A centrist Liberal Canada is miles better from a far-right one

All the major election-coverage news outlets are projecting a Liberal win tonight. Congratulations to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Better not screw this up, dude. Full results here.

Well, it ain’t Blue up north any more, and thank goodness for that. Mulcair had the best chance anyone could have gotten in his position and he choked, bigtime. Sorry.

And now for the traditional Canadian song as PM Harper et Entourage exeunt, stage right, though they will sadly likely form opposition:

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A centrist Liberal Canada is miles better from a far-right one
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11 thoughts on “A centrist Liberal Canada is miles better from a far-right one

  1. A
    2

    A significant drop in NDP support came after Mulcair came out in strong support of women’s right to choose what to wear (Niqab), so while it may appear like he choked, it also appears as if some underlying ethnocentrism led to at least some of the NDP’s loss in momentum. For people who were ABC, that significant drop in a region that had many surprising NDP wins in the last election may have made the Liberals look like the safer bet for change. Vote splitting was a serious concern for many, and I may have voted differently in a different riding.

    I can’t fault Mulcair for his open-mindedness and respect for cultural differences. I also can’t fault him for running an aggressive campaign. Trudeau is being praised by the pundits for running a positive campaign, but in ’88, after the last major NDP underperformance, the big criticism was that they ran a positive campaign instead of a critical/aggressive one. Voters can be fickle.

  2. 3

    Going to say the NDP are Centrist too. For us card carrying Socialists, all the major political parties that are actually apologizing to right-wing thinkers are bitter pills to swallow.

    I want a Centrist government about as much as I want a Conservative one.

  3. 4

    A #2:
    This is what happened with Labour in the UK election. Not only did Miliband suggest prosecuting those involved in ‘Islamophobia’, Labour held a gender-segregated meeting. Any hint that Muslims are being shown deferential treatment will cause voters to come down hard.
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    I’m only observing this from Down Under, but the fact that Canada officially went into recession just before this election had to be a major boost for Harper’s opponents.

  4. 5

    I’m only observing this from Down Under, but the fact that Canada officially went into recession just before this election had to be a major boost for Harper’s opponents.

    Speaking as a USian, and thus a complete ass of a human, I’ve always heard voters favor conservative candidates during economic downturns. Not because they trust them better with money but because recessions typically encourage nationalistic rhetoric and racism/xenophobia. Is this not true outside the US?

  5. 6

    Mulcair blew it by abandoning true progressive policy stances. Committing to running balanced budgets when the Liberals were willing to run deficits to get the economy going again basically cut them off at the knees. I think the NDP would have been better served by staying to the left and not trying to track to the center, but that’s just the opinion of someone who’s modestly interested in politics.

    At any rate, the Liberals are less worse than the Conservatives. I would’ve liked to see a Liberal minority government propped up by the NDP with the hopes that the Dippers could pull the Libs a bit further to the left.

    C’est la vie.

  6. 9

    On the subject at hand, Mulcair ran a crappy campaign. And, he’s still not done the honorable thing and resigned the party leadership after the debacle.

    Note to “A”: Liberals took the same stance as NDP. Problem is, Mulcair failed to maintain his party’s unity.

    His big mistake, though, was to rule out deficit spending. His second biggest mistake was to look like Harper in piling on with the “not ready” theme on Trudeau.

  7. 10

    Now if only Australia would follow suit; Tony Abbott may have been so odious that even his own party ousted him as leader, but the replacement is of course also from that party and thus not so different in politics. In with the new boss, pretty much same as the old boss.

  8. 11

    Steve Sirhan aka SocraticGadfly: while I appreciate your continued pressure on Dunning, please remember I consider promoting your own works to be against my own better judgment, where you still have never apologized for your bullshit against Stephanie Zvan.

    I try very hard to separate out lauding people for good behaviour and shaming people for bad; it’s difficult for me, though, to promote your good works with the bad on other topics still hanging out there.

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