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Political Hay
The Demise of Canada’s Liberals
The great party of Lester Pearson and Pierre Trudeau is left in smithereens under star intellectual Michael Ignatieff.
What a watershed election in Canada. Wow!!! Have things changed in my home and native land.
First of all, Stephen Harper and the Conservatives finally get their elusive majority government. Having elected minority Conservative parliaments in 2006 and 2008, Canadians finally saw fit to trust Harper and the Tories with a majority of seats in Canada’s House of Commons. It is the first time the Tories have won a majority government since Brian Mulroney was re-elected Prime Minister in 1988.
Secondly, the socialist New Democratic Party (NDP) had its most successful election in its fifty-year history. The NDP, led by Jack Layton, becomes Her Majesty’s Official Opposition for the very first time winning more than 100 seats. Their previous high in seats was 43 during the 1988 federal election. Nearly sixty of those seats were gained in Quebec. These gains came mostly at the expense of the sovereigntist Bloc Quebecois, which was reduced from 49 seats to a rump of four, thus losing party status in the House of Commons. Among those casualties was its longtime leader Gilles Duceppe. To put it into perspective, the NDP won only one seat in Quebec in the 2008 federal election. In most elections, the NDP has been shut out in La Belle Province altogether.
Thirdly, the Green Party won its first ever seat in the House of Commons as its leader Elizabeth May was elected in her constituency in British Columbia.
But perhaps the biggest story of them all was the collapse of the Liberal Party. Once known as “Canada’s natural governing party,” the Liberals have been reduced to 34 seats. It is their worst showing ever. What a tumultuous tumble for a political party that for more than a century had every single one of its leaders serve as Prime Minister. These leaders included the likes of Wilfrid Laurier, MacKenzie King, Lester Pearson, Pierre Trudeau, Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin.
The streak would come to an end with Stéphane Dion following the 2008 election, when the Liberals fell from 103 to 77 seats. Dion resigned as party leader but his resignation wasn’t to take effect until a Liberal Party Leadership Convention scheduled for May 2009. However, when there appeared to be an opportunity in late 2008 for the Liberals and the NDP to topple Harper’s minority government, Liberal Members of Parliament (MPs) and party insiders who were unhappy with Dion’s lackluster performance forced him out and Michael Ignatieff was chosen his successor.
Ignatieff, who has spent most of his adult life outside of Canada, had even less resonance with the Canadian electorate than Dion. Ignatieff owes much of his misfortune to his terrible political instincts. After all, it was Ignatieff who triggered this election in the first place having defeated Harper’s Tory government on a vote of non-confidence over Canada’s federal budget in March. His decision to topple Parliament perplexed me. I blogged about it here on March 25:
Now I could understand Ignatieff doing this if the Liberals were up in the polls by double digits and if he was the most popular leader in the country. But it seems to me that if half of all Canadians don’t want an election a lot of them aren’t going to vote Liberal. Now I realize that a week in politics is a lifetime. Harper could make a mistake and Ignatieff could capitalize. But unless Ignatieff becomes Prime Minister in the next 60 days or so then his political career is done.
Well, by night’s end the Liberals lost even more seats under Ignatieff than they did under Dion and garnered less than 20% of the national vote. For the first time in Canadian electoral history, the Liberals have fallen to third place in the House of Commons. To add to the indignity, Ignatieff also lost his Toronto area seat. He was left with little choice but to resign as party leader the following morning. But don’t feel too badly for Ignatieff. Don’t be surprised if he is back at Harvard in six months time. Ignatieff’s fate was probably sealed when he was lustily jeered at a hockey arena in Mississauga. Frankly, the Liberal Party would have done better if it had been led by Polka-Roo.
Given the magnitude of the Liberal debacle, one must ask if the NDP have supplanted them as Canada’s main leftist alternative to the Tories. Or will the inexperience of many of the NDP’s rookie MPs from Quebec shine through and alienate the party’s traditional base in Western Canada? Of course, some of the new Quebec NDP MPs have scarcely stepped foot in their ridings. Such is the case with Ruth Ellen Brosseau, the party’s standard bearer in Trois-Rivières, who lives three hours west in Gatineau and speaks precious little French. Brosseau, who works at a pub at my alma mater of Carleton University, spent a good part of the election campaign stumping for votes in Las Vegas. And let’s not forget the four new MPs who are McGill University undergraduates. There’s also the university student from Sherbrooke, who at 19 is the youngest MP in Canadian history. This could very well come back to haunt the NDP.
