Well, the votes are in, and Stephen Harper has his majority government.
- The right moves further to the right. The Tories, after spending five years walking all over Canadians as a minority, now get to walk all over Canadians even more as a majority. Harper believes – as he should, with these numbers – that he has a mandate from Canada to impose his agenda and move the government rightward. Forget the Shit Harper Did; what about the Shit Harper will do?
- The left moves further to the left. The official opposition is now the NDP, not the Liberals. The same NDP who has campaigned on anti-Israel platforms; who cozies up to the labour unions; who believes that quota systems will provide equality. The NDP is positioning itself as the de facto Tory alternative, and with nearly three times as many seats as the Liberals, it clearly believes that it is the voice of the left – or the potential leader of any merger or move to unite the progressive parties. Ironically, the jubilant Layton doesn’t seem to grasp that he had more power in fourth place in a Tory minority than he does in second place in a Tory majority.
- The middle disintegrates. The Liberal party is in shambles. They lost over half their seats and most of their star MPs. They lost official opposition status. They will have to regroup and rebuild. And the common sense centre, the great balancing force against polarization, is severely crippled. Moderation is what suffers in this outcome.
- A weaker official opposition. A Harper majority is a scary enough prospect. But now 102 NDP MPs – many of whom are complete political rookies – will be heading to Ottawa to serve as the official opposition. Even seasoned Liberal MPs would have had a hard time keeping the Harpers in check. There’s no way that inexperienced political neophytes from the NDP will be able to pull it off. Harper’s now got a majority with no strong opposition; he can basically do whatever he wants and get away with it.
- Bloc collapses, but sovereignty gets a boost. The big news of the night was the Bloc Quebecois’s collapse from 47 seats to 4 amidst the Quebec “orange crush”, and Duceppe’s defeat and resignation. It should be good news for federalism? Right? Wrong. I’ve never seen so many Quebecers feel disenfranchised and alienated from the rest of Canada. This is going to provide a huge boost to sovereignty. I’m about as staunch a federalist as it gets, but even I have to admit that I see their point. Quebec voted overwhelmingly left-wing progressive NDP; the rest of Canada (except for Newfoundland) voted overwhelmingly Conservative. Is there any point in arguing that we’re not different here in La Belle Province?
- Human rights? What human rights? With as many as four Supreme Court seats opening up to be stacked by Harper-crony Conservatives during this term. Abortion rights, gay marriage, rights of women, rights of minorities, immigrants’ rights… you name it, it’s on their agenda for attack.
- No more funding for arts and culture. That is, unless the Calgary Stampede is your idea of a cultural event.
- Technology and innovation? Not on Harper’s watch. With important issues facing our country around telecom consolidation, internet billing and metering, privacy, digital rights management… the only party who didn’t respond to Canadians’ concerns about internet and digital policy is the one now holding a majority in Parliament. Four or five more years for the rest of the world to advance while Canada lags behind? Will we even have an economy when Harper is done with us?
- Canadians get slapped around; claim we fell down the stairs. We have a government who ignores us at every turn, walks all over us, and breaks the law with impunity. We get a chance to toss it out on its ear. Instead, we go crawling back to it. Domestic abuse on a grand scale, anyone? Basically, we’ve just sent Harper a message that he can get away with anything. And he will.
- Harper plans to reward his “base”. The Alberta-native social conservative movement has been waiting a long time in minority to get rewarded for its efforts to put Harper in power. All this time, he didn’t revisit socially conservative issues because he didn’t have a mandate and knew that the opposition wouldn’t let him get away with it. Now, all these interest groups want their pound of flesh. Our flesh.
The silver lining is, it’s only 4 or 5 years. The question is, will we recognize Canada after all that time?
I agree that a Harper majority is not a good thing for the country. But there are a few points that I disagree with.
“The left moves further to the left.” Actually, the NDP has moved right. Today, their economic policies are where the Liberals stood ten years ago, and the party is slightly more libertarian. One way of looking at the Liberal’s defeat is that left-wing voters rejected a Liberal party that was no longer Liberal. Perhaps this is polarization, but I don’t think so. I think it may be a sign of left voters moving their eggs to a different basket.
“The middle disintegrates.” The Liberals aren’t the middle anymore. Politically, they are now where the Reform/Cons were five years ago.
“Canadians get slapped around; claim we fell down the stairs.” Yes, Harper has little respect for the rules of Parliament and free expression, but the fact is that there is one vital area where Harper could have stumbled but didn’t: the economy. Harper more or less maintained the status quo set by the Liberals, and didn’t do anything really stupid. The economy is what people care most about, and it was probably the deciding factor for many Con voters.
This morning, left-wing bloggers are already saying that since the Cons received only 40% of the popular vote, their majority is somehow illegitimate. Yet, the breakdown of elected seats is not wildly different from the popular vote. Yes, it’s true that a strict rep-by-pop vote would have resulted in a Harper minority government… but little else would have changed. We’ve had elections in the past where the difference between popular vote and elected seats was totally out of whack.
Fact is, this was a democratic vote. The country spoke, and the results are fairly consistent.
Arts and culture that need “funding” from the State are already moribund or dead, aren’t they?
(And what does that internet-kerfuffle stuff have to do with “innovation” or “technology”?
Were the NDP or Liberals promising to open up telecom communication and cut tariffs?
Because if they were that’s news to me – indeeed, a quick search says the Liberals were presenting a nationalist platform on telecom ownership.
So what’s the meat there?)