A roller-coaster ride that slams you into the ground at the end

[velvetpage]

I can't think of a better descriptor for this election night than that.


We have a Conservative Majority government. This is bad, bad news. It means the Conservatives can basically do whatever they want for the next four years and unless their own party rebels, there is no way to hold them accountable in Parliament; they have enough votes that if they force their party to vote with them (and they will) nobody can stop them.

The Liberals have been thoroughly trounced. They're not quite as badly off as Kim Campbell's Progressive Conservatives were in 1993, but it's pretty darn close. Ignatieff lost his own seat.

The Bloc Quebecois has been virtually eliminated from the map; it has too few seats to even get official party status. There's already considerable speculation about what this might mean for Quebec's upcoming provincial election; all those out-of-work separatists suddenly flooding the Parti Quebecois for volunteers, campaign managers, and candidates, against a demoralized Liberal government there. . . that could be interesting. In the meantime, in the biggest upset since, well, 1993, the Bloc has been replaced by the NDP in Quebec. Nobody looked for that. Several candidates there were basically warm bodies in an election they had no hope of winning. One was assistant manager of a bar in Hull and speaks almost no French, in her 90% francophone riding. Another was on vacation in Vegas and was mobbed at the airport by reporters. The poor woman ran and hid. And most of those NDP candidates were at best soft nationalists; some are soft separatists. This is a pretty significant silver lining for me; Harper can't afford to antagonize the NDP when that means antagonizing Quebec.

The NDP stole a chunk of Liberal votes in Ontario, and a bunch more soft Liberals (presumably the ones who couldn't bring themselves to vote Conservative or NDP) seem to have stayed home. The result: Conservative percentages are up, but I can't find any numbers on voter turnout as compared to 2008. If I'm right, then basically they pulled off a majority by hanging tight, keeping their own voters, and scaring off Liberal voters. They won by playing dirty.

I've decided what I'm going to do.

For too long, I've been an armchair politician, willing to peddle my vote between several parties on the basis of several factors, never committing to any of them. This is very, very common on the Left in Canada, and while it has its benefits for tolerance and good feeling, in the end it loses elections and costs us a voice. I have ideas. I have things to bring to the table. But they're being heard in ways that don't affect the outcome of elections.

So tomorrow, I'm stopping by my newly-re-elected NDP MP's campaign office while they'e packing up, and joining the party formally. If possible, I'll join the provincial branch at the same time, though it may require a separate trip and fee; then I'll make myself known at my NDP MPP's office. I'm going to volunteer for the NDP for the Ontario election in the fall. I'm going to go to riding meetings and write for riding association publications between elections. I'm going to take my fairvote.ca flyers, printed by mrs_dm, with me. Provincially, my talking points will be slightly different from my talking points in the federal office, because the responsibilities of the two levels of government are different, but I'm no longer confining myself to slactivism on the internet.

It's time to actually make things happen.

Right now, I'm calling in sick because I've had absolutely no sleep and I'm still not asleep. I can't face trying to stay non-partisan with my students while explaining what a Harper majority means for Canada.

Comments

[photogfrog.livejournal.com]

Aside from the obvious of getting more votes, how the HELL did Harper win???? *sigh*

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

He didn't get more votes. He got about the same number of votes as last time. Basically, it's the dirty pool: he demoralized the Liberal base, vilified the leader before Canadians had a chance to judge him on his own merits, and basically convinced a bunch of people to stay home. That, plus some vote-splitting as the NDP picked up the soft Liberal vote, did the trick.

I do think it's hilarious that he targeted Igatieff so thoroughly and so effectively, but never saw Layton stealing Quebec out from under him and Duceppe at the same time. But the NDP has some work to do in Quebec; the support is very clearly a protest vote, and the voters will need an awful lot of reassurance that the NDP has their best interests at heart. It could easily swing back to the Bloc next time - a humbled Bloc, yes, but the Bloc nonetheless.

In any case, if you want to convince a country that someone is bad news, letting them govern unrestrained for four years is a good way to do it. Rather costly, but effective.

[r-caton.livejournal.com]

Bush got 8 years, Blair about the same.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

Harper's already had five, so one more term ought to do it.

