When the last Parliament was dissolved, the polls showed that electorate would choose another Conservative Party minority. For a brief shining moment, before Quebec took the Tories minimal cuts to the arts as an attack on the province’s culture, it seemed possible that the Conservatives would be returned with the first majority government since Jean Chrétien went bye bye. And when Stephen Harper refused to shed tears over the worldwide market meltdown, it even looked possible that the hapless Dion might preside over a minority Parliament. Except for that brief nanosecond, the polls consistently showed the Conservatives being returned to power. Had anyone bothered to make a prediction when the election was first called, they were probably right on. The universe unfolded as it should and after the votes cast on October 14 were counted, Stephen Harper and the Conservatives were returned with a second minority government.
Nevertheless there are many Canadians on the left that find the fact that enough people voted Conservative to keep Harper at 24 Sussex to be unbelievable. There is a major difference between small “l” liberals and small “c” conservatives other than the obvious ideological differences. While conservatives have no difficulty in understanding liberalism, many people on the left have no clue about what makes conservative tick. They cannot understand the motivation of a Canadian equivalent of the now infamous Joe the Plumber who travels to the polls to mark an “x” after the name of his local Conservative Party candidate.
Liberalism is a simple philosophy and therefore easy for conservatives to understand. It is universally agreed that problems accompany life. For all of life’s multitudinous problems, liberals have an answer and it’s always the same one – government. If the stock market crashes, get the government to prop it up. If there are problems in education or health care, get the government to throw more money at it. If people are eating too much, giving rise to an increase in obesity, ban the foods (or tax them, even better) that are making them fat. Even if the Palin family was as backward as Heather Mallick portrayed them to be on the CBC’s website, they are capable of understanding liberalism. Adhering to conservative principles on the other hand requires thought while liberalism is based primarily on emotion. Feeling good about themselves is what liberals are really all about. They love to treat people like children and then take delight when they make their little kiddies happy by giving them something for nothing. And when conservatives don’t see eye to eye with liberals about government providing solutions to all life’s problems, the libs conclude that conservatives are simply “mean”, not to mention dangerous.
There were examples of this type of thinking during the recent election campaign. The most glaring of these were the actions of Green Party leader, Elizabeth May. May fought hard to establish her party as credible; she managed to get herself into the televised debates, separating the Greens from other so-called fringe parties. With taxpayer aided subsidies (that all parties get), she managed to build up the Green Party to the point that it seemed inevitable that they would win seats in the future although not in this past election. But in the end, none of this matter. May didn’t care about her party, her candidates or her supporters. Her party winning votes and possibly a seat or two ceased to matter. The only thing that was important was to stop Stephen Harper; STOP STEPHEN HARPER! The world didn’t end during the Conservatives’ first term in office and it is not likely to do so during the second term. Pure emotion drove May and likeminded people to put defeating Harper above their own political aspirations.
And then there was feminist Judy Rebick who thought that all of the other political parties should give up their principles and their policies and all join together to, you guessed it, STOP STEPHEN HARPER. Again, pure emotion.
No, despite the fact that this election had no doubt the most predictable outcome of any in recent memory, there are many Canadians who simply cannot believe that the Conservatives won.
