Robin Sears wrote this week that, on the morning after the election, the atmosphere in Ottawa had changed:
A senior First Nations leader, returning to the capital by train from working hard for the ouster of the Hun, greets an old colleague with nothing more than an overly fierce handshake and a penetrating smile that lasts several seconds longer than it would have two days earlier. A member of the permanent establishment greets a colleague in its seat of power, the bar of the Rideau Club, with a raised glass, no one having to say or guess to whom or what is his salute.
Sadly, for the hundreds of now unemployed young Tory staffers and their bosses, the return of Canada to normalcy — a Liberal government madly peddling back to the centre having campaigned on hazy promises to deliver more progressive Elysian fields — will soon erase their thousands of hours and a decade of effort to imprint a darker vision on the country.
And Andrew Coyne writes this morning that -- when you look at the numbers -- it's clear that things are now very different across the country:
Indeed, across much of the country we have some of the most contestable politics in memory. Where in the United States redistricting has led to an increase in safe Republican and safe Democratic seats, or indeed states, polarizing the country on regional and ideological lines, the opposite has occurred here.
The number of ridings won by a margin of less than five per cent has increased from 42 in 2008 to 51 in 2011 to 68 in 2015. What is more, in 35 ridings, the third-place party finished within 10 per cent of the winner. In only 16 ridings was that true in 2011; in 2008, five. That’s competitive.
Broad national parties. The largest provinces riven by three- and even four-way fights. Relatively fewer safe seats. And, not coincidentally, the highest turnout in more than 20 years. There’s lots of good news in this election: for democracy, and for Canada.
The fog has lifted.
6 comments:
I have always taken what Coyne says with a grain of salt. Everyone seems to hang off every word he utters as if spell bound waiting for some revelations. I remember in the dark days earlier in the "Decade of Revulsion" he and other far right media types (Wallin and Duffy) were clamouring over one another gushing praise for the future PM. I think we are now inline for a true decade of revulsion as these crybabies now try to soften us with the excuse argument growling and barking from across the floor. As Harris said they were lucky to get 99 seats and not 99 years.
There's much that Coyne says that I don't buy, zoombats. He's a conservative -- a true conservative -- and I'm not. But Coyne came to to understand that Harper was no conservative. In this election, he voted NDP. In 2011, he voted Liberal.
He knew fog when he saw it.
Nobody wants to write about the fact that the highest voter turnouts in 1993 & 2015 were inspired by self-aggrandizing conservatives and the voter's insistence that they leave.
Where are the 1993 and 2015 election comparos?
I wonder if those two events and statistics have crossed the minds of those who presently call themselves Conservatives, Anon.
Well none of that really matters the switch on the track was engaged and the train is on a new track. Unfortunately it parallels the old track and is going in the exact same direction. The coal is being shoveled on let's hope the train does not derail...
The promise is that the train will go in a different direction, Mogs. Let's see if that happens.
Post a Comment