The Scoop on the Canadian Election

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Dardedar
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The Scoop on the Canadian Election

Post by Dardedar »

DAR
Some conservative who don't know any better may do some big crowing on this minor win in Canada, that's fine, but it needs to be a very small crow. Let me unpack it a little and provide some context. A couple of points.

a) A Canadian "conservative" is at least as liberal as a Democrat and more so on many issues.

b) It was a very slight win and they are a minority government which HAS to work with the other sides to pass ANYTHING. And guess what, all the other sides are VERY liberal. The NDP are basically democratic socialists, and they did very well in this election, gaining seats. This is the best they have done since 1988. And the far right will have to work with them. Compare them with Nader types. The Liberals + NDP = much greater representation than the Conservatives. It's like as if the US had two decent sized liberal parties (rather than basically none by Canadian standards).

c) Minority governments in Canada usually last a year and a half. The Liberals were in for 12 years so a lot of people think it was time for a little change. Perfectly understandable. And this is a little change. Unemployment is at a 30 year low and for the last eight years the Liberals have had budget surpluses. Hopefully the "Conservatives" won't be as fiscally irresponsible as they are in the US.

This article also makes some good points too. I'll give some excerpts:

***
OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada took a tentative step to the right in Monday's federal election, ousting the Liberals after 12 years in power and voting in a fragile minority Conservative government, television networks said.

Preliminary official figures at 11.30 p.m. (0430 GMT Tuesday) showed the Conservatives winning or ahead in 122 electoral districts compared to 105 for the Liberals of Prime Minister Paul Martin.

[...]

It was the first time a right-wing party had won an election since 1988, when the then Progressive Conservative government beat the Liberals.

[...]

The left-leaning New Democrats also did well and looked on course to win 30 seats -- their best showing since 1988.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060124/ts_nm/politics_dc

Edited by Savonarola 2006Jan23 23:36: Snipped article and fixed URL tag
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Post by Savonarola »

Please respect copyrights. Use only short segments of copyrighted material consistent with Fair Use laws.

Man, I feel bad doing that, but the last thing we want is someone with a grudge getting us into legal trouble.
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