[doc-mystery.livejournal.com]

Time to unite the Centre/Left.

::B::

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

The possibility has already been brought up on CBC last night by the pundits. I remain unconvinced; I think we would be better off spending the next four years campaigning for electoral reform so that the centre-left parties would get a proportional vote and have a chance to have all voices heard. I dislike the idea of leaving out all the fringe ideas because they don't appeal to centrists, and vice-versa, and I'm VERY leery of uniting with the Liberals at a time when the majority of seats on the left are coming out of a province that hates the Liberals.

[siobhan63.livejournal.com]

The voting system needs to change, definitely, but really - do you think for an instant Harper's going to be open to even mentioning the word? He's got his majority now - he'd never endorse anything that might jeopardize future ones, and while the Liberals are on their knees, he hasn't quite achieved his life-long goal of completely eradicating the party (but canning the vote subsidy will undoubtedly help).

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

What you're saying is that in order to get access to a fair vote that will allow for all voices, we're going to have to silence some voices.

Much as I regret it, I'm afraid you might be right.

[kisekileia.livejournal.com]

I agree with this. I think uniting the NDP and Liberals would result in the NDP moving towards the centre and losing some of what makes them appeal to left-wing voters. I'd rather see the NDP and the Greens unite.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

This article (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/second-reading/silver-powers/the-liberal-party-what-went-wrong-and-where-to-next/article2008011/page1/) caught my eye on this topic.

[siobhan63.livejournal.com]

At least you can get involved. I can't because of my job.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

I don't know if I could do a job that required me to be politically silent. I understand why such jobs are necessary, but I couldn't do it.

[wolfden.livejournal.com]

I can't believe Harper won. It boggles. Politics in general - American, Canadian, even small local stuff just breaks my brain.

[zorinlynx.livejournal.com]

Gahhh. WHY do people vote against their own interests?

We had the same problem here last year. People voted against their own interests and now they're losing their rights, like collective bargaining in some states.

I have a bad feeling the same crap will happen in 2012, too. Grrrr.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

Recessions always need a political fall guy. In Ontario in the nineties, the fall guy was the NDP government, and that was a huge contributing factor to what happened last night; Ontario still hasn't forgiven him. Meanwhile, the Conservative who followed him during better times did far more long-term damage and does not enjoy the same collective "never again" response in popular thought. In fact, the most likely next government for Ontario is the Conservatives, a little further to the right than they were under Mike Harris (and they were pretty far to the right then. He would have happily pulled a Wisconsin on teachers, and tried.)

Obama's going to be the fall guy for the current recession, though the blame lies far more with more Republican economic policies that predated him by decades, just like Harper benefited from the Liberals' ability to keep bank regulations in place against an onslaught of lobbyists - he was elected on "sound financial management," though he went from a surplus to a record deficit in five years.

[kisekileia.livejournal.com]

Hudak is further to the right than Harris?!? Seriously?? That's SCARY.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

As far as I can tell, yes. Since he has yet to release a platform or put himself out in public very much, it's hard to get a good read on him - but that's a bad sign all on its own.

[amyura.livejournal.com]

Of course, then you've got the situation in my state, where the working class DID vote in our own interests. We were the only state in the US that went solidly Democratic last year, in every statewide office and congressional district.

And last week the state house of representatives voted to strip public employees of collective bargaining rights with regard to health care.

[mrs-dm.livejournal.com]

Good for you re: getting politically active! It takes a lot of time and effort, unfortunately. I learned a lot while volunteering for the Green Party a few years ago and although I've let my membership lapse, I think I will renew it. But I'm not going to do volunteering for them -- I'm going to focus on Fair Vote Canada.

Sure, Harper will not go for electoral reform and he likely will scrap the party subsidies, but in the next 4 years of discontent, more people may start listening to what a mess our electoral system is in.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

That's one difference between joining the NDP and the Greens: the Greens have a smaller organization so everyone has to do more work. The NDP in Hamilton East is strong, and Marston's volunteers are about to switch to supporting Miller for MPP en masse, so I don't think they'll be relying on me quite as heavily as the Greens relied on you.