Politics

As most of my faithful know I don't usually do politics but this one just can't slide.  Yesterday was a national election day that was most historic.  Prime Minister Stephen Harper finally pulled off a majority goverment.  This is a wonderful thing.  We have been to the polls far too many times over the last decade, all because of shenanigans of the opposition party whining about his policies and proposed changes.  They have repeatedly voted non-confidence in our elected (minority) government forcing us (yet again) to the polls.  Can you say "Voter fatigue"?  4 times in the last 7 years is more than enough.


Harper lands knockout majority in fight he didn’t want



Our peculiar Calgary prime minister has finally done it; pulled off a majority victory without changing anything about the cool, impersonal, lofty style that drives so many Canadians half mad with rage.

He’s a stubborn fellow for sure; and now, Harper enters Canada’s political annals as a hugely successful leader who managed two tricky minorities before scoring the knockout in a fight he didn’t want.

The win was even bigger than the numbers show, because he now faces an opposition that is almost guaranteed to be unstable and ineffective.

Most of these people have never been elected before and it's said that one gal who won her riding prob'ly couldn't even find it on a map and spent most of her campaign time in Vegas.


The NDP made off with Quebec, decimating both the Liberals and the Bloc Quebecois, while Harper’s party scooped up much of Ontario and the West.

Quebec has gone federalist, but still finds itself outside government. The rush to orange was so powerful that a novice Quebec NDP candidate won by rolling the dice from Las Vegas.

With more than half its MPs from Quebec, the NDP will be less a party of social democratic reform than Quebec nationalist discontent.

Layton will have immense difficulty reconciling this impulse with the purely social sentiments of his MPs from Ontario and B.C.

But a least Layton’s problem is born of success; the Liberal outcome is a disaster on every front.

The storied party of St. Laurent, Pearson, Trudeau and Chretien — long considered Canada’s natural government — no longer has the reach to to be considered fully national.

Harper’s relentless attacks on Ignatieff, starting long before the election, drove countless votes both to the New Democrats and the Tories.

(Who is a boob of the nth degree) 


Ignatieff did his part with a weak campaign performance that left him squashed between the two surging forces.

The Liberals have only one hope; to dump Ignatieff as quickly as possible, and find a charismatic leader who can catch the public’s imagination.

As for the Bloc Quebecois, the bitter, cynical Gilles Duceppe finally gets his comeuppance for using Quebec nationalism once too often as an extortion crowbar into the national treasury.


The Bloc has been threatening for years to take their ball and go home, causing the rest of the country to say fine, let them go.  See how well you do out on your own without the equalization payments that you recieve from the rest of Canada.  We're quite sick of it.

Once an intellectually honest separatist, Duceppe ended up being less idealistic than most Quebecers. They dumped his party as surely as they ejected the Liberals after the great Adscam humiliation.

But the major result, obviously, is Harper’s majority.

I don't think so much that the large numbers for the NDP were so much for the NDP, but more NOT for Stephen Harper which is ok with me, the right guy got in.
Ignatieff picked a fight with the wrong person at the wrong time and I say "Good riddance".



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Update 08:53

This just in


Michael Ignatieff has announced he is stepping down as Liberal leader after suffering a crushing election defeat Monday that saw Stephen Harper's Conservatives win their first majority government.



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