It’s on. After all the argy bargy, close calls, investigations, lies and dammed lies, an election will soon be thrust upon the Canadian electorate. And it’s gonna be cold outside baby.
On Monday there will be a vote of non-confidence brought before parliament, the first in Canadian history not attached to a proposed piece of legislation. The center left New Democrats tired of propping up the Govt. have combined with the official opposition Conservative Party of Canada and the Bloc Quebecois to force the writ. Election day will be either the 16th or 23rd of January with a break for Christmas/New Years, which means a seven or eight week campaign. Yup, two months of sound bites interrupting the fights hockey, Canadians will not be amused.
The ruling Liberal Party of Canada, has managed to survive to this point so far through a mastery of parliamentary tactics, the support of the New Democrats, and the disaster that is conservatism in Canada. Faced with a choice between American and Republican inspired ratbaggery versus homemade Canadian corruption, the Canadian people appear to prefer the corruption.
However, there is a wild card in the upcoming election, and that is the politically progressive New Democrats. Leader Jack Layton has used all of the political jockeying over the last few months to stake out a strong position as the cleanskin and honest broker of the political scene. As a result the New Democrats have managed to stabilise their polling numbers at the twenty percent level for a few months now.
As might be expected, the jockeying for first points has begun with the Conservative leader Stephen Harper off to a fine start, accusing the Liberals of “breaking every conceivable law in the province of Quebec with the help of organized crime”, and MP John Reynolds, the Conservatives’ campaign co-director, calling Immigration Minister Joe Volpe a sleazebag. The Liberals as expected reacted with righteous indignation, amusing when, based on previous behaviour, it’s probably true. The New Democrats, as befitting their loftier ideals and focus on policy, will no doubt stand aside while these two tired dinosaurs tear chunks out of each other.
Because of the long campaign, my prediction is for a return of the Liberals to Government with minority support by the New Democrats, this will just be an effective return of the current status quo unless the New Democrats win a few extra seats and gain a more powerful representation within a coalition. Conservative leader Stephen Harper has proven that he is not a good campaigner so a long one means curtains for him, surrounded as he is by an even nuttier group of advisers, by week four he’ll be spending more time putting out internal fires, many of which he’ll have started himself, which is probably just fine, he’ll need to keep warm.
Cheers, Phil.
How left are the New Democrats these days?
Well, you know, leftism is a funny thing but let’s just say that they are really social democrats who used to be socialists. They stand for all of the usual SD goodness and centrism.
As a matter of fact I do regard the New Dems as centrists, so skewed to the right is modern day politics that they will be painted a wild eyed radicals. Yet they will be the kingmakers. And that’s a win for Canada.
Get rid of them and bring on a conservative government
The Liberal Party are centre to centre-right on fiscal issues and generally liberal on social issues; often they have been compared to a Hawke Labor or a Fraser Liberal government.
The Conservative Party are hard right fiscally and socially, much further right than the Liberal Party of Australia. They are an amalgamation of the previously moderate-right Progressive Conservative Party which was in power in the early 1990s under Brian Mulroney, and the Reform Party/Canada Alliance which are a western-based far-right extremist party. The latter is the dominant faction. They support much reduced taxes and repealing the gay marriage statute.
The NDP is left to centre-left and in Australian equivalents lie somewhere between the “socialist-left” factions of the ALP and the Greens. The Bloc Quebecois is socially liberal, but they are not interested in anything but the welfare of Quebec and will have no qualms about bringing down a Liberal government.
The most likely outcome is a weak minority Conservative government propped up by the Bloc Quebecois. The best possible outcome is a Liberal minority government dependent on the NDP. Bush and Harper running North America would be an unmitigated disaster and a tragedy for that continent.
Thanks for fleshing that out Max, and I agree with your best outcome statement, an even better outcome will be a collapse of the CPoC vote and an NDP opposition…..hey, it’s a dream. However, all of the polling over the past 18 months indicate a minority return of the Libs supported by the NDP, and my Canadian operatives also known as family and friends tell me that the CPoC is unelectable with the exception of Alberta.
As a point of interest, my old electorate of Scarborough-Rouge (East Toronto) had a byelection on Thursday??? the Liberal party candidate won…..admittedly it is a Liberal stronghold but no backlash was detected.The percentages?
Liberal 58
CPoC 24
NDP 15
The turnout? A pathetic 19% of eligible voters. The weather? The first winter storm of the year.
The latest national polls from Ekos and Ipsos:
Liberals 38.7
Conservatives 29.4
New Democrats 16.9
Bloc Quebecois 10.6
Green Party 3.9
And:
Liberals: 34%
Conservatives: 30%
New Democrats: 16%
Bloc Quebecois: 15%
Greens: 5%
This will be the first Canadian election I get to vote in, and it’s not a pretty one. The Liberals are really entrenched in power, which I think isn’t a good thing, and a lot of their policies seem to be about buying particular groups off (they just brought down a mini-budget, doling out the goodies). The NDP are OK sometimes, but only sometimes and only OK. The fomerly-Conservatives part of the Conservative Party have their strong points, but the formerly-Alliance (and I think dominant) part of the Conservative Party are nutters. So I don’t know which to vote for.
And on top of it all, voting is first past the post, so if you want to have an impact you can’t vote for the Greens (run by a former member of the Conservative Party, so trying to be fairly economically sensible but in an environmentally conscious way).
The CPoC-BQ outcome might not be too bad. It couldn’t possibly sustain itself too long (the two parties have independentist streaks, but hail from different parts of the country which seem to have opposing interests and values), and might be good for entertainment value for a bit. Don’t know that Harper could achieve much in that sort of coalition.