Looking Like Us Up There For A Change

Yesterday's national elections in Canada culminated in a major victory for Stephen Harper and his Conservatives, giving the party a majority in Parliament and booting the Liberals out into the political wilderness as the New Democratic Party came in second to control the opposition for the first time.

The extent of the transformation is startling. The Liberals now hold just four seats west of Guelph, Ont. The Conservatives, formerly shunned by Toronto voters, won nearly half of the seats in that city, twice as many as the Liberals.

The Bloc Québécois, which defined Quebec federal politics for two decades, no longer qualifies for official party status. And Green Party Leader Elizabeth May won the party’s first seat, and the right to a place in the next election’s debates.

Bloc Leader Gilles Duceppe lost his seat and resigned. Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff lost his riding. Both defeated leaders were squeezed, like many of their candidates, between growth in Conservative support and Jack Layton’s surging New Democrats.

The night belonged to Stephen Harper, who put his party over the top after five years of minority government and becomes just the third Conservative leader since Confederation to win triple victories.
"We are intensely aware that we are and must be the government of all Canadians, including those that did not vote for us," Mr. Harper said.

Parliament was radically remade. The fragmentation of the 1993 election has been reversed, with the Conservatives and NDP emerging as national parties with support across all regions of the country, although the Tories find themselves in an unusual position, as a majority government with just a handful of Quebec seats.

"I’ve always favoured proposition over opposition," Mr. Layton told a cheering crowd. "But we will oppose the government when it's off track. I will propose constructive solutions focused on helping Canadians."

With almost all polls reporting, the Conservatives were elected in 167 ridings, and the NDP in 102, more than double its best historical tally. The Liberals were reduced to the lowest seat count in their history, elected in just 34 seats. The Bloc had just four. 

The rise of the NDP in Canada is nothing short of amazing.   For years, Canada's left has been divided between the two parties and that has only benefited the Tories.  But the Liberals always led the way on that relationship.  Now that party is at best the new Bloq Quebecois:  a regional party in this case limited to the Atlantic Maritimes.  Quebec itself went to the NDP in droves.

Meanwhile the Tories made massive gains in Canada's urban centers, especially in Ontario.  Even cosmopolitan Toronto woke up this morning to see a number of ridings in Harper's control.  The plains went to the Conservatives easily, enough to give them an outright majority.

So what will Harper do with his majority?  He's promised major cuts, and Canada's citizens gave him a mandate on that promise.  Canada has a virtual two-party system now, with the Liberals resigned to a very distant third.  Keep an eye on our northern neighbors, things are going to get very interesting.

[UPDATE]  Then again, I'm reminded by my Canadian friends that the Progressive Conservative party ran a full slate of candidates in 1993 and managed to win a grand total of two seats as Kim Campbell's government got their asses handed to them, lost offical party status, disintegrated, and ended up merging with the Reformers.  They said the Conservatives were dead then, too.  A lot can happen in 18 years, even in Canadian politics.  We've not heard the last of the Bloc or the Liberals, but some mergers may be in the cards...