It was an amazing two days. On Sunday, President Barack Obama announced that he had killed Osama bin Laden. And within a mere 30 hours of the demise of the world’s number one terrorist, Michael Ignatieff killed the Liberal Party of Canada, the country’s number one political party.
Back in late March, the election that saw Canadians go to the polls yesterday was referred to as the “Seinfeld election”; an election about nothing. The opposition Liberals, NDP and Bloc Quebecois forced an election that no one wanted on the basis of Prime Minister Stephen Harper being found guilty of contempt of Parliament for not providing the House of Commons with the true cost of its spending. As if all governments provide proper costing. The opposition cried that Harper and his Tories were undemocratic and had to be replaced. Canadians “needed” to go to the polls.
In the early weeks of the campaign it appeared that the next Parliament would look like the last one. The Conservatives would come back with a third consecutive minority government and the Liberals would continue to be the Official Opposition.
Ignatieff hit the campaign trail with the message that Stephen Harper was anti-democratic and must be banished. The former Harvard professor and inexperienced politician, despite having some of the top US Democratic strategists like James Carville advising his party, simply couldn’t relate to ordinary Canadians despite 36 days of kissing babies and eating hot dogs – it was the economy, stupid.
Harper stayed on one message; reminding Canadians that their country came out of the Great Recession ahead of other developed countries and now was not the time to change course. But more importantly, in the last two weeks of the election the “orange surge” began, vaulting the socialist NDP into second place. For the first time since confederation, the Liberal Party of Canada failed to become either the government or the official opposition. The once mighty Liberals became the third party. Fear of the NDP in some circles gave the Tories a majority at the expense of the Liberals.
Although a seat here or there may change, the Conservatives won 167 seats, followed by the NDP with 102. The Liberals finished a distant third with 34 seats while the separatist Bloc captured four seats in Quebec, nine less than required to obtain official party status. Elizabeth May, the Green Party (or more properly named the Elizabeth May Party) leader won her BC seat. Prior to the results, the most optimistic polls showed the NDP winning no more than 100 seats.
What started off as an unnecessary election that would produce the same results the last one did became, morphed into an historic election that saw a major party realignment. The Natural Governing Party, forced occasionally to the opposition benches for being corrupt or arrogant, is now firmly entrenched as Canada’s third party. And for the first time in the country’s history, the NDP will form Her Majesty’s Official Opposition. And it wasn’t even close.
On election day, stunned Liberals were saying that the party had bounced back before and will do so again. But despite having multiple parties, Canada has always essentially been a country where the government alternated between two major parties. The only difference now is that the left of centre parties have changed.
If NDP leader Jack Layton can move towards the centre and become more mainstream the once mighty Liberal Party of Canada will go the way of the Liberal Party in the UK. It will remain as it is now – a fringe party.
Ignatieff, unlike Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe who resigned his seat after the Bloc was trounced, announced that he was staying on as long as the Liberals wanted him to. But it won’t be long before the visiting professor will be paaacking his caaa in the Havaaad yaaad. There have been three Liberal leaders since Jean Chretien resigned and each one was worse than the previous one.
Look for the Liberals to choose Justin Trudeau to be the next leader of the Liberal Party. Although he doesn’t have anything much other than his last name, the Libs are at the stage where the next leader can’t possibly be worse than Ignatieff. At least with a Trudeau, the party can say his name and reminisce about the thrilling days of yesteryear.
It was an interesting, event filled week; Obama killed a terrorist and Ignatieff killed a major political party.
