As
the polls accurately predicted, Canada punished the Paul Martin
Liberals for sloppy administration (allowing a small group of party
stalwarts to steal taxpayers' money for the party and to line their own
pockets) and for the most astonishly inept election campaign in history
(one might almost think their campaign managers and ad firms wanted
them to lose), and half-heartedly elected the opposition Conservative
Party with a minority win. Martin himself has resigned. Summary results:
| 2004
seats | 2004
% votes | 2006
seats | 2006
% votes | | Liberals | 135 | 37% | 103 | 30% | | Conservative | 99 | 30% | 124 | 36% | | NDP | 19 | 16% | 29 | 17% | | Bloc Québecois | 54 | 12% | 51 | 11% | | Green | 0 | 4% | 0 | 5% | | Total | 308 |
| 308 |
|
If
we had proportional representation like more enlightened countries, the
Liberals would have 92 seats, the Conservatives 111, the NDP 52 and the
Bloc 34. There would be 15 Greens in parliament. So what happened last
night is that 6% of the population, one out of 16 Canadians, decided to
punish the Liberals and voted Conservative instead. Not exactly a
conservative mandate, 36%, when all four opposition parties are
left-of-centre. I know quite a few of these moderate switch voters, and
I know they are going to be surprised at what Harper does next.
The
Conservatives are thirty-one seats shy of a majority, so they will not
be able to pass any legislation without support from either the Bloc or
the outgoing Liberals. The Conservative strategy will be very similar
to the one that the Liberals have most often used when they were in a
minority government position: Press forward with legislation that they
want, but which is moderate enough that voters won't want another
election to be fought over it, even if they don't really like it, and
dare the opposition to vote against it and force an election. The
Conservatives clearly believe that the 6% increase in their support
represents momentum that they can use to win a majority in the next
election, which will allow them to introduce their more radical
right-wing agenda: Curtailing of rights for women (e.g. right to
choose), minorities (e.g. gay marriage), opting out of Kyoto, and
embedding 'property rights' in the constitution (which will entail the
unlimited right to pollute, abuse animals and maintain weapons on one's
own 'property'). What they will do first on their 'dare to force
another election over this' agenda will be tax cuts for the rich (a
promise they certainly made to the Big Oil interests that bankrolled
their hugely expensive election campaign). Harper was a great fan of
Reagan and likes the discredited idea of 'trickle-down' economics
-- lavishing huge government gifts on the ultra-rich in the hope that
maybe a bit of their excess wealth will trickle down to the little guy.
They are also committed to much more defence (that's how we spell it in
Canada) spending and opting in to Bush's loony, ineffective and
absurdly expensive Star Wars program. And in another promised act of
bribing taxpayers with their own money, he will cut the federal sales
tax (GST) from 7% to 5%. This will be papered over with some
ineffectual 'get tough on crime' bills and a new law to reduce the risk
of corruption in government, which will create more work for auditors
but otherwise accomplish nothing. All of this will cost a fortune, and,
like Mulroney, the last Conservative prime minister, Harper will get
Canada out of the black and into the red -- watch for huge deficits
during Harper's administration.
My guess is that these first
acts will not bring down the government. The first stumbling bock will
be the plan to cancel the Liberals' extensive national child care
program and replace it with a small tax credit program. The Liberals
will be opposed to that, and Harper will have to bribe the separatist
Bloc to get them to go along with it. Watch for a set of significant
transfers of power and more money to the provinces as a sop to the Bloc
in return for passage of this. Or Harper may agree not to take sides on
a 2006 or 2007 referendum on Quebec sovereignty in return for Bloc
support on the child care rollback (Harper actually received a small
majority of non-Quebec seats in yesterday's election). Harper used to
be a Western separatist and, like the Bloc, sees a limited role for the
federal government other than national defence.
Then it will get
interesting. With Paul Martin having resigned, the neocons have the
chance to put one of their own at the head of the Liberals as well.
Michael Ignatieff, an opportunist
with dangerous right-wing views (he supports a 'lite' form of American
imperialism as necessary to enable democracy in struggling nations, and
approves of the use of torture to extract information and confessions
from prisoners) has rushed back to Canada (he had been living in the US
as a Harvard professor) and last night won a comfortable victory as a
Liberal in a safe Toronto riding. He was parachuted into
this nomination by the Liberal party establishment, to the outrage of
the local Liberals, whose own candidate was forced out. He is now the
odds-on favourite to succeed Martin as the next leader of the Liberal
party. If (when) this happens, Harper will have the chance to introduce
some of his more extreme right-wing agenda items. My prediction is that
Ignatieff's victory, and his subsequent support of some of Harper's
very un-liberal proposals, will cause mass defections to the NDP from
Liberal ranks, and create just the crisis Harper needs to try for a
majority in the next election, probably early next year. Just as the
moderate Conservatives were swallowed up by Harper's right-wing Reform
Alliance party, the moderate Liberals could then be swallowed up by the
more progressive NDP.
If the referendum in 2006 or 2007 ends
in Quebec separation (which I think is reasonably likely) we might then
face an election in the 'rest of Canada' with two polar choices --
Conservatives or the NDP.
Ugh...this is all too ugly to think
about. Mulroney and now Martin: What is it about Canadian politicians
from big business backgrounds that they screw up entrenched
150-year-old political parties so badly they destroy them?
Well,
I have been working on a proposal to introduce tax shifting in the
federal government, from employment and income taxes to taxes on
production from non-renewable resources, pollution and waste. Now we
have a prime minister determined to abrogate Canada's support for the
meagre Kyoto Protocol, maybe it's time to work on my novel instead.
What progressive Canadians can do:
- Demonstrate
in the streets against Canadian participation in Star Wars -- and have
the damning facts about this wacko proposal so critics can't argue
you're 'just anti-American'.
- Get your opposition MPs to oppose
tax cuts that will put Canada back into deficits -- most Canadians are
opposed to stealing from their children.
- Before he gets too
cozy with the US neocons, keep reminding Harper (and the media) that
the US still owes us $5B in illegally diverted duties on lumber exports
-- a theft hundreds of times larger than that pulled off by the handful
of corrupt Liberals in the scandal that allowed Harper's win.
- Join the Liberal Party and find a candidate, any candidate who can beat Ignatieff as the next Liberal leader. I'll offer my recommendations next week.
- Get
your MP, of any political stripe, to support an independent bill to
introduce proportionate representation in federal elections.
- Until proportionate representation is introduced, consider getting the NDP and the Greens to merge into one party.
Once
again, wherever you look, voters seem doomed to repeat past mistakes,
and the parties and media seem determined to keep them uninformed. And
you wonder why I am so often pessimistic about our future. |
MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
