| It started as the most boring election in Canadian history. Among the people, among the media and even among politicians it was assumed that Election 2006 would yield the exact same results as Election 2004.
Much to our surprise, eight weeks later Canadians have ushered in a new era in politics. For the first time in 12 years a Conservative is moving into 24 Sussex Drive. It wasn’t an easy feat to accomplish – in order to change Canadians from red to blue, the Conservative party of Canada had to take a man whose political career was built on showcasing how western Canadians are a different breed and make him familiar and appealing to all Canadians.
Their attempts last election failed miserably. Stephen Harper and his party were unable to overcome the perception that they are the antithesis to everything Canada stands for. Their right-wing economics were seen as a threat to our universal health care system and their Christian right background was hazardous to the advances we were making towards same-sex marriage. Harper’s pro-Iraq war stance instilled fear among our nation of peaceniks. In 2004, most Canadians didn’t buy the idea that Harper and his Conservatives shared their values, deciding to re-elect the evil we knew rather than chance the one we didn’t.
This campaign saw many Canadians change their minds about Harper. He and his Reform-cum-Canadian Alliance-cum-Conservative Party members worked hard to win over Joe Canadian by avoiding talk about social values and instead wooing voters with an agenda of tax cuts, a strong anti-corruption stance and the need for change in Ottawa. So what made us buy it this time round?
Maybe we didn’t buy it. Maybe we just had an overwhelming desire to punish the Liberals. The Conservatives started to pull ahead of the Liberals in the polls after the RCMP announced their investigation into the potential leak regarding the Income Trust Act. The Conservatives reinforced their lead by touting a Tory vote as a means by which ordinary Canadians could stick it to the Liberal party. The Conservative slogan "Stand Up for Canada" resonated loud and clear with a population that was loathing the idea of rewarding the corrupt Liberals with another term in power. Maybe this election was, in essence, a referendum on how Canadians felt about the sponsorship scandal.
And, in perfect timing with our desire to teach the Liberals a lesson, Harper softened a bit. With his sharp tongue under tight control and his more right-wing MPs tucked far away from the public view, Harper reassured Canadians that his political views had "evolved." He won over our national media, with both the The Globe and Mail and National Post endorsing Harper and suggesting that he would make a strong prime minister.
Or maybe Canadians really agreed with what the Conservatives were promising. In 2004, it was our desire to save our universal health care system, our view of Canada as a peace-building nation and our fervent belief in a woman’s right to reproductive choice that motivated us to vote Liberal. The Conservatives didn’t change their values this time round, but voters apparently did. In Election 2006, Harper defined his Canada in terms of tougher sentences for criminals, shorter wait times for health care patients and increased military spending. He rode to victory on an agenda of eliminating corruption and rolling back taxes – and Canadians signalled effectively that these were important values, evidently more so than those that defined Election 2004. The tax cuts that Harper excitedly proposed, while vowing to dismantle the planned national child-care program and pull out of the Kyoto Accord, are perhaps an indicator of a fundamental shift in Canadian values. Many Canadians no longer see the government as defining a nation with our tax money, but instead see our taxes as wasted dollars. Perhaps our vote for Harper demonstrates that government promises of programs and institutions mean little to us anymore and we would rather simply give less of our hard-earned cash to Ottawa.
Granted, not all Canadians have changed their values. The NDP saw their support rise across the country and gathered significantly more seats. Election 2004 saw many would-be NDP supporters throw their votes behind Liberal candidates in an effort to outweigh the threat of a Conservative win. This time, the increased NDP numbers suggest that supporters ignored the pleas of Buzz Hargrove and Liberal leader Paul Martin to vote strategically, instead going on to paint the Canadian political landscape with a little more orange.
But at the end of our longest election campaign in decades, we are Canadians and this is Canada — a country not apt to make big changes. Election 2006 was the Canadian version of change – we elected a minority Conservative government, one that will be hampered significantly by the large Liberal opposition and the significant number of NDP MPs. As the average lifespan of a Canadian minority government is a year and a half, this is a test drive of the Conservatives more than a mandate. And maybe we knew this when we went to the polls, willingly electing Harper and his Conservatives in the comfort of knowing that they couldn’t drastically affect our daily lives. Maybe this is simply the Canadian version of revenge, doing just enough to teach the Liberals a lesson for abusing their powers in Parliament without rocking the boat too much.
We’ll save that for Election 2008. |
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