In other news, Ignatieff got a friendlier interview on the right-leaning CTV-Global tv network today than he did on the supposedly left-leaning CBC last night.

Is up truly down, or is it a sign that the back-room Tory funders are seeing Harper for the liability he has become, and know the only way to get rid of him is for the Liberals to do so well in this election that Harper's own supporters turn on him within the party?

In still other news, one of the perennially-absent Conservative candidates in Calgary-area ridings was finally represented last evening at an all-candidates forum:

Constitutional experts are starting to speak out about the future after Monday, when Harper fails to win his coveted majority.

Poli-Sci professor emeritus talks

Here's him in print, explaining what happens after the election, including the scary fact that Harper as a minority PM can avoid calling Parliament back for a full 12 months. That's one way to avoid the inevitable non-confidence vote, but it won't buy his supporters their second-rate new jets or American-style super-sized prisons.

For a less sombre take on our permanently campaiging, never governing PM, there's the always entertaining Rick Mercer, credited with waking up the youth vote, in "Is Stephen Harper a hologram?"

Also Tabitha Southey's current column Ballroom Dancing on the Harper Express from which the best line is

Quote:

Conservative principles generally hold that the economy is essentially a beautiful and self-regulating thing, from which only excellent things come, and with which it's best not to tamper too much artificially. It's pretty much their version of a vagina.

Quote:

Conservative principles generally hold that the economy is essentially a beautiful and self-regulating thing, from which only excellent things come, and with which it's best not to tamper too much artificially. It's pretty much their version of a vagina.

F

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"Patriotism means being loyal to your country all the time and to its government when it deserves it."-- Mark Twain

"Inter arma silent Musae"--when the weapons speak, the muses fall silent.

An't nanum hearm deth, doth hwaet ye willath.

It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished
unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets. -Voltaire

Economic Left/Right: -3.88
Authoritarian/Libertarian: -4.36

Originally Posted by Jayne B

In still other news, one of the perennially-absent Conservative candidates in Calgary-area ridings was finally represented last evening at an all-candidates forum:

And @ the vagina thing.

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Standard disclaimer: the disgusting statements contained in this post are the views of the poster, and unless specified do not represent the views of the moderators or the site's owners.

Harper Wins Clear Path to Tax, Spending Cuts in Canadian Vote
By Theophilos Argitis and Greg Quinn - May 3, 2011

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper spoke a rally in Brampton, Ontario, on April 29, about his Conservative Party's focus on the nation's economy and jobs. Harper is seeking his first majority government as Canadians vote today in their fourth election in seven years.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper won a majority of seats in Parliament for the first time, giving his Conservative Party a mandate to secure the economic recovery with additional tax cuts and erase the country’s deficit with curbs on government spending.

Harper’s party was ahead or leading in 167 of 308 districts, according to results posted on Election Canada’s website as of 2:36 a.m. New York time. Jack Layton’s pro-labor New Democratic Party was leading in 102 seats to form the official opposition, followed by 34 for the Liberal Party led by Michael Ignatieff, three for the Bloc Quebecois and one for the Green Party.

The victory ends seven years of minority governments that have fueled government spending, and puts the Conservatives in firm control of the federal agenda for the first time since the early 1990s. Harper pledged to balance Canada’s budget by 2014 after running record deficits during the recession, even as he moves ahead with personal and corporate income tax cuts to help sustain the expansion.

“Having a majority government that can pass a coherent plan is very reassuring to the market,” said Paul Ma, who manages about C$500 million ($528 million) at McLean & Partners in Calgary. “It’s great for investors.”

The Canadian dollar rose 0.3 percent to 94.73 cents per U.S. dollar at 2:39 a.m. in Toronto, from 95.06 cents yesterday. The loonie had fallen against all Group of Seven currencies over the past month except the U.S. dollar, as support for the NDP surged, raising concern that party may have ended up with a share of power, or created gridlock for a Conservative minority government.

