Free Republic

It was a historic night on so many levels. A coveted majority for Stephen Harper's Conservative party, making him only the third Tory leader to ever win three mandates in a row. The crushing defeat of the Liberals, relegated to third place for the first time in the party's history which is as old as this country; the NDP's orange crush; the Bloc Quebecois' near demise in Quebec, losing their official party status and the election of Canada's first Green party MP, Elizabeth May.

American freepers, I'd love the share some good news for you folks! Congratulate me please! Wow, I can’t believe this. We have just defeated a 4-time, 11-year liberal incumbent, a Chief Opposition Whip in the parlimentary! This riding was considered to be a super safe riding for liberals since the liberal incumbent won last time by 43% to conservative's 32% in 2006, by 5,000 votes! Tonight, the conservative candidate won by less than 1%, 36.7% to 36%, fewer than 400 votes!! Wow, this was definitely a shocker. I initially didn’t intend to vote because I thought it’s a very long...

Canada's Harper government delightfully surprised both its friends and its foes last week. It leaked the fact that it may bring in a "Defence of Religions Act" to protect critics of homosexual practice from prosecution under human rights codes, and to prohibit the firing of marriage commissioners who refuse on the grounds of their religion to "marry" homosexual couples. Social conservative allies were surprised because opposition to gay marriage, which had begun to seem a lost cause, was being revived. Government foes are equally delighted, because they assume that Prime Minister Stephen Harper has finally made a blunder that will...

Churchgoers Shift towards Conservatives Driven by Moral Issues like Gay “Marriage” By Terry Vanderheyden OTTAWA, March 7, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Conservative Party popularity among churchgoers, and especially among Protestants, increased significantly this past federal election – driven largely by moral issues such as same-sex “marriage.” Protestant churchgoers were 25% more likely to vote Conservative as compared to previous elections, according to an Ipsos-Reid Poll. And among churchgoing Catholics in Quebec, votes for the Liberal party were cut roughly in half compared to 2004. “For the first time in the history of polling, Catholics who are regular churchgoers shifted away from...

The secret's out Desperate in the face of defeat, the Liberals ended up leaking their own hidden agenda The Western Standard February 13, 2006 Ted Byfield To adequately write anything about what could well prove one of the most pivotal elections in Canadian history, when the results are scarcely in, is not advisable. So I'll write about the campaign. It is now, at least, over. And a very curious campaign it was. Its central irony was the desperate Liberal effort to establish that the Tories harboured a "secret agenda." Instead, they inadvertently disclosed that it is they who have...

OTTAWA (CP) — Stephen Harper, who was dismissed less than two years ago as unelectable, was sworn in Monday as the country’s 22nd prime minister and immediately promised to move swiftly to “restore faith and trust” in government. Harper, clutching his personal Bible, was sworn in by the clerk of the Privy Council, as his wife Laureen and their two young children, Ben and Rachel, looked on proudly. He was followed in turn by his 26 new ministers who beamed as they took their oaths. Harper arrived at Rideau Hall less than an hour after Paul Martin resigned, marking the...

On Saturday the 21st, reports of gunfire drew police to an apartment containing a dying cabdriver named Ashok Malhotra. Witnesses saw two men, Jose Antonio Barajas and Ishtiaq Hussain, flee the scene. This homicide was Richmond, California’s first of the year and a new chief of police had just been sworn in, so the hunt was on. It ended last Tuesday 900 miles from the scene of the crime, at the Peace Arch border crossing near Blaine, Washington, with the perps just a yard shy of home free. Barajas and Hussain had pulled into a rest stop along I-5 when...

In the end, it was all so anti-climactic. A small, half-empty Montreal banquet hall. A scattering of Liberals grimly watching the screens as their government fell. A humbled, defeated prime minister who suddenly looked all of his 67 years, putting on a brave face as he announced his retirement. And the veteran strategists and advisors for whom he'd been the meal ticket for 15 years, slumping as they tried to digest that their time in the corridors of power was already over. It was hard to believe, standing among them, that this was what remained of the unstoppable political force...

It’s never nice to kick someone when they’re down. If my father told me that once, he told me a dozen times. Sorry, Dad. Canada is well rid of soon-to-be-ex-PM Paul Martin. Paul Martin: Full to overflowing with the notion that the Liberal party was the rightful ruling party of Canada; fuelled by an awful ambition to somehow redeem his father and become PM; blessed with the skin of a rhinoceros; cursed with a mind that maddeningly simplified the most complicated of ideas; possessed of a vocabulary so intemperate and vicious, he lowered the level of political debate and discourse...

This past Monday, enough Canadians came together to reconfigure our political map. The contours of the new one are still fluid, but in time, with another election, the emergent shapes might acquire stability. For now, the election results reveal a divide in the new Canada, and also a new hope for healing the old wounds of national unity. The country is somewhat divided along urban-rural (or urban-suburban) lines. Residents of Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver held back from voting for Conservatives, but could not entirely deny the pressures for change building in the nation's heartland. It is as if the "sophisticates"...

