Greetings Canadians! What is the bottom line?

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Can one of you nice Canadian posters tell this ignorant Yank what the bottom line is on your elections. What differences will flow from your recent election?

ruveyn

Well, the Conservatives were elected with a majority of seats in the House of Commons. Their leader, Stephen Harper will become Prime Minister. Because he is really strict about MPs toeing the line he will essentially be able to pass any legislation he wants. So we can expect to see them abolishing the long-gun registry, instituting a two tier healthcare system, continuing to lower corporate taxes etc. I'm not happy. It's interesting to note, though, that they only got 40% of the popular vote.

The official opposition (party with second largest number of seats) is the New Democratic Party (NDP), roughly equivalent to the British Labour Party. This is the first time the NDP have formed the official opposition--normally it's either the Liberals (similar to the American Democrats) or the Conservatives (normally between the Democrats and the Republicans, but recently they've been closer to the Republicans). This is good for the NDP, but they can't really do anything with it because where the Conservatives have a majority, effectively their votes don't matter.

The Liberals crashed and burned, losing a huge number of seats. Their leader wasn't even elected in his riding and has since stepped down. If they get a stronger leader this time they might make a come back in the next election. Otherwise it will be a competition between the NDP and Conservatives to try to get the centrist vote.

The Green Party had their first MP elected this time. Their leader, Elizabeth May, will be sitting in parliament. She won't be able to do too much to shape legislation, but she's tough and will make herself noticed. She wants to end the heckling in question period (which might be doable) and I think she plans to sort of act as a consultant on the environmental policies of other parties. But more importantly, it will give them a platform to advertise their policies--next election they will have to be allowed into the leader's debates (they were excluded this time).

Bloc Québécois g0t pwnt lolzorzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzdfkkhs

Social Darwinist filth now hold dictatorial powers in Canada, that's what it means. The power of a majority government is absolutely dictatorial. An increase of about 1.2% in their vote share was the difference between having dictatorial control and having simply to bypass parliament as much as possible as the scum prime minister liked to do. Quebec did not vote for the scum at all so thankfully we will soon secede from the masochists of English Canada who like being abused.

Scum Harper and his government are working feverishly to shut down a safe injection site that, according to a medical journal, has saved many lives. Harper believes these people deserve to die in the name of his twisted moral code. This is just one example of his degenerate nature. As for capitalism, I do not worship the market, I am not a market fetishist, which unfortunately is considered to be a form of heresy. This is a real backward movement going on. It's a de-evolution.

Harper as a majority PM has way more power than any US President or most other equivalent leaders. He is a pretty dishonest man, his party is not really very conservative, and we'll be lucky if most of what makes Canada good is still going to be around in a few years. He is doing his best to make our country as American as possible, as have all other Conservative PMs before him. There has never been a good Conservative PM in Canadian history. They might as well just surrender our sovereignty openly and stop lying to Canada. 39% of Canadians voted for Harper and yet he has a majority- we need Instant Runoff Voting, or a system like France, if we don't want to be absorbed by American values. The PM has so much power with a majority that the Alternative Vote system is the only way to ensure that there is actually representative democracy as the risks from a minority electing a majority are very clear- anything Harper wants goes now. Most people who voted for Harper are blissfully unaware of the little increments that hes moving our country further and further to the right with. Despite him being found in direct Contempt of Parliament. One day they'll wake up and wonder what the hell happened to Canada. The only good thing about this election was the Bloc Quebecois getting almost completely pushed out of the picture. It remains to be seen whether Harper's expected draconian policies will put Quebec back into their camp, or if a less crazy sovereigntist party will step up and take the reigns of that movement

It is very likely that Quebec will secede in the coming years, seeing as Quebec voted heavily NDP, whereas the rest of Canada gave most of their seats to the conservatives. As it is now, Harper could take decisions without taking Quebec into account since that's not his turf. =/

The Bloc Québécois was vanquished, only 4 seats or less were left for them, which drastically lowers their importance in Parliament.

