About time for Harper to finally get an outright majority. Seems like he’s been governing by plurality forever. When did they get rid of Paul Martin? Around when the Iraq War started if I recall correctly. This latest election does sound eerily similar to what happened next door in our November mid-terms. Big win for conservatives and the blue-dog “centrist” liberals get crushed. Lots of new renegage Republicans in power, and a sizable number of RINOs manage to get themselves nominated and slip in with the rest of the party.
>> Socialist NPD is now in second place for the first time. They’ve almost swept Quebec. More than half on the NPD seats are from mercurial QCrapbec which may as well be on another planet. The Conservatives actually lost 5 of their 11 seats there and got only 16% of the vote. We’ll see if NPD stays as the main left party or whether the Liberals make a comeback. It’s 42-27 NPD-Liberal outside of La Crap Province. Only 4 Liberals west of Ontario. NPD taking votes from the Liberals really helped in the Toronto area. Without their rise in the polls it may have been another minority government. If Layton were PM Obama wouldn’t be the worst leader in North America. He’s unfortunately viewed as “likable” “want to have a beer with him” or hit the massage parlor with him. <<
Layton is a blowhard commie, but from seeing what happened when they tried to join forces with the other two parties to topple Harper’s government, Layton did sound like the most competent and credible of the three. It made me wonder why Liberals were much larger than NPD when NPD was more disciplined, had a much better spokesman leading them, and a more coherent policy platform. Guess this answers the question.
>> Liberals are now a rump. Their leader lost his own seat as well. He had the perfect pedigree to be a Prime Minister. LOL. <<
Hold on… the Canadian Liberals managed to find someone WORSE than Stephane “I fart for you” Dion to lead them in this election? How is that possible?!
>> The separatist bloc is all but dead. Their clownish leader lost his own seat. An NPD college student who doesn’t speak French and just got back from Vegas won a Quebec seat”>
Odd, again from my impressions of the leaders during the constitution crisis when they tried to topple the Harper government… Gilles Duceppe came across as a very articulate, reasonable, likeable guy, despite his wacko policies. A rational man leading a fringe party, kinda like if the Libertarians here appointed Neal Boortz to lead them. The leader of a Quebec-only French separatist party spoke better English than the leader of the “natural” governing party for all of Canada (Dion).
>> Eerily similar to the Labour party displacing he Liberal Party in the UK many decades ago. The Green party leader, a stupid slag who thinks children should vote, may be elected in British Columbia. <<
Looks like the Bloc got crushed in their native Quebec, and are now down to only four seats. Canada may become more U.S.-like in the future, with the Greens replacing the Bloc as the biggest “minor party” that has no chance of running government. I think that might be a positive thing, it makes little sense to have a national party that only runs candidates in one provience and who is dedicated to dismantling the country they seek to govern. Besides, if Quebec left, Canada would be in two pieces, like the problem with trying to form a “Palestinian state” out of the West Bank and Gaza. Just look at the secessionist nuts on FR who claim slavery had nothing to do with the civil war…I’m glad we don’t have own “Bloc” in America, they’d win a couple southern states in the electoral college ala Storm Thurmond ’48, and the RATs would won win every national election by plurality.
>> The Conservatives share values with the GOP here in terms of foreign policy. What they do internally is a reflection of the difference in culture of the USA and Canada. Remember at the time of our revolution, the loyalists went to what is now Canada... They will always be more statist and socialist - it is in the Canadian blood, just as we have our entrepreneurial individuality. The Liberals are Socialist, the NDP are outright Stalinist. This election may have given the Tories a majority, but it also means the electorate is badly divided between centrist (Tories) and extreme left (NDP). <<
Confusing… generally the rule of thumb is the pro-royals and loyalist parties tend to be more conservative than the people who want a Republic, an exception being the US because of the way this country was born in 1776. But even here, there were a lot of conservatives fawning over the “Royal wedding” last week because it maintained the U.K.’s traditions and Christian heritage. In Ireland, anyone anti-monarchy is a socialist. Ick. I wouldn’t be happy living there and have to choose between kissing the Queen’s butt and living under protestant rule, or wanting independence under a socialist “Catholic” government. In Canada, even though they’re still technically part of the british empire, it’s really become meangingless, hasn’t it? They don’t even have the union jack on their flag anymore. I think the Queen might still be on Canadian currency though.
>> Interesting how “Red” signifies the Left, except in the U.S. Over here, it’s become the color of conservatives, who are the most anti-Marxist faction. <<
Yes, Canada still has the correct colors where blue is conservative (also, blue is generally associated with royality, again), and red is socialist/Marxist/commie/left-wing. Since they’re right across the border, I wish the color scheme would rub off on the U.S. more.