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Voting for Change?Category: Politics Prime Minister Stephen Harper often says that the people of Canada voted for change. I, for one, am getting tired of hearing that. Did we vote for change? Well, no, not really. With only about 35% of the popular vote, it's clear that most Canadians did not want change. Or if they did, it wasn't the change that Harper promised. Harper may feel pretty proud of gaining the position of most powerful politician in the country. But he has to be aware of one sobering fact. The Conservatives ran a flawless campaign. Harper was on the front page of most newspapers almost every day of the campaign. On the other hand, the Liberals wallowed in what had to be their worst campaign ever. All the breaks went to the Conservatives. No one could possibly claim that the Conservatives did not get their message out. And yet, in spite of everything going their way, they only achieved 35% of the popular vote. In spite of everything, 65% of Canadians still chose to mark their "X" in a different circle. This has to be discouraging to Conservative insiders. What's Harper to do? As a leader of a minority government, he must tread carefully, and work with the opposition parties to get things done. As Joe Clark amply demonstrated, he can't afford to govern as if he had a majority. Can Harper craft consensus? We'll have to wait and see. But so far, he seems to be making a fine mess of things. He's already demonstrated hypocrisy by luring over a Liberal with the promise of a cabinet position less than two weeks after the election. He's insulted Ontarians by giving cabinet positions to former ministers in Mike Harris's cabinet. And he still insists he will cancel billions of dollars in child care support leaving cities like Toronto in the lurch. Perhaps he thinks he can get away with this since few Canadians want another election soon. He may be right. The Liberals probably won't be in a position to fight another election for the next 12 months. On the other hand, Harper is cold and calculating. Maybe what he really wants is to force an election this summer, well before the Liberals can mount a credible response. We'll see. Once things start to happen in the legislature, he'll have to learn how to play nicely with the kids on the other side of the playground. Hans path: /Politics | permanent link to this entry  | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
