Conservatives win majority in Canadian parliament:
Canadian voters have radically redrawn the country’s political landscape, handing the Conservative Party its long-sought majority in an election that decimated the Bloc Québécois and humbled the Liberals.
For the first time in history, the New Democratic Party will form the Official Opposition after an extraordinary breakthrough that propelled the party to more than 100 seats.
Looks like Canada has the same coastal/interior, red/blue split we do:
The extent of the transformation is startling. The Liberals now hold just four seats west of Guelph, Ont.
But not entirely:
The Conservatives, formerly shunned by Toronto voters, won nearly half of the seats in that city, twice as many as the Liberals.
If you don’t follow parliamentary politics – even in relatively sedate parliaments like Canada’s or Germany’s – getting a majority is a much bigger deal than in our mostly two-party Congress. It’s a sign that, at least at the moment, there’s a pretty decisive mandate. And while Canadian conservatives
The night belonged to Stephen Harper, who put his party over the top after five years of minority government and becomes just the third Conservative leader since Confederation to win triple victories.
“We are intensely aware that we are and must be the government of all Canadians, including those that did not vote for us,” Mr. Harper said.
This election was every bit as big as 2011’s was in the US:
Parliament was radically remade. The fragmentation of the 1993 election has been reversed, with the Conservatives and NDP emerging as national parties with support across all regions of the country, although the Tories find themselves in an unusual position, as a majority government with just a handful of Quebec seats.
Rumor is it’s because Canadians are sick and tired of American “progressives” threatening to move to Canada.
You can bet the CBC is in full shriek mode now. I’m in Canada roughly 20 days a year and the media – the papers, CBC Radio and CBC TV spend much of their time acting like PM Harper is the boring, developmentally disabled love child of Sarah Palin and W. Bush, when he is much more akin to a 70’s vintage Minnesota Republican. The best thing he has done is nothing. He has allowed the Western provinces to exploit their incredible natural resources of oil and natural gas while not picking winners among the agri-business interests by encouraging fence-to-fence corn for ethanol like we have here in the US. (Have you seen the canola, alfalfa and wheat charts lately?) In the East he has not tried to save every hamlet and village with beaucoup Federal money – his government has encouraged the Newfies to go where the jobs are in the West. Congratulations Mr. Harper!
Doesn’t the Canadian Conservative Party support banning handguns?
One of my favorite Stan Rogers songs is “The Idiot”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27ZiixkruCY
“I remember back 6 years ago,
this western life I chose,
When every day the news would say
some factory’s going to close.
I could have stayed to collect the dole,
but I’m not one of those.
I get nothing free and that makes me
an idiot, I suppose.”
Almost makes me want to move across the northern border. Almost.
Almost makes me want to move across the northern border. Almost.
I’m not sure why that is. Generally the “conservative” parties in other countries would be considered to the left of where Democrats are in the United States.
A tiny step in the right direction. But we still enjoy significantly more freedom here, which is why I fled the Great White North twenty five years ago.
You’re telling Angryclown that Minnesota isn’t part of Canada?
You can lead a clown to knowledge but you can’t make him think.