It was a dark and stormy night. [This is not the Bulwer-Lytton contest. Start again. Ed.] Seriously, then, I'm using toothpicks to keep my eyes open after a loooong night following the Canadian federal election results on the idiot's lantern. It was a night to remember. [No movie titles, please. Ed.]No analysis this morning, just the numbers and a couple of comments. Fear and loathing of Stephen Harper, impelled Canadians to show him the exit/sortie. That this would happen was apparent for weeks. The question was who would replace him, with some wondering if the opposition NDP and Liberals would split the anti-Harper vote, allowing the Dear Leader to rise from the coffin he built for himself.
Turns out Canucks are smarter than that.There was an organized push for strategic voting. ABH (Anybody But Harper) voters were asked to mark their ballots for the candidate with the best chance of beating the Tories in their riding, and most decided that would be the Liberal. That caused the NDP vote to collapse, even in long-time strongholds like central Toronto.
The NDP lost big in Québec, where the aberrant "orange crush" of 2011 turned into an "orange crash". Québécois are great bandwagon jumpers too, and, once they saw which was the wind was blowing, turned around to get it at their backs. It must be said too that the niqab issue hurt the NDP in la Belle Province, which, interestingly, seems more committed to Canadian values than TROC.
In the end, Mr. Harpoon's Conservatives didn't do that badly, hanging on to 99 seats in the 338-seat House of Commons. It was the NDP collapse -- they finished with 44 seats compared with over 100 before -- that propelled Justin Trudeau's Liberals into government, with a comfortable majority -- 184 seats.
There is much rejoicing in the urban liberal parts of Canada. In his acceptance speech this morning (Montréal time), Trudeau II spoke of "sunny ways", inclusive politics, celebrating diversity (especially if it wears a Sikh or Muslim head covering), yada yada yada. He channelled Obama 2008, with lots of talk about hope and change, concluding with "For Canadians, better is always possible."
Well... yeah... Canucks are glad to see the back of a prime minister even more despised than Brian Baloney. In the euphoria of the moment, nobody's talking much about what happens next. Expectations of M Trudeau are high, very high, and it will be interesting to see to what extent he can rise to meet them.
Further reading:
"Justin Trudeau's turn to face the weight of expectations" - Neil Macdonald (no relation to Sir John Eh), CBC News
"Stephen Harper's legacy: Good, bad and a dose of ugly" - the estimable Terry Milewski, also on the CBC News site.
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