Merci Quebec

Well the election is over and Harper won more seats then most sites projected, taking them mostly in riding-rich Ontario; however he failed to reach the golden number of 155 which would give him a majority government, at the end of the night it broke down like this:

CONSERVATIVE	LIBERAL	NDP	BLOC	GREEN	OTHERS
38%	26%	18%	10%	7%	1.0%
143	76	37	50	0	2

His fuck up came in Quebec where he went on a the campaign trail and talked about cutting the arts, and sending 14-year old's to prison for life for serious crimes; that went against the very fabric of Quebecois society and they voted for the Bloc and the Liberals instead of the Tories saving us from a Harper majority (4 years of unchecked rule.)  Now I understand when people tell me that while Ontario might be the economic engine of Canada, Quebec is its soul. Time and time again it seems Quebec grabs hold of the wheel and steers the country away from the gutters of the right.

I have to admit, Canadian politics baffle me; this country and it's voters have to be some of the pickiest bunch who during an election can have outright mood swings. In 1984, the Liberals were decimated with a loss of 107 seats, and in 1993 it was the Conservatives' turn to get spanked and they lost 167 seats.  In that election, I can understand why after Mulroney's gaffes with Quebec the party peeled off and created the Bloc and started having referendums on independence - if I had to deal with a crazy right wing nutjob, I'd do that too.

So to me this is a "correction" is a continuing punishment for the Liberals in choosing an unsuitable candidate for Leader after the sponsorship scandal.  Dion needs to step down, a new leadership race has to be done, and hopefully someone with charisma and leadership can step up to lead the party back to it's natural role. 

In essence, this was a loss for Harper too; he has no mandate when 62% of the country voted against him, and he couldn't even beat a weak and ineffectual leader like Dion during a fiscal crisis; it shows that even when it's bad, people still don't trust him.  This  election was a $300 million mistake, and with the lowest turnout EVER in Canadian history (59%) it is a sad state of affairs for Canada.

The only way to fix this, and get people back interested in politics is to reform the electoral system; proportional representation at a Federal level in the House of Commons really needs to be discussed, and maybe that means a compromise and making the Senate elected in a way that the Conservatives want.

Now, on to November 4th.

Comments

[Puddleglum]

We have many reasons to be thankful for/to Quebec. But as I commented on a different post they are perhaps the reason why proportional representation will not be accepted in Canada. If we had had PR in last week's election both the Tories and the Grits would have fewer seats, but not significantly fewer. The NDP and the Greens would have significantly more seats (the New democrats doubling their seats and the Greens going from 0 to about 25 seats). But the only party to be significantly hurt by PR would have been the BLOC, losing about half their seats. You can be sure that in Quebec this would be perceived as a slight. For this reason Quebeckers will never go for PR and if they don't go for it it will never fly. At this point in history, I'm afraid, it's a non starter.

[Dear To Toronto]

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