A POLITICAL BLANK CHEQUE FOR HARPER?

  
       IF I HAPPENED TO BE A SERIOUS GAMBLER, why, I'd be dealing in big bucks right now in the aftermath of Canada's important national election -- and I'm sorry to have to report that my bucks would all be going the wrong way.

      Yes, I have to admit it:  I would have bet on the wrong horses. Today, therefore, I will operate on the principle that, like it or not, you can't deny a winner, and do record my surprise at the showing by Stephen Harper and his Conservatives. And one absolutely has to congratulate the New Democratic Party for its historic advance, while feeling a bit sorry about the demise of the Liberal Party.

      The Harper Tories won the big prize in an all-out battle that was relatively fair and square, with only the occasional blob of serious mud hurled. Today is the first day of four straight years of Harper majority government.  And, after five years of minority Harper government, Canadians will find out how realistic were concerns, by people like me, that a majority Conservative government would not be good for the nation.

      In my pre-election comments in this space I found it difficult to see how the Harperites could achieve majority status, in light of some serious policy issues they represented. These included their suspected leanings toward: a probable shrinking of health care; tax breaks for big business; heavy deficits; inability to cope with worsening inflation and a poor employment picture; and wasteful financial commitments to  militaristic ventures -- to say nothing of control-freakishness, authoritarianism, government scandals and Tory contempt of Parliament.


     MONDAY'S ELECTION RESULTS SHOW that those issues had no negative influence whatsoever on support for the Conservatives; in fact, the Tory vote went up. A great many Canadian voters, it seems, really don't care a lot about such issues. (That's now -- but who knows? Perhaps in the next four years they will find some issues, in addition to the aforementioned, upon which they actually will be moved to vote.)

      But isn't what we got still a minority government? I expect some people will ask that question, pointing to the fact that the Tories received only about 40 per cent of the popular vote, and yet won more than 54 per cent of the seats in the Commons. And it will be said, as well, that a total of only 61.4 per cent of eligible voters cast ballots, with the effect that the Tory 40 per cent actually is much less than 40 per cent of eligible voters.

      Well, I'm sorry, folks, that's just the way our electoral system works. Yes, there was talk election night about the need for electoral reform, to more fairly and democratically reflect voters' wishes, but I'll bet that Mr. Harper, who benefited hugely from the present system, is unlikely to do much about changing it. (That's one bet I wouldn't mind losing, though.)


      AS MUCH AS ONE MIGHT LIKE TO SAY the Tory mandate isn't really a decisive one, and that the party has only a minority mandate, I insist it isn't that way at all. If nearly 40 per cent of eligible voters are regarded as having failed to participate in democracy, I'm here to say they did.

      Without casting ballots they were still voting because they were saying: "Hey, I'm perfectly happy with whatever the voting outcome might be. I'm too busy, anyway, to get to the polls. If others can afford the time to vote, then that's great --  they can decide for me, I'll go along with them whichever way they vote."

      I'm not recommending such an attitude at all, because it's my view that if you decline to vote then you have absolutely no complaint coming; should a government be elected that does things you don't agree with, you've pretty well already shown you don't care.

     So, on that basis I have to say that the Harper mandate is a very solid one, and he can now proceed in the knowledge that he has what looks to me like a blank cheque, politically.


      EVERY ELECTION IS HISTORIC, BUT SOME ARE MORE historic than others -- and of course the May 2, 2011 vote was historic, bigtime. Especially when it comes to the Liberals and the New Democrats.

      With respect to the Liberals, if a medical person were describing what happened to them, that person likely would be diagnosing the Liberal party as being in "guarded" condition, meaning "We're not sure we can save the patient."

       That party on May 2 suffered a serious, near fatal attack and is on life support. Mr. Ignatieff may become a footnote to Canadian history, if he's lucky -- but it will be only in the sense that he was on the bridge when the typhoon struck his party's ship, and was completely unable to find the wheel (or if he could find it, didn't know which way to turn it). To say the Liberals struck a reef is putting it mildly. Plus, I don't think it is overstating matters by saying that any party selecting two losing leaders, for two elections in a row (i.e., the Liberals), well, that party can't look to much of a future.

  
      SO, THE LIBERALS HAVE BEEN SHOVED OUT OF THE WAY by the New Democratic Party into the political region we recognize as nowhere. The NDP's Jack Layton ran a masterful campaign, found the right words, and knew how to use them. He stunned Canadian politics by surpassing the wildest dreams of his party's rank-and-file, and perhaps even his own expectations of success.

       Imagine -- he turned Quebec politics completely on its head, destroying the Bloc Quebecois (probably Quebec separatism, too), and virtually shutting out the Liberals and Conservatives in that province.

       Now that he's Leader of Her Majesty's Official Opposition, Jack Layton knows that in this position he leads a party that is "the government in waiting" -- it is the alternative to the government of the day. He cannot help but feel himself on a historic path to power. It has been said that if your party achieves Official Opposition status is will be government one day. We'll see.

       How Mr. Layton performs in his new position, how he carries out his significant responsibilities "on behalf of average, working Canadians," these things will be important not just for his future, but for  Mr. Harper's and, more importantly, Canada's future as well.