Barry Weisleder, Toronto
On June 28, voters across Canada rejected the newly formed Conservative Party, and punished the Liberals for 11 years of cutbacks and corruption and strengthened the New Democratic Party (NDP). The electoral shift to the left also benefited the nationalist Bloc Quebecois (BQ) and the environmentalist Green Party.
The result is the first minority government in 25 years — one which will face a more evenly divided House of Commons. The Liberal Party won 136 seats, the Conservatives 99, the BQ 55, the NDP 17, plus one independent MP (a disaffected British Columbia Conservative).
The NDP achieved the biggest vote increase of any single party, capturing 15.7% of the ballots cast — more than 1 million vote increase on its 2000 result.
The pro-Quebecois sovereignty, left-leaning BQ, which runs candidates only in the province of Quebec, captured nearly 50% of the vote there. The Green Party registered 4.3% — a six-fold increase over its last outing.
The ruling Liberal Party felt the wrath of voters furious over severe expenditure cuts and a huge scandal about the misuse of at least $100 million in federal sponsorship money. Its vote fell from 41% to 36.7%.
These votes did not go to the conservatives. The newly merged Conservative Party received 840,000 votes less than its component parties in 2000. Broadly speaking, about 1.75 million votes moved leftwards.
This reflects the widespread fear of the more reactionary policies of the new Conservatives and their leader Stephen Harper, a former spokesperson for the radical right wing policy group the National Citizen's Coalition.
Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin exploited that fear, arguing that a vote for the NDP would help get Harper elected.
Many people were so gripped by fear of Conservative plans to privatise health care and by revulsion towards reactionary Tory views on gay marriage, gun ownership, immigration, marijuana and war, that they were prepared to overlook Martin's record and vote for the party they loath, rather than the one they feared more .
In addition, Martin promised billions of dollars to "fix medicare for a generation", create a national childcare service, generously fund neglected big city infrastructure, and keep Canada out of the US ballistic missile defence system. The Liberal leader campaigned like a New Democrat. He even had the sheer chutzpah to claim that Liberal and NDP values "spring from the same well". This late and cynical gambit apparently worked. It probably cost the NDP 5% of the vote, and catapulted the crisis-wracked Liberals back into government.
NDP leader Jack Layton ran an energetic campaign, but was also the author of some of his party's misfortunes. After a strong start, in which Layton zeroed in on the brutality of Liberal social cuts and its tax favours to the rich, and in which he held Martin accountable for the dire fate of homeless people, Layton softened his attack.
Worse, was his flip-flop on the Clarity Act, which asserts the right of the federal government to devalidate a Quebec sovereignty referendum on the grounds that the majority was not big enough, or the question unclear. Most NDP MPs voted for the act, violating an NDP Federal Council resolution, adopted by a 75% majority in February 2000.
After telling an appreciative Quebec audience that he favours scrapping the undemocratic Clarity Act, Layton caved in saying he was a "flexible federalist".
Another problem was the reluctance of the NDP leaders to campaign for an NDP government, instead focusing on what conditions would be necessary to support a Liberal government.
From Green Left Weekly, July 7, 2004.
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