Hockey Moms Win For Now: Canada’S Minority Conservative Government

by: John von Heyking Canadians have elected the Conservative Party of Canada to a minority government, with 124 seats in the 308 seat House of Commons (up from 99 in the 2004 election). The Liberals, who had been in power since 1993, dropped to 103 seats (down from 135 in 2004), while the Québec separatist party the Bloc Québecois (who run candidates in Québec only) won 51, and the social-democratic New Democratic Party won 29 seats. The election is significant because it marks the end of the Liberals’ 13-year rule and because Paul Martin, the shipping magnate who waited his entire life to become Prime Minister, announced his resignation as leader of the Liberals after only serving seventeen months as elected Prime Minister. The simple fact of a rare change of government has raised expectations (and fears) of major changes in Canada, which displays how stagnant Canada’s political institutions have become in the past thirteen years. Despite bizarre accusations (and here) that the new Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, is the poster child of a group of Bush-loving Straussian neocons from Calgary, his election signals no revolution nor "regime change." Canadians can expect changes in the ways government is held accountable and minor changes in taxes and healthcare, but no changes to social policy including same-sex marriage and abortion. With the Bloc, the Conservatives will try to decentralize some powers to the provinces. Positive changes will occur in foreign and defense policy, as the Conservatives will attempt to repair Canada-US relations and to start the process of returning the once world-class Canadian military to international prominence. http://www.ashbrook.org/publicat/guest/06/vonheyking/conservatives.html

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