Nevertheless, Liberals will be asking themselves where they go from here. For starters they need a new leader. But whom will the Liberals embrace? Will they take a leap of faith and back Bob Rae, a former NDP Premier of Ontario? If Liberals are still leery of Rae after all these years, they could turn to a francophone with second generation lineage such as Dominic LeBlanc or Justin Trudeau, son of the late Pierre Trudeau. Or will Liberals fold in their tents and join forces with the NDP?
The bottom line is that the Conservatives have their majority government and the NDP are the official opposition. Both of them have Michael Ignatieff and the Liberal Party to thank for their good fortune.
About the Author
Aaron Goldstein writes from Boston, Massachusetts.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (25) | Leave a comment
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Michael Tomlinson| 5.4.11 @ 6:12AM
Could it be the Canadian left is now more honest with who they are and what they stand for? We can only hope American Democrats will soon have the honesty to rename their party -- the Social Democrats.
Brian Mc| 5.4.11 @ 7:56AM
And even more importantly, Michael. Could it be that our neigbors to the north have seen the writing on the wall before we did? The reversals stated above would be a true God-send if they were to be mirrored here in 2012...!
Michael Tomlinson| 5.4.11 @ 9:22AM
Amen Brian!
Appleby| 5.4.11 @ 6:45AM
Toronto elected a *real* conservative as mayor by a landslide, despite the best the Latte Liberals from downtown ridings could do to mock, jeer and smear him, and since his election he has been steadily fulfilling his promises. Perhaps the idea has finally entered the minds of the downtrodden proletariat that there IS something they can do, and perhaps this election was a sign of same.
The fun will be in watching the NDP figure out how to implement the pie-in-the-sky promises Layton made with the confidence that he never would have to actually implement them, using a cadre of untrained, unqualified kiddies who were chosen because they wanted the fun of the campaign. I am guessing that it will be Glee without the music.
As for my own riding, the proles elected another high-heeled Junior League socialist to go with our MPP, who will fight against everything the government tries to do and probably focus on raising taxes and Universal Daycare. As always, I will ignore her.
Dee See| 5.4.11 @ 7:19AM
--BTW
will Harper EVER face justice for agreeing to
'stealth' introduction of GMO foods throughout Canada
and the subesequent MASS inflicted stomach cancers,
organ failures and sterilizations????
Michael Tomlinson| 5.4.11 @ 9:25AM
I'd be more worried about the socialized medicine in Canada that rations health care.
Hey, will they ever charge Bill Clinton with rape? How about impeaching Obama for taking campaign funds from the terrorist organization Hamas?
loren hawley | 5.4.11 @ 8:14PM
I think you have been smoking far too much weed , it has caused you to become paranoid and dillusional . I think you might be able to get a nice pension for being this whacked
Sam Vaughn| 5.4.11 @ 9:05AM
One need only look at the changing exchange rate between the Am $ and CAD to figure out how the winds of change are a-blowing. Good for you Canada!
Michael Tomlinson| 5.4.11 @ 9:25AM
Thank God for the Conservatives in Canada.
Ned| 5.4.11 @ 10:45AM
"Fleeing to Canada" may once again become a realistic alternative... should Obozo steal the '12 election...
Appleby| 5.4.11 @ 2:40PM
Don't come to Toronto. You'll have to pay $300,000 for a condo the size of your dog house, and the average price of everything is about 50% higher than it is Down South.
P.S. "Conservative" doesn't mean the same thing up here that it does down there. Mr. Harper is less socialist than Jack Layton.
InLineFour| 5.4.11 @ 5:46PM
Appleby, if you ever lose patience with Canadian socialism, we'd welcome someone of your conservative mien back into the States. You may not want to suffer under another Jerry Brown admn, but there are other nice places to choose from, and most are much less chilly in winter than Toronto. Speaking of CA, I'm still curious what you were riding when you were racing mx.
