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looking forward
A couple of political parties came out of Monday night’s wild ride with very little to be happy about. You have to believe, for instance, that the Bloc Quebecois is finally toast, and just about everyone outside Quebec (and obviously most of those inside) are gladly saying good riddance. Considering the BQ’s leftist leanings, it wouldn’t be surprising to see the four remaining MPs join the NDP caucus, encouraging the party’s executive to just throw in the towel. A leadership convention would only postpone the inevitable.
If you’re a diehard Liberal, you have to be just as miserable, since your party just fell to third place for the first time in its history, and Mr. Charisma just helped you get the fewest seats ever. But looking on the sunny side, there’s nowhere to go but up, and although Justin Trudeau was making all the right reticent noises Monday, he’s the logical choice to lead the Liberals back out of the wilderness. Trudeaumania II, here we come, and we’ve got more than four years to look forward to it.
All those, by the way, who were musing about a possible merger between the Liberals and NDP are, with respect, imbibing too much caffeine. The merger on the right was between groups with little to distinguish them but geography. The NDP and Liberals are both truly national parties, and the ideological gulf is too great betwixt them. Won’t happen.
So if these two parties are glum, are the others gleeful? You’d think they would be, but beneath the smiling facades, we hear grumbling. The Tories have their majority, but only by a few seats, easily taken away next time around. They also have next to no support in Quebec, and for the next four years, their lives will be made miserable by two articulately snarling dogs named Layton and May, a far tougher job than shouting down Ignatieff and Duceppe.
Layton, meanwhile, although now a social democratic saint by leading the NDP to record heights and the Official Opposition, must also be losing a little sleep, knowing his surge was responsible for putting the Tories over the top. It’s also a challenge having more than half your MPs from virgin territory in Quebec (and a little disheartening to elect none in your party’s birthplace, Saskatchewan, where every single NDP candidate placed second).
As for Elizabeth May, her personal triumph is tempered significantly (and expensively) by the Greens’ precipitous decline in popular vote, which again can be laid at the feet of Mr. Layton. Will her presence in Parliament be enough to guarantee her party’s future? We doubt it.
So nobody in Monday’s election is unreservedly happy - with the possible exception of Bev Oda. Considering the baggage she brought onto the hustings with her, how could she be less than ecstatic at walloping her nearest rival by almost 20,000 votes (and it would have been way more if not for Mr. Layton)? In our view, this riding was decidedly winnable by the Liberals, and, in the last couple of weeks, by the NDP. Neither party made the effort; their campaigns were substantially underfunded and sadly mismanaged.
So maybe the victory isn’t all a bowl of cherries for Ms. Oda, either. She knows she got away with one. And maybe, deep down, she was even kind of hoping she might lose. She now has to spend four more years at a job which has lost a lot of its lustre for her, we suspect. And there’s a better than even chance that she’ll spend those four years in the back benches. Mr. Harper defended her when she was sitting right behind him, but he’s under no obligation to return her there. And given the amount of new talent at his disposal, he may figure she’s had her chance.
So in the end, maybe the only people really happy about all this are us political junkies. It was a fascinating night, and it’s going to be an equally fascinating four more years, watching all the possibilities get sorted out. Let the fun begin!
