support for voting reform.
Actually I believe there was a very limited agreement between the Libs and the Greens, where each didn’t run in one seat and encouraged people to vote for the other. I suspect the reason this wasn’t more widespread was that at least as many Green voters would prefer the NDP as the Libs. So for the Greens to be seen getting too close to the Libs would be damaging to them amongst swinging Green/NDP voters.
What is needed is for the Greens, Libs and NDP to cut a three-way deal. If they could do so they’d romp it in. But the Lib/NDP hostility makes this unlikely, and doing simultaneous deals with the NDP and the Libs would theoretically work for the Greens, but might involve more organisation than the Canadian Greens can muster.
Jeez, Phil – 7% up from 4.5%, garnered in a single member first past the post system where many potential Greens voters cannot bring themselves to do so (because the Greens cannot win the seat) is a pretty tremendous result, I would have thought!
It’s no coincidence that the Australian Greens do best in places like Tasmania, the ACT, the Federal Senate, NZ and Germany where the electoral systems make it more achievable for Greens to win seats. People don’t like to feel they are ‘wasting’ their vote, so they won’t cast a vote for a candidate who has no chance of winning, most particularly not when there is no flow of preferences.
Harper minority government may fall
Couldn’t happen to a nastier bunch of bastards, uless it was the Cheney-American Imbecile mob.
I was actually in the country for 9 days while the election happened. I recall one article pointing out that the Greens should really give up, because all their vote did was to ensure that the party with the worst environmental policies prevailed.
What surprised me was that I heard nothing about the antiquated, anti-democratic first-past-the-post voting system.
Then there was this article by John Robson (which I read in The Vancouver Sun – btw I notice that Harper has scrapped the proposal to end public subsidies for political parties which was snuck in as part of his fiscal defence proposals) which suggests that the policies of all parties other than the Conservatives are leftish and they really ought to get together.
Certainly with a combined vote of 61% there seems to be no prospect at all of unseating the Conservatives who did quite nicely in gaining 46% of the seats with 38% of the votes.
I did run into the opinion that no politician should have too much power, so it was best if you always had a minority government. If that opinion was widespread maybe Canadians are getting the government that suits them.
ZOMG It’s on! The Libs, NDP and Le Bloc have signed a coalition agreement and written to the GG. Harper is recommending parliament be prorogued until the New Year or failing that, new elections.
The game is, as they say, on.
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/546315
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There was an election in Cababa?
So… how did it turn out? Did the Cababians vote for the hockey player, the irritating leftist, or the moose?