Also, Harper was going to cut fundings to political parties, now he'll be able to pass that law through. Obviously since his party receives cash from companies in the west, religious lobbies, etc. he doesn't have to care about this. The other minor parties like the Greens, the Liberals (?), will likely suffer from this, as will the NDP, which is mostly supported by unions and the people. <.< Down goes democracy with this. =.=

On the fun side, it is amusing to note that Harper made "elections" sound like "erection" in any of his french appearances. :^p

There will certainly have to be a respectful, meaningful dialogue coming from ALL sides before we decide to even remotely declare secession within Quebec. But my intuition tells me that it will likely be either the PQ or .... it's a long shot, but the NDP. =/ Seeing as the provincial liberals are scum as well who only want more money regardless of its source as long as it doesn't get out in clear daylight. I'd also like to know what will our Amerindians think of this. =/ There's really not been an attempt to reconcile and i'd like it if we had a bit more respect for them. =/

Anyways. =.= At least i'm semi-happy that a Cri leader was elected with the NDP, in Abitibi. I think his name is Romeo Saganash.

FWIW, here is my stream of consciousness on the events:

1) Doomsayers notwithstanding, the sky won't fall. The Prime Minister's long game has been the elimination of moderate parties (the Progressive Conservatives and the Liberals) and if his party is to keep a grip on enough centrist voters then he cannot make any aggressive moves on abortion, same sex marriage or the death penalty. A move to a social conservative agenda will rapidly reempower the Liberal party among the old Martin Liberals who drifted right this time.

2) Some aggressive moves will be made to curtail the size of the federal government. The elimination of the long form census was a first volley, and we can expect to see more. In the long run, I expect to see significant program responsibility transferred to provinces, along with some tax room (but probably not enough, compelling provinces to be the bad guys).

3) A move to a hybrid model on health care. Medicare will not be scrapped (See #1), but we will likely see provinces given the ability to decide whether or not to allow extra billing and other variations on the existing model.

4) A fairly sudden end to stimulus spending. This will probably result in job losses, and a drop in the value of the CAD (although a lower dollar will probably stimulate some export traffic).

5) Canada has the only fully funded public pension scheme in the G8. Expect to see some serious arm-twisting to get provinces to buy into a move toward a defined contribution-scheme involving private management of contributed funds. (This will have some interesting market impact, since the CPP investment fund is a major player in Canadian equity markets, and has significant activity outside Canada, as well).

That still leaves the need for the "Grand Gesture." Trudeau had the Charter, Mulroney the Free Trade Agreement. I think Harper will pin his hopes on a strategic border agreement with the United States, perhaps creating a customs union and harmonized visa policy. (That's my long shot prediction).

On the ground, I think the PM is trying to create a two party paradigm where the Conservatives face off against the NDP. He believes (and I think he is right) that the center will break right in such a situation, turning the Conservatives into the natural governing party of Canada. Whether he can pull this off depends upon a number of X factors.

1) NDP support in Québec. Québec voters have demonstrated themselves to be highly mobile, and given that a majority of the NDP's seats are in that province, there is no assurance that this support is durable. When Québec is taken out of the equation, the NDP:Liberal seat ratio is 43:28--much less dramatic than the 102:34 numbers in the House writ large. The popular vote in TROC (The Rest Of Canada) was 26.3% NDP, 20.6% Liberal. A large swing, to be sure--but not necessarily a game changer.

2) Jack Layton's durability. Jack has been leader a long time, and while Stornoway will give him a new lease on life, the task of managing a caucus of 102 MPs, mostly rookies, many of whom have no electoral experience will present signficant challenges on a man who has had two major health issues in the past year. Succession planning will be important.

3) Will the NDP cut off organized Labour? A move to occupy the centre will require cutting off the control that organized labour exerts over the NDP policy machine. Will organized labour and the hard left components of the NDP membership line up behind a Blair-esque policy book?

4) Will Ontario voters have buyers remorse? This happened to Bob Rae in the 90's, and could well occur here, too.

I'm absolutely loving this.


Canada is finally going to be straightened up...........at least to some degree.