Political Landscape
The election produced the biggest change in the political landscape since 1993. The rise in support for the NDP, a party with socialist roots, was unprecedented as it had never fared better than third in national elections. The Liberals, which governed for most of the past century, lost 43 seats and its 18.9 percent share of the national vote was the party’s lowest since the country was formed in 1867.

The election also marked the worst performance by the separatist Bloc Quebecois since that party was founded in the early 1990s. The party’s four seats are down from 49 in the 2008 election, and leader Gilles Duceppe lost in his own district.

Canada’s Green Party scored its first ever federal election victory, with leader Elizabeth May winning her constituency in British Columbia.

Opposition Lawmakers
Harper, 52, had governed since 2006 with a minority of seats, meaning he’s had to rely on support from opposition lawmakers to pass laws and implement his fiscal plans. He campaigned on a plea to voters for a majority to end the string of elections that he said were threatening the country’s ability to recover from recession. Canada has had four elections in the past seven years.

“Canadians can now turn the page on the uncertainties and repeat elections of the past seven years and focus on building a great future for all of us,” Harper told his supporters during his victory speech in Calgary.

Under Harper, program expenditures have increased by 40 percent to C$245 billion as the Conservative leader sought to placate opposition parties and win favor with voters.

The Conservative leader has also refrained from lifting barriers to foreign investment, among the most restrictive in the industrialized world, even after pledging in 2008 to open up the country’s phone market to more competition.

Potash Deal
Facing calls from opposition parties for more restrictions on foreign investment, Harper became the first Canadian leader in more than two decades to reject foreign takeovers, including BHP Billiton Ltd. (BHP)’s $40 billion hostile bid for Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Inc. last year. He’s implemented tax credits and deductions targeted at families, small businesses and the self- employed.

A majority is “good for the country,” said James Cole, who oversees about C$800 million as a money manager at Portland Investment Counsel Inc. in Calgary. “A majority of any party would be better than the succession of minorities that we’ve had, which has degenerated into the worst of the U.S.-style having-to-buy-off-everyone politics with every vote at the taxpayers’ expense.”

One outcome of Harper’s victory is that planned corporate income tax cuts will move ahead. Canada reduced the federal rate by 1.5 percentage points to 16.5 percent on Jan. 1, and it will fall to 15 percent in 2012 under legislation passed in 2007.

Business Taxes
Royal Bank of Canada (RY), Bank of Nova Scotia, Suncor Energy Inc. and Barrick Gold Corp. (ABX) -- which reported paying a combined C$6.4 billion income taxes over the past 12 months according to data compiled by Bloomberg -- may be among the biggest beneficiaries of the reductions.

Both the NDP and the Liberals had pledged to raise corporate taxes to fund new social spending.

A Harper majority also means the country’s oil companies will have an advocate in Ottawa, after the Liberals and the NDP pledged to eliminate tax breaks and subsidies for the industry.

Canada is relying on business investment to help lead the recovery. Energy companies have been a main driver of spending, allowing the country to grow in the fourth quarter at a faster pace than any other Group of Seven country. Canada also has the lowest deficit in the G-7 and commodity sales have made its currency the strongest in the group over the past two years.

‘Under the Bus’
Canadian publicly traded oil and gas companies spent C$17.4 billion on investment in the latest quarterly filings, up from C$12.4 billion from the same quarter a year earlier.

Internationally, Harper has promoted Canada as an “energy superpower,” pointing to its political stability in a bid to fend off concerns in the U.S. about the environmental impact of the oil sands. The country sits on the largest pool of oil reserves outside the Middle East, mostly in the province of Alberta.

“The big one that was at risk was the energy industry, where the Liberals and NDP were quite prepared to throw Alberta under the bus,” Cole said. “There was a lot at stake.”

Among Harper’s first tasks will be to pass the 2011 fiscal plan, which didn’t pass Parliament before elections were called. During the campaign, Harper pledged a review of government operations to find C$4 billion in annual savings that he promised will be used to balance the budget by 2014, help to fund already legislated corporate tax cuts and finance C$6.6 billion in new election pledges that include a tax cut for families.

