

Canada's general election

Harper's champagne moment


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Readers' comments


David P Montgomery

The fact that Prime Minister Harper won his majority with only approximately 40% of the popular vote is irrelevant. It is not like he is the first Canadian Prime Minister to do so. Our system is first-past-the-post. Until that changes, if ever, it is pointless to bring the popular vote up. The system is what it is - get over it.

In any event there was only a 58% voter turn out. One could argue that the other 42% tacitly agreed to support the outcome regardless of where the chips fell.


In strong federations, like Canadian one, it is pretty hard to eliminate completely either of the parties.

The "resurgent" NDP was deeply entrenched in BC, while Liberals are very strong at provincial levels in Ontario and Maritimes, and Alberta has always been very conservative. And, BTW, good luck getting rid of PQ in Quebec.


Also, Apple, note the big L in the title. They're not talking about liberals, they're talking about Liberals. Canadian public opinion on Obama is not particularly relevant to this article.


While this is a rather clearheaded analysis of the Canadian election results, giving credit to the effective, good government that Harper and his cabinet have been able to provide even while in a minority position, it is regrettable that the Economist is less clearheaded about the old bugbear of what it calls "carbon".
The Economist, writing "the energy-producing western province of Alberta, with its carbon-belching tar sands" should lift its head out of the self-serving propaganda put out by the politicised UN IPCC, study a bit of chemistry and physics and - may-be - visit the Athabasca area, trying to find the "belching carbon".

First of all, they are called the Athabasca Oil Sands; "tar" is a different substance.
Second, "carbon" is a solid. You probably mean carbon-dioxide, a colourless, non-polluting gas, which is essential for life on earth.
Third, there is absolutely no scientific evidence that this 0.04 % of CO2 in the atmosphere has anything more than a very small influence on the world's climate, which has been changing naturally since earliest geologic times.
As for more recent years even the chief of the Hadley/CRU, Dr Philip Jones, has stated that no unusual warming had occurred in 15 years. The alarmist prediction for 2010, made by the IPCC in the late eighties have been proven wrong.

Only those that profit from the travelling IPCC circus, from the trade in "carbon credits" or from the lavish government research grants, will keep cheering for anthropogenic global warming and its profitable spin-offs.

The tide is turning on the acceptance of the IPCC's religion and unless your editors take a good deep look at the scientific base of the issue, they will shortly find themselves standing in public as did the Emperor without clothes.


"I hope Mr. Harper realizes that his victory was less a vote FOR him than it was a vote AGAINST everyone else"

Tired old spiel. This is almost always the case in a multi-party democracy. It wasn't any different under Chrétien. I think in recent history, only Mulroney received > 50 % of valid votes (once).


Canada is starting to look more and more like the U.S., and for that I am sorry. Hopefully the Canadians pay enough attention to know that consolidating into 2 major parties in a first-past-the-post system is hardly the way out of deadlock and intellectual/political stagnation.


Apple, I disagree. As a fiscal conservative and social liberal, I'm willing to vote for either of our two centrist parties, Liberal or Conservative. My choice depends on the situation, issues and each party's priorities in a particular election (although admittedly I will usually vote Conservative, as I did this time). I think many other Canadians fall in a similar boat - we have a large population of moderates, who would vote centre-left or centre-right, but never far left or far right.

The NDP is not a moderate party. They stand for the kind of big government, pro-union, anti-business attitudes that I think would be toxic to Canada's economy if they ever formed the federal government. Their poor performance running provincial governments, particularly BC's through the 90s, supports this view, in my opinion.

David Hadden

It is interesting that so many comment on how Harper's victory is less than adequate for him to govern as if he has a majority. It seems logical that he should govern as any other leader with a majority should - decisively and respectful of the taxpayer.



While I'm interested to see what the next 4 years hold, I have a nagging sense that we may have made a deal with the Devil.

David Hadden

There is no reason why some energetic, bright young Liberals could not revive this party in relatively short time.


I have read the title only. Death of Liberal Canada.
The Social-Democrats NDP have taken more than 100 seats.
A NDP voter is a liberal in a hurry. Let there be no misunderstanding
about that;80 percent of the Canadians supported Mr. Obama during 2008
electoral campaing`.


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