Well, my crystal ball was as faulty as everyone else's in predicting Monday night's results. So I'm not going to make any bold predictions about the next four days, let alone the next four years. But here are some random thoughts, questions, and possibilities, in no particular order.
It's too soon to write the Liberal Party's epitaph. Four years gives Liberals plenty of time away from the day to day manoeuvring in a minority parliament in order to do the soul-searching and re-inventing necessary to reconnect with Canadians. If they can't do that, well…
And I don't mean, "All we have to do is find the right leader." Liberals have been saying that for years now and most Canadians hear that as, "We have the right product; we just need the right face and Canadians will buy it." The Detroit automakers said much the same thing. Same result.
It`s too early to talk about "uniting the left". For one thing, NDP and Liberal partisans and party operatives tend to be hostile to one another. Besides, the Liberals are not particularly leftish (in B.C., they unite with the Conservatives under the Liberal name to battle the NDP). Neither, for that matter, is the NDP anymore. Under Layton, it has moved closer to the pragmatic centre. The possibility of a united progressive alternative to the Conservatives depends mainly on the success or failure of the Liberals' rebuilding effort. Given its showing on Monday, the NDP has little incentive to consider the option right now.
The Liberals may change their position on proportional representation. So might the NDP.
The Conservatives may find that a majority is a two-edged sword. Canadians will know whom to hold accountable for the state of the economy and social programs in four years time. Will the budget be balanced, as promised? What cuts will be made to achieve that? Who will do the sacrificing?
By 2015, Stephen Harper will have been prime minister for nine years.
The Conservatives will face stronger opposition to their policies. Not just because the NDP differs more ideologically from the Cons than the Liberals did, but also because they can do so safe in the knowledge they don't risk an election.
The NDP may not be up to the job, or Jack Layton's health may decline. This was as much a Layton victory as an NDP one.
The NDP's neophyte MP's will produce a bumper crop of embarrassments. The Conservatives and the MSM will make sure we know about them.
The NDP is now also the NPD, with more than half its MP's from Québec. This will, of necessity, shape the future of the party as well as that province. Will the NDP have to become a "big tent" party to accommodate and balance the aspirations of nationalist Québecers and the ROC (like the Liberals used to be)? Will Québecers realign politically along the traditional left-right spectrum as opposed to the federalist-sovreigntist axis?
The Bloc is dead, but the sovereigntist cause is not. Some sovereigntists had already come to the conclusion, that after twenty years, the Bloc was a failed experiment, that "sovereignty must be made in Québec." In defeat, expect sovreigntists to embrace this idea to salve their wounds.
Have the Conservatives simply given up on Québec? They've shown they don't need Québec to win a majority. The additional seats that will be added elsewhere in the country before the next election make Québec even less necessary to them. And that could have nasty repercussions.
The surge in the NDP was not the main reason the Conservatives won a majority. The Conservatives increased their share of the vote to just under 40%. In our three-(or four-, or five-)party system, that generally gets you a majority.
Last-minute polls had the NDP numbers right but were low for the CPC by a couple points and high for the LPC by an equal amount. Did Harper`s appeal to right-wing Liberals to stop the NDP surge have the desired effect?
What impact will the federal results have on upcoming elections in Ontario and Québec?
The West is in – in charge.
Good points Aeneas. In response to your comment on the PC surge in the increased share of the vote, I do believe it came from right of centre Liberals and the typically undecided vote of those with no particular Party affiliation, not at the cost of the NDP. The NDP continues to garner more support each time out with 30.8% of the popular vote this time. Omitting what took place in Quebec yesterday,this parties platform seems to be embraced more and more by the younger generation of voters who have become more disenchanted with those of the old line parties to their concerns and they seek change. The Harper government would do well to follow through on it promises concerning Child care for example. The Liberal party sadly, faces the same rebuilding as what befell the Conservatves when they had the PC/Reform split. In doing so they might consider fast forwarding the political aspirations of the younger members like Justin Trudeau or Gerard Kennedy for example, rather than that of the old boys school as in the recent past. Kennedy lost his seat this time around albeit in which has always in the past been an NDP enclave. The demographics show that these NDP strongholds are where the younger generation reside in most of the urban areas in the country.
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