Ole Sarge| 5.4.11 @ 10:37AM
There is wailing and celebration in the Great North eh?
As a Canadian relative said "At Last, the craziness might be stopped!"
canuckistani| 5.4.11 @ 11:02AM
Before we get all misty for RR and Muldoon singing Irish Eyes again, 61% of the electorate voted left. Hardly a watershed moment for the centrist conservatives, and interestingly, the analysis showed of the 22 new cons, every one was a result of vote-splitting between the dippers and libs. A "unite the left" a la Harper's own unity project in 2003 is necessary and past it's due date.
Harper should be wary of an electorate that has not given him a mandate to do anything and any deviation from Stephen The Nice that was observed the last few years, will result in a rapid backhand the next go around.
Canucks love their social safety net and their politicians beige and predictable.
Layton's Quebec surprise has opened up the separatist pandora's box and his ham-handed foray into wooing them will recoil into his face within 18months, about the time the provincial Quebec elections are underway. Opportunism at its worst.
Canada has the four F's supporting them in the next decade: Food, Fuel, Fertilizer and Forests. I encourage readers to invest there. China is sniffing around with mucho dinaro, and the bandwagon is just beginning. Invest!
DanH in Alaska| 5.4.11 @ 3:22PM
Over here on your Western horizon we have the three F's; If it Flies Floats or F*&^$, it’s cheaper to rent.
Wes in MT| 5.5.11 @ 10:09AM
I just about spit out my morning coffee at that one. It is about time that canadians finely recognized the existental threat that liberalism is to the nation, just as americans need to recognize that threat. Rather than be timid and trying to predict the future, Mr. Harper needs to move quickly and decisively to enact conservative policies that will eviscerate the left and set Canada on a solid footing going foreward. The leftists will vilify and oppose you, no matter what. Accept that fact and get on with it. Makes moving back almost appealing. . . .
canuckistani| 5.5.11 @ 10:34AM
I agree, but he needs to be wary of the 61% that voted left. The vote splits are what got him over the top, not an epiphany of conservative thought.....
In five years he has done zero to change the welfare state and more accurately he was a de facto Liberal government. The fact he was able to define Ignatieff so well gave him the victory, not policy. He probably will not have that luxury again and would be advised to tread carefully.
Remember, Junior mis-interpreted his 2004 victory as a mandate to expend political capital. How wrong he was. Harper is not strategic and now he must find those muscles.
Ken (Old Texican)| 5.4.11 @ 12:00PM
Hooray, Canadians!
You are on a path back to reality.
Best of luck. My prayers are with you.
Al Adab| 5.4.11 @ 2:11PM
Amen to that Ken, We can only hope that our votetrs get a similar dose of reality and vote accordingly.
gary siebel| 5.4.11 @ 1:39PM
Interesting. Events are continuing to reinforce my belief that the link between the left, and liberals, is disintegrating. Basically, the Left is interested in justice in regard to economics, but Liberals are more interested in sympathy over social issues. (Liberals hijacked the Left back when Mondale was the Dem candidate.) The Left, for example, has no interest in homosexual marriage, except insofar as all single people, amongst whom we should count homosexuals, suffer economic discrimination in regards to taxation (etc) just because they are single. While liberals focused their wrath on the gay marriage absurdity more important economic issues were pushed to the rear. I suspect that most liberals are not members of any union anywhere.
The problem may be that the Berkeley/Marin crowd made so much money they separated themselves out from the general populace, which always tends to be conservative anyway. They are as elitist as the worst country club conservatives. Canada is probably going through a similar process.
Campaigning for a political seat in Canada in Las Vegas -- now that's a true party animal at work!
jack smith| 5.4.11 @ 7:56PM
Justin Trudeau !!!???
The substitute drama teacher !!!???
LOL. Just what they need now, a baby face pining for the days of his father, the 1960`s.
edged25 | 5.4.11 @ 8:17PM
congratulations Mr. Harper ,I know you will continue to be an awesome Prime Minister
chaussures puma outdoor | 5.5.11 @ 3:31AM
nice job!