Quebec City – Remember the conventional wisdom of 2004? Back then, you'll recall, it was the many members of George Bush's "unilateral" coalition who were supposed to be in trouble, not least the three doughty warriors of the Anglosphere — the president, Tony Blair and John Howard — who would all be paying a terrible electoral price for lying their way into war in Iraq. The Democrats' position was that Mr. Bush's rinky-dink nickel-&-dime allies didn't count: The president has "alienated almost everyone," said Jimmy Carter, "and now we have just a handful of little tiny countries supposedly helping us...

After the first TV reports that their party would win the Canadian election, Conservative campaign workers began smashing windows in the Parliament Buildings, and in government offices around Ottawa. They roved through the corridors, beating up clerks and civil servants suspected of having Liberal Party connexions. From St John’s to Victoria, both winning and losing Conservative candidates took to the streets, leading heavily armed supporters in ski-masks, followed by millions of happy, cheering, banner-waving CPC voters, dressed in toques and scarves. Merchants and homeowners raced to get Liberal and NDP signs out of view, as the Tory hordes marched through...

Trust overcame fear in the Canadian electorate last week. The negative attack-type campaign by Paul Martin’s Liberals, fomenting hatred and fear about Stephen Harper and his Conservatives, kept the Conservatives from a majority but the 124 seats they did achieve should provide stable government for several years. In the next election, the Liberals will not be able to use the politics of fear with any success since their false predictions about abortion and other social issues will not again be believed. A few illustrations: On Dec. 3, 2005 in the Toronto Star, Martin predicted, “We would see him (Harper) and...

A Defeat for Anti-Americanism Saturday, January 28, 2006; Page A20 ACCORDING TO his opponent, Canadian Conservative Party Leader Stephen Harper exposed "an agenda really drawn from the extreme right in the United States." He favored the Iraq war, opposed the Kyoto treaty on global warming, and is a social conservative to boot. He might just become -- heaven forbid -- "the most pro-American leader in the Western world." His victory would -- O, Canada! -- "put a smile on George W. Bush's face." Despite all those scary warnings, Mr. Harper and his party won Canada's election on Monday. That put...

Toronto Sun Sat, January 28, 2006 The great divide ... By MICHAEL COREN Now that the spin has evaporated, we can perhaps state the truth about what happened this week. Canada found itself stuck in political mud. Ignore the nonsense about "wanting" minority governments and Canadians being a middle-of-the-road people. Individuals don't vote for grand schemes but simply for whom they want to win. The fact that an election results in a minority government is pure chance. In fact, this nation is arguably more divided now than at any time in its history. East and west, urban and rural, secular...

ACCORDING TO his opponent, Canadian Conservative Party Leader Stephen Harper exposed "an agenda really drawn from the extreme right in the United States." He favored the Iraq war, opposed the Kyoto treaty on global warming, and is a social conservative to boot. He might just become -- heaven forbid -- "the most pro-American leader in the Western world." His victory would -- O, Canada! -- "put a smile on George W. Bush's face." Despite all those scary warnings, Mr. Harper and his party won Canada's election on Monday. That put an end to 12 years of increasingly incoherent and corrupt...

Canadians brought about a minority Conservative government on Monday by electing a House of Commons in which 60 percent of the members will be out to destroy it. That is, they gave Prime Minister-elect Stephen Harper's Conservative party 124 seats, outgoing Prime Minister Paul Martin's Liberals 103, the socialist New Democratic Party 29, and the Bloc Quebecois (whose declared purpose is to take Quebec out of Canada), 51. There was one independent. As soon as the results were in, Martin announced that he would not lead the Liberals in another election. The Conservatives formed a government that 36.3 percent of...

Tories begin process of transition to government Andy Johnson, CTV.ca News Now that Canadian voters have awarded a minority government to the Conservative Party, politicians and bureaucrats in Ottawa are busy preparing for the first major desk-swap in years. Paper shredders, for example, have been in high demand as public servants prepare to spend a few late nights erasing confidential records before the Tories take office, said Kathy Brock, a political science professor at Queen's University. It's one of the common steps taken when governments begin the complicated process of transition, she said. "It's always more difficult for a government...

U.S. right-wing strategist says Canadians are "so liberal and hedonistic" that Stephen Harper can't hope to change their philosophy of "cultural Marxism" right away. Given time, however, the Conservative prime minister-designate may straighten them out, Paul Weyrich writes. Weyrich, a Washington fixture since the 1970s, runs a conservative think tank called the Free Congress Foundation. His contribution to the Harper election effort was to distribute an e-mail last week urging fellow U.S. right-wingers not to talk to Canadian reporters. "Canadian voters have been led to believe that American conservatives are scary and if the Conservative party can be linked with...

On Monday, Canada held its second national election in 18 months, choosing a new prime minister from a resurgent Conservative Party. Americans — or maybe just the zillion or so Canadians living in California — may well be wondering: Is Canada still the progressive, socially liberal neighbor of Democratic dreams and Republican nightmares? Can our mythic reputation as a cleaner, politer Europe survive incoming Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative regime? Here's your thumbnail guide: • The A-Word: Canada currently has no laws in force concerning abortion; you can legally perform one in a shop window, though it's hell on lunchtime...