Wake Up the Members of My Nation
What can I say? I was wrong.
Not in a good way, of course.
The Canadian federal election came and went last week, but I've been reluctant to write the post-game wrap-up because the results were so disheartening. People reading this in the United States and elsewhere can start with CNN's article about the election results, which has some decent background information on the Canadian political scene.
Here is the parliamentary seat count, before and after:
Conservative Party = 143/167
Liberal Party = 77/34
Bloc Québécois = 47/4
New Democratic Party = 36/102
Green Party = 0/1
Independent = 2/0
After confidently proclaiming in my last entry that "I expect everything to be more or less the same in Ottawa in a few weeks, after the votes have been counted," you can see from those results that there has been quite the change, and the status quo has definitely shifted--in the bad direction I feared in that same entry.
With a Conservative Majority government, Prime Minister Stephen Harper can do pretty much anything he wants, which doesn't bode well for the fates of things like government funding or public-sector employment. (Defunding Planned Parenthood? Yeah, our Conservatives plan to do that, too.) This takes away a lot of the joy over left-wing developments like the NDP surging to become the Official Opposition for the first time or the Green Party electing a Member of Parliament, because anyone who isn't part of a majority government basically gets to sit there and complain about what's happening for the next four years without any teeth to fight it.
There has been a lot of talk about the number of new MP's elected this time around, even though they get trained like all other freshman politicians. In particular, a lot of the attention on rookie Ruth Ellen Brosseau seems both sexist and insulting to the voters in her riding, who had the chance to look at her qualifications and decide if they wanted her to represent them--which they did.
This is the classic paradox of voter sentiment in a nutshell: People complain over and over about "establishment politicians" and how much of a "need for change" there is from "politics as usual"...and then go on to complain over and over about the lack of experience in anyone new who actually does get elected to a position. You know, everyone was a new politician once--if you don't want dynastic legacies to dominate political discourse, don't react negatively when the narrative actually veers away from that.
Although voter turnout was somewhat higher than the historic low of the last election, it was still an unimpressive 61.4%, and I haven't been able to find any official figures on the youth turnout. I'd like to think it was higher than in the past, but I suspect it wasn't.
As for some of my other predictions:
The incumbent in my riding was defeated by the Conservative candidate who kept robocalling my place, much to my surprise and chagrin.
Fears of a left-wing political coalition were, naturally, unfounded--not that it matters in this new landscape, anyway. There is now some talk of a Liberal-NDP merger (Liberal Democrats?), but I'm actually not in favour of that.
Aboriginal issues in general were, indeed, all but ignored--and I don't expect them to suddenly jump to the forefront with this government in place.
The dominant feeling in my mind now when it comes to Canada's future is dread, with a good mix of disappointment in the Canadian electorate who've reacted to everything Stephen Harper has done by giving him more and more power with each passing election. I can only hope that four years of virtually no checks and balances will snap them out of it.
Not in a good way, of course.
The Canadian federal election came and went last week, but I've been reluctant to write the post-game wrap-up because the results were so disheartening. People reading this in the United States and elsewhere can start with CNN's article about the election results, which has some decent background information on the Canadian political scene.
Here is the parliamentary seat count, before and after:
Conservative Party = 143/167
Liberal Party = 77/34
Bloc Québécois = 47/4
New Democratic Party = 36/102
Green Party = 0/1
Independent = 2/0
After confidently proclaiming in my last entry that "I expect everything to be more or less the same in Ottawa in a few weeks, after the votes have been counted," you can see from those results that there has been quite the change, and the status quo has definitely shifted--in the bad direction I feared in that same entry.
With a Conservative Majority government, Prime Minister Stephen Harper can do pretty much anything he wants, which doesn't bode well for the fates of things like government funding or public-sector employment. (Defunding Planned Parenthood? Yeah, our Conservatives plan to do that, too.) This takes away a lot of the joy over left-wing developments like the NDP surging to become the Official Opposition for the first time or the Green Party electing a Member of Parliament, because anyone who isn't part of a majority government basically gets to sit there and complain about what's happening for the next four years without any teeth to fight it.
There has been a lot of talk about the number of new MP's elected this time around, even though they get trained like all other freshman politicians. In particular, a lot of the attention on rookie Ruth Ellen Brosseau seems both sexist and insulting to the voters in her riding, who had the chance to look at her qualifications and decide if they wanted her to represent them--which they did.
This is the classic paradox of voter sentiment in a nutshell: People complain over and over about "establishment politicians" and how much of a "need for change" there is from "politics as usual"...and then go on to complain over and over about the lack of experience in anyone new who actually does get elected to a position. You know, everyone was a new politician once--if you don't want dynastic legacies to dominate political discourse, don't react negatively when the narrative actually veers away from that.
Although voter turnout was somewhat higher than the historic low of the last election, it was still an unimpressive 61.4%, and I haven't been able to find any official figures on the youth turnout. I'd like to think it was higher than in the past, but I suspect it wasn't.
As for some of my other predictions:
The incumbent in my riding was defeated by the Conservative candidate who kept robocalling my place, much to my surprise and chagrin.
Fears of a left-wing political coalition were, naturally, unfounded--not that it matters in this new landscape, anyway. There is now some talk of a Liberal-NDP merger (Liberal Democrats?), but I'm actually not in favour of that.
Aboriginal issues in general were, indeed, all but ignored--and I don't expect them to suddenly jump to the forefront with this government in place.
The dominant feeling in my mind now when it comes to Canada's future is dread, with a good mix of disappointment in the Canadian electorate who've reacted to everything Stephen Harper has done by giving him more and more power with each passing election. I can only hope that four years of virtually no checks and balances will snap them out of it.