In a dramatic general election, the Liberal Party of Canada has climbed back from a devastating defeat in 2011 to win a majority under the new leadership of Justin Trudeau and now holds 54 percent of seats.
Amid much relief from the center and the left, the Canadian Conservative Party leader Stephen Harper ends his nine-year term as prime minister.
However, the other big loser this year is the New Democratic Party, traditionally left of the Liberals, who formed the official opposition for the first time in 2011 after a surprise success known as the “Orange Wave.”
As a friend eloquently summed up left-wing sentiments: “It is sad that red has eaten orange, but not sad that red has eaten blue.”
However, celebration hats on first. The ousting of Harper is a victory for democracy, equality, the environment and the economy. While much power is consolidated in the position of prime minister, unwritten convention has historically dictated that it is not wielded in a totalitarian way. Honor systems only work with honorable people.
During his tenure, Harper strove to put as indelible an ideological mark on Canada as possible.
He prorogued parliament twice for political gain, first to fend off a potential vote of no-confidence and second to avoid House of Commons scrutiny of transfer of Afghan detainees at high risk of torture. He was ruled in contempt of parliament for withholding information on crime legislation, purchase of war jets, and impact of corporate tax cuts.
However, even putting this underhand and undemocratic mode of politics aside, his official policy has done the country untold harm: he yoked Canada’s economy to Alberta’s oil industry; gutted the country’s environmental legislation; silenced scientists; defunded or criminalized more than 100 progressive organizations; all but waged war on First Nations; and, taking credit where none was due for keeping Canada strong during the global recession, he implemented endless, ideologically driven austerity measures, severely damaging Canada’s once strong economy.
The Conservatives’ attempts, via (highly amusing) campaign videos, to convince the electorate that Trudeau, the son of an iconic former prime minister, was “just not ready” for office, have failed. Canada has declared Trudeau fully baked and ready to eat. And I think it would be remiss of me not to point out that this election leaves the nation with one of the world’s prettier premieres, but beauty, as the Irish say, would not boil the pot.
There are pros and cons to Trudeau’s policy.
While he is promising austerity easing and government spending to stimulate the economy, he is also running on a platform of unnecessary tax breaks for the middle classes; while his stance on multiculturalism has been inclusionary, he voted in favor of the Conservatives’ bizarre and racially motivated Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act, Bill S7; furthermore, his liberal credentials clearly do not extend to anti-surveillance — the party also voted in favor of the C51 “anti-terrorism” legislation, which increases government powers to spy on civilians.
So there is certainly much to mourn in the death of the New Democratic Party’s (NDP) Orange Wave. What happened?
Many commentators seem to think that Canadian NDP leader Thomas Mulcair conceded the party’s 2011 advantage in Quebec by failing to speak out against the niqab. For those of you who have not been following the Canadian election, Zunera Ishaq’s right to wear the niqab during her Canadian citizenship ceremony became a divisive issue.
Some called it a smokescreen, but the truth is that the supposed tension between women’s rights and multiculturalism has dominated Quebec political discourse since 2013, when the Parti Quebecois proposed a charter of values that would limit the wearing of religious symbols by state personnel.
The charter was implicitly aimed at the province’s Muslims, with the Jewish community caught in the crossfire. Thankfully, the bill failed, but it had much popular support and it is not unreasonable to suggest that Harper’s instrumentalization of the niqab issue was designed to weaken the left in Quebec.
However, I do not think this is what actually played out. If it were, we would see the NDP conceding most power to the Conservatives or the Bloc Quebecois, who were anti-niqab, instead of to the Liberals, who were admirable in their defense of Canadian women’s rights to wear whatever the heck they want. And while the Conservatives and the Bloc made small gains in Quebec, it was the Liberals who cleaned up. It seems more likely to me, then, that the NDP’s policy mistake was to move towards the center economically, promising a balanced budget.
However, overall the ABC (Anything But Conservative) mindset was the primary determinant in the NDP’s demise. Many seasoned, popular NDP candidates across Canada lost their seats — such as Peter Stoffer and Jack Harris — not because of policy issues, but due to strategic voting. Unity was needed to topple Harper, and the polls indicated that Trudeau was a safer bet.
With this analysis, then, I think we can read this year’s election as a victory for Canada’s left. The message that the nation has sent its new leader is clear: there is appetite for a politics of anti-austerity; this is a Canada that believes in the rights of all of its citizens and residents.
In short, it is Trudeau’s leftist as opposed to centrist tactics that have won him this victory, and he would do well to be cognizant of that as he restores Canada to the egalitarian, ethical and honorable democracy that it once was — the democracy of which Canadians are right to be proud.
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