My Current Events - The Recent Canadian Election

Bilaal Rajan Thursday, October 16, 2008
The Fiasco Complete, This Minority Will Have to Suffice for Harper
Roy MacGregor Wednesday's Globe and Mail
October 15, 2008 at 1:49 AM EDT
Article:

Now that this turkey's done, let the chickens come home to roost.
Let us begin with the Prime Minister.
Perhaps it is only appropriate that the Hunter's Moon was in full glory this clear night over Ottawa. Also known as the Blood Moon, it seems an ideal choice to show the way ahead.
It was clear, from the moment polls closed in Eastern Canada, that nothing significant was going to change. As CTV's Craig Oliver so accurately called it, the “Groundhog Day” election was over. Or was it?
What's everyone doing tomorrow?
The Prime Minister of Canada broke a law, his own law, in order to gain what he believed would be an easy majority government without waiting for the legal fixed-date election. For Conservatives to pretend, as they did all last evening, that the object all along was to gain another minority is to insult the intelligence of everyone old enough to cast a vote – no matter for which party.
After 37 days and $300-million, the conclusion is not profoundly different today than it was on the day the Prime Minister called the Parliament “dysfunctional” and claimed it was not working – except, of course, for all the claims he instantly made to the contrary.
How, one wonders, could Stephen Harper not have won an easy majority when the Liberals began play with an empty net and never really got their game together?
If there is no immediate blood on the floor where Stephen Harper stands – he does, after all, have a “stronger” minority – then surely mops will be required this morning wherever Stéphane Dion chooses to stand, his only ally in holding onto power the powerlessness of his own nearly bankrupt party.
And yet how, one also must wonder, could the Liberals not capitalize on the long string of Tory goofs – apologies over puffins and stupid comments of workers and cabinet ministers, a serious faux pas in Quebec over the arts and crime, Harper's cold-hearted comment about buying stocks when the world appears in collapse – if the Liberals really are, as they believe, the natural ruling party of Canada?
Given the performance of the two main characters in this expensive farce, Harper and Dion, one is reminded of the comment Marion Pearson let slip in the John Diefenbaker sweep of 1958, when her husband, Lester, took Algoma East: “We've lost everything. We've even won our own seat!”
Harper, with his iron grip on everything in the Conservative Party from policy to the Pepsi supply, will surely hold on until, one distant day, the forces who now believe he can never deliver a majority start wondering where all those familiar old Tory knives are buried.
Dion, on the other hand, is doomed. He not only ran a dreadful campaign – incapable of explaining the only plank that mattered, the Green Shift – he had to turn in the end to those he defeated in the 2006 Liberal leadership race. Not only does he now have the ambitions and rabid supporters of Rae, Ignatieff, Hall Findlay, Dryden and Kennedy to contend with, but a whole new wave of leadership hopefuls in Justin Trudeau and Dominic LeBlanc and, presumably, names not yet heard in the national chat room.
M. Dion is toast.
And given that both the main parties performed so listlessly, how can it be that Jack Layton, who seemed alert as a chihuahua at the mail slot throughout the campaign, could gain no remarkable traction himself beyond the usual NDP payoff? A half dozen seats or so do not seem fair pay for all that hard work. His leadership is obviously safe, but the deeper story may well be that there is, simply, an orange ceiling out there, and Mr. Layton has just bumped his bobbing head against it.
As for Gilles Duceppe, the luckiest man in this magnificent country called Canada, how else do you explain what happened to a man who, only months ago, declared himself ready to bail to provincial politics, only to be told he wasn't wanted?
And so, what are we left with after this fiasco?
A minority – stronger, yet, but in more important ways different from the minority that wasn't good enough for Stephen Harper 38 days back.
This one they might have to make work – and the country will insist that it does.
This one, he won't be able to fold up at his own discretion and try, try, try again.
Not next time.
Not after this.

Article Summary:

The failure of Steven Harper of the Conservative Party to gain a clear majority to solve a “dysfunctional” parliament with an earlier minority government and the clear indication of voters to send Stephane Dion and the Liberals to their worst election by total votes in Canadian history tells us that this election was a waste of time, effort, and funds to the tune of $300 million for all Canadians. Mr Harper will probably stay on until voters eventually decide to dump the Conservatives while Mr. Dion is “toast” as there are a handful of potential leadership candidates waiting in the wings. The other leaders like Mr. Duceppe and Mr. Layton were fortunate as Quebeckers ditched the Conservatives and the NDP feasted on the Liberal death toll.

Course Topic Link - History 8-02:

Never before since pre-confederation times has Canada been so divided and polarized according to regions. The West and Rural Ontario want to get more say and autonomy as their economies are experiencing a natural resource boom that have elected Steven Harper’s minority Conservative government . Major urban centres with their economic powerhouses and the East are Liberal strongholds supporting neither side of the political spectrum and Quebec voters are still, since French rule in Canada, seeking a way out by electing the pro-sovereignist Bloc Québécois in most ridings (again except urban Montreal). This is idealistically the same situation just before Sir John A Macdonald, George Brown, and George Etienne Cartier joined forces to form a coalition to improve legislative gridlock before confederation. Canada East (Quebec in preconfederation times) wanted to preserve French rights and language as they do now, the West is largely untamed economically as they are now, and the regions in the East coast of Canada were suspicious of the intentions of the government based in the Canadas (Ontario and Quebec formerly) as they are now. The more Canada changes, the more it stays the same.

Questions?:

1) What was the purpose of this election in your opinion?
2) What do you think the impact of the election will have for the future of Canada?
3) Will Canada ever resolve the Quebec French sovereign issue? Why do you think so or not?