Tag Archives: Canada

Canadian Election Results: Everyone Lost

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Stephen Harper

Only in Canada could we have an election that no one wanted, that nearly no one paid attention to, and yet wind up with a result that left everyone disappointed.

There was just no good news for anyone last night.

  • The Tories increase their seats in a minority government, but so what? This was probably their best opportunity to win. It was an election that opposition parties lost because they couldn’t make the public believe in an issue and the Tories failed to capitalize, falling apart in the last two weeks thanks to a poor campaign and bone-headed policy decisions. They didn’t break through in Quebec and without a majority, they still can’t implement the agenda they really want. Harper gets to hang on for another year, maybe two, depending on what happens to the economy.
  • The Liberals fall to historic lows, unable to defend Ontario, unable to get people on board with a Green Shift Plan that should have been easy to sell. They are now a party in disarray, doomed to at least a year of in-fighting. Dion is a decent guy, his heart is definitely in the right place, but Canada’s Natural Ruling Party can’t abide loses.
  • The NDP gambles big, spending more than they’ve ever spent before, in an effort to perhaps become Canada’s option to Stephen Harper. Despite the gains the party made, they failed to really break through anywhere. A good campaign, but a moral victory is not enough.
  • The Greens get walloped. Despite their leader being in the debates and higher profile coverage of their party than ever, they fail to win a single seat and their vote fails to materialize on election day.
  • The Bloc wins, sort of, by not losing. At the beginning of the election they looked doomed, but they managed to hold onto Quebec yet again. That’s a victory of sorts, but they too are facing leadership issues and could easily descend further into irrelevance.

Ho-hum. Everyone back to first positions. Let’s do this thing again. How’s eight months sound?

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How to Vote Strategically in the Canadian Election

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Canadians will go to the polls on Tuesday to elect a new federal government. It is a cliche to suggest that whatever election happens to be going at the moment is “the most important election of our lifetimes,” but this is an important election. For the first time in our history we have major parties that have recognized the environment and climate change as central campaign issues and who will make reducing carbon emissions a fundamental part of their governing strategy.

The problem, however, is that even if you are concerned about the environment there are a number of parties you could legitimately choose to vote for and in Canada’s first past the post system, voting for your first choice of party can easily help hand the election to exactly the people you don’t want to win. Deciding how best to use your vote can be complicated. Luckily a couple of websites have popped up to help make your decision easier.

  • Vote for Environment – When you enter your postal code on this website, you’ll get a break down of how best to use your vote for the environment in your riding
  • Pair Vote – Every vote a party gets matters, even if they don’t win the riding, their future funding is directly related to their total vote tally. With Pair Vote, you can vote strategically and still help make sure your preferred party gets all the votes and funding it deserves by swapping votes with someone in another riding.

Use them. And use your vote wisely.

[UPDATE] Unfortunately, it is now too late to sign up for Pair Vote. You’ll have to find a way to vote strategically on your own.

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Calling out the Canadian environmentalists

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Robert Silver and Tim Powers have a blog that has been running on the Globe & Mail’s website during the Canadian federal election. Each one of them is a stout partisan: Silver a Liberal, and Powers a Conservative. I’d love to be able to call what is happening on the blog a “debate,” but for a debate to occur, both parties need to be able to come to some basic agreement on the topic at hand. For the most part, this hasn’t happened on the Silver-Powers blog, so the conversation has been dominated by a lot of sniping at one another. 

Yesterday, however, Silver posted one of the most provocative and interesting articles I’ve read by anyone this election cycle. He correctly points out that Stephane Dion’s major policy proposal this election, the Green Shift, is exactly the sort of thing that environmentalists have been demanding for the last 25 years. Finally, we have an election in which serious environmental policy should be the centre of discussion, and yet Canadian environmentalists have dropped the ball in terms of speaking up about the policy. 

Silver writes:

So today the enviros have the election they have been waiting for, they have the platform they have been lobbying for and they have a leader who believes in it to his core.

And yet, from the enviros, silence. It hurts ones ears to listen to the silence that has emanated from the environmental groups since the Green Shift was released, never mind during this campaign.

Oh sure, we heard yesterday – for the first time this campaign – from one who told us “it’s time for a serious debate.” Time for a debate? Well isn’t that nice. I love a good debate…where, when, what’s the resolution and more importantly what the hell are you thinking?

Without writing a treatise on lobbying, let me put it fairly bluntly: When you spend 25 years lobbying for something, a political party offers it up to you – not in part, in full – and you just don’t show up, you are screwed.

If, when you do decide to show up, about three months late to the party, you say it’s to start a “debate” and say there are lots of options available – as if there are three equal sides and a healthy exchange of ideas will work it all out – what do you think happens the next time you ask something of a political party?

You are ignored, is the answer. You are irrelevant. You have shown that you are toothless, all bark no bite – insert your hackneyed expression here but they all add up to irrelevance. Or worse, you are the new wedge that your opponents know they can set opposing political parties up on.

Full disclosure: Silver is an old friend of mine, and though we do not share the same politics, I think that a Pigovian tax scheme such as the Green Shift is an absolute no-brainer. It is exactly the type of fundamental shift that is needed to really address the costs that unchecked carbon emissions place on society as a whole. Nearly every serious environmentalist and economist I have read testify to the wisdom and necessity of a carbon tax.  

Canadian environmentalists, where are you? Are you going to let Stephen Harper’s obfuscations win the day? I respect Jack Layton immensely. He’s my local MP, but I think he’s spouting pure populism on the issue of carbon taxes because it looks like an easy way to win votes. I understand his motives, but I hope that if by some miracle, the NDP and Liberals win enough seats to hold power in a minority government, that they’ll be able to come together on a sensible carbon tax.