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Canada's political landscape rearranged | Heather McRobie | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

Quote:

For all its faults (and I'm in favour of electoral reform, for what it's worth), at least you think you know where you stand with the first past the post system. You get majority governments, with the executive dominating the legislature, and stable (or stagnant) two-party systems, concentrating power overwhelmingly in the hands of the few. But just as the UK prepares for a referendum on our electoral system this week, Canada's elections Monday – in which Stephen Harper's Conservatives gained a majority, and the official opposition party changed from the Liberals to the New Democratic party – shows perhaps more than ever the surprises this system can still throw up when traditional voting patterns shift. Stephen Harper's Conservative rule up until this point was already something of an anomaly, with his previous terms in office under a minority government. In retrospect, it's astonishing that Harper dominated the political landscape through much of the 2000s despite the fact that the Conservative party hadn't won a majority since 1988. In March, when the government was found to be in contempt of parliament – another precedent in the Commonwealth parliamentary system – Harper's government fell, forcing the 2 May elections. The results of the election now give him four years of full-blown Conservative rule, a fact that hasn't been welcomed by those who see him as Canada's George Bush: Naomi Klein tweeted that a "hair-raising shock doctrine is coming our way", as Harper now has the mandate to pursue his cuts to welfare provision and what many see as his support of environmental destruction (bear in mind that one of Harper's milder actions on the environment was to dismiss the Kyoto protocol a "socialist scheme". But as Harper assumes office as the leader of a majority government, the composition of the parliament looks almost unrecognisable. Not only have the Liberals lost their position as the main party of opposition, but the party leader, the once seemingly indomitable Michael Ignatieff lost his own seat in what's being described as an 'historical collapse' of the Liberals, previously one of Canada's two main parties. In a strange parallel to this collapse of the Liberals, the Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe is resigning after losing his own riding, while the Bloc Québécois' support has imploded to the point where it is hard to image the Québec sovereignty movement resurfacing as a national issue (can you be a "bloc" when you only have four seats in parliament?). This unprecedented shift in voting patterns is largely due to the ascendancy of the New Democratic party. The rise of "Jack Mania" – at least, in Québec – for the NDP's leader Jack Layton could be seen in some ways as Canada's 2011 "I agree with Nick" moment: the Conservatives focused most of their campaigning energies on attacking the Liberals and Ignatieff, with the NDP poised to position themselves as the new viable alternative to the Conservatives, as well as sweeping up protest votes to the Bloc Quebecois. One of the key points of the Conservative campaign to finally secure a majority was built on the premise that another Conservative minority government – which looked possible in the early stages of the campaign – would create a cumbersome coalition of opposition parties. This doesn't sound much like the rhetoric used in first past the post system election campaigns: citing the spectre of unwieldy coalitions to implore the voters to – this time round, please – elect a majority government. Perhaps the most optimistic parallel between last year's UK election and the sudden reshaping of Canada's political landscape this week is the rise of Elizabeth May, who has just become the first Green MP to be elected to Canadian parliament – and who, like Caroline Lucas, was not invited to the televised campaign debate. May's voice will be sorely needed in opposition to Harper's conservative vision, and her victory, like Caroline Lucas's, was a triumph over the first past the post system under which parties like the Green party lose out. Although the UK's 2010 election and Canada's 2011 election produced vastly different outcomes – one a period of coalition government, the other ending a of minority government rule – the two elections show that first past the post doesn't ensure a stable two-party system; actual votes still bend the structure in dynamic ways. On his day of legitimate victory under Canada's electoral system, perhaps Harper would prefer it if we didn't notice that one of the interesting parallels is that, for most of his rule so far, Harper's Conservative party, like David Cameron's Conservative party now, didn't have a majority. In any case, now Harper finally has his majority, the image of Canada as America's liberal, progressive neighbour might – like Ignatieff and the Bloc Québécois – also suddenly drop off the political radar.

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