On Tuesday, Canadians re-elected Stephen Harper’s Conservatives to their second term and the nation’s third minority government in four years.
The Tories won 143 seats, followed by the Liberals with 76, the Bloc Quebecois with 50, the NDP with 37 and independents in the remaining two seats. The Green Party failed to elect a candidate.
Although the Conservatives are up 16 seats, they failed to win a majority and the only other party to experience a double-digit shift was the Liberals, who lost 27 seats.
It’s disappointing the election was even called, as the results changed little but unnecessarily put taxpayers in the hole for a hefty $300 million.
The Tories secured only 37.6 per cent of the popular vote and Harper’s next step should be to co-operate with the other parties.
A minority government has the potential to do good things because it forces Parliament to reach people across the political spectrum.
The Liberals were by far the biggest losers of the night. There’s already media speculation Liberal leader Stéphane Dion’s on his way out and names have been tossed around as potentials for future party leadership.
Dion has had nearly two years, since he was elected party leader on Dec. 2, 2006, to endear himself to Canadians and he has failed to do so.
The Liberals, historically dubbed Canada’s default party for their centrist views, were in a good position to challenge Harper’s increasingly right-wing actions.
Senior Liberals stood behind Dion; he has nobody to blame but himself for failing to translate his ambitious ideas into votes.
As the official opposition struggles to rebuild, the Tories are essentially governing with majority powers and whether or not that’s a good thing is up for debate.
Locally, it’s disappointing voters weren’t prepared to shut Liberal Peter Milliken out of his seventh victory in Kingston. The other candidates ran strong campaigns with fresh ideas whereas Milliken seems out of touch with local interests.
Conservative rookie Brian Abrams, in particular, poses a legitimate threat to dethrone Milliken in the next election.
And considering that the Tories’ latest 34-month stint was the longest a minority government has held power, if the parties can’t work together, we could be recasting our ballots all too soon.
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