October 15, 2015

October 19th, Canada goes left again

Canada's federal election is on October 19th.  What had been a tight 3 way race started to open up a bit a few weeks ago, with the socialist NDP party falling back to their traditional third place territory and polls showing either the Conservative party or the Liberal party pulling ahead.  That was then.  The three latest polls all have shown the Liberals, led by unproven neophyte Justin Trudeau (son of the most progressive liberal Prime Minister Canada has ever had, Pierre Elliot Trudeau), pulling ahead of the Conservatives. Unproven but popular, sounds familiar doesn't it.  Unproven typically means unqualified, right? 

It doesn't matter.

Polls have been notoriously erratic in recent years  - in 2012 there were as many polls showing Mitt Romney beating Obama as there were showing Obama winning. But in this case there's a trend that's emerging.  Conservatives having led the country for quite a few years, have been bland.  "Stay the course" is not a rallying message to inspire voter turnout or political empathy.  

Interestingly the Conservatives and the socialist NDP have promised to continue balanced budgets.  Trudeau has promised billions in deficit spending - openly. And it looks like the Liberals are going to win right now, with only days to go before the election.  Worse for the conservatives is that even if they d pull out a minority government (more seats in parliament than either other party but not more than the two combined), Thomas Mulcair, leader of the NDP has vowed to form a coalition government with the Liberals to ensure that Prime Minister Harper never leads this country again.  That would be bad because the country would not just move left, it would move further left than if the Liberals simply win a minority government again, as in that case they could rely on the NDP to support most of their legislation without having to include conciliatory elements for the socialist left.

So for the conservatives, the best case, another majority government is seemingly off the table. A Conservative minority victory would likely see them out of power unless the Liberals and NDP could not reach an accord (which was the case last time they tried). The best case may be a Liberal minority government in the hopes that much of what they do is unpalatable to the NDP and the NDP along with Conservatives force another election after not too long.  And the worst case - a Liberal majority government - which is also not very likely.

None of those options indicate a continued Conservative government at this time.  Dark days indeed, we can now only hope that the recent polls are flawed.  We saw how well that worked for Mitt Romney in 2012.

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