Canada's Elections

Texto copiado integralmente da revista The Economist.

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No change for Canada
Oct 15th 2008 OTTAWA
From The Economist print edition
Stephen Harper’s Conservatives will form another minority government

IT IS an emphatic victory, even if the ruling party has failed, again, to secure a majority in parliament. Results from the general election held on Tuesday October 14th suggest that the Conservatives, led by Stephen Harper, have secured 143 of the 308 seats in the House of Commons, a gain of 16 seats. The Liberal Party, led by Stéphane Dion, has suffered a serious defeat, picking up just 76 seats.

Not everything has gone to plan for Mr Harper. Conventional wisdom in Canada suggests that no party can form a majority government without a strong showing in the French-speaking province of Quebec. His assiduous courting of Quebeckers since he took office in January 2006 produced no results. He learned to speak French passably, declared them a nation and gave the province a special seat at international gatherings. Despite those efforts, the big gains he envisaged did not materialise.

In early September, when Mr Harper called the election, opinion polls suggested that a victory and a majority were within reach. But he alienated Quebec voters and ceded valuable ground to the separatist Bloc Québécois with cuts to cultural programmes that were popular in that province and with his plans to send criminal offenders as young as 14 to prison. His seeming insensitivity to public anxieties over the global financial crisis (he commented more than once that the vertiginous drop in the stockmarket presented some good buying opportunities) undermined his popularity nationally.

The bigger loser on election night was Mr Dion, who staked the Liberals’ hopes on a green platform that featured a carbon tax. That was gleefully seized on by the Tories as a tax increase that would harm the economy at a time of global uncertainty. The Liberals managed to hold their own in Quebec, but lost support in their former stronghold of Ontario. Mr Dion probably intends to stay on as leader, but grumbling party stalwarts may try to jettison him at a convention in May when he must face a leadership review. The two leading contenders for his crown, Michael Ignatieff and Bob Rae, both won re-election handily and are waiting in the wings.

Mr Harper, in calling an election, ignored his own law requiring a fixed vote every four years. That decision, and the result, may yet spur opposition parties to unite against the Conservatives. Leaders of the left-leaning parties—the Liberals, the New Democratic Party, and the Green Party (which failed to elect a candidate)—have hinted at forming a coalition in future. Mr Harper has also limited his options for making concessions to Quebec. These were never popular with his core supporters in the western province of Alberta, but were grudgingly accepted as necessary to secure a firm majority

The world too has moved on. Mr Harper no longer has a robust economy to steer: he must deal with much weaker growth and the inevitable repercussions of the global economic and financial tumult. He will also have to handle a new administration and Congress in the United States, Canada’s most important trading partner. New challenges may arise in the form of energy, trade and environment policies. Should Barack Obama win, he is expected to call for a review of the North American Free Trade Agreement, on which Canada depends. These are tricky matters, especially for a minority government in a rancorous and partisan parliament.

Some pundits are predicting that the new government will not last long. For weary Canadians, who have now voted three times in less than five years, the prospect of another election would be unwelcome. The only consolation is that tight restrictions on both political contributions and spending mean that general elections cost a pittance compared with those next door.