Federal election results

It goes without saying that I am incredibly unhappy about this month’s election results. They really were quite horrendous. That being said, Harper’s brazen attempt to get a majority government by gutting the fixed election date law failed. But the Liberals did so poorly that Harper could have gotten a majority if he had not turned off Quebec voters by insulting Quebec artists. I am an Ontario voter but I couldn’t disagree more with Harper’s assertion that ordinary Canadians don’t care for the arts. I am very pro-art. I like Shakespearean plays, paintings, other plays, musical concerts, and whatever kind of art you can think of. I like certain mainstream television shows and some Hollywood movies, but with the exception of the few TV shows and movies I like, I prefer the “refined art” of the kind that the other parties defended against Conservative attacks during the election.

Now Jean Charest plans to pull a Stephen Harper and call an early election in his province in an attempt to get a majority. I have mixed feelings about this. Although I want Charest to get a majority, I hate early elections. I prefer how things are done in Ontario, when early elections occur very rarely. Ontario has not had an early provincial election since 1990. That’s the way I prefer it and I disagree with politicians of all stripes playing politics with election dates. Charest unfortunately is playing politics with election dates so I cannot on balance agree with his decision to call an election.

This leads to another interesting question. Elizabeth May failed to win a seat in the election. May has since vowed to win Central Nova in the next election and in the meantime promised to run in the first available by-election. But what if the first available by-election is Laurier-Sainte-Marie, Gilles Duceppe’s riding. What if Charest calls the Quebec election and then the PQ does incredibly badly. What if then Pauline Marois resigns the leadership. At that point I see no way Duceppe could resist for a third time going for the PQ leadership. At which point Laurier-Sainte-Marie would be vacant and there would be a by-election. Considering how poorly the Greens did in Quebec, would Laurier-Sainte-Marie really be an appropriate riding for May to run in?

I want to comment on what happened in Outremont in the federal election. This time New Democrat Thomas Mulcair won by 6 percentage points, a much smaller margin than in his by-election win. I even hear that the race sea-sawed back and forth between Mulcair and the Liberal candidate. While I’m glad to see the Liberals do better in Outremont than in the by-election, unfortunately the 33% the Liberals got is still less than the 35% the Liberals won the riding with in the 2006 election. It was also heartbreaking to see Eleni Bakopanos fail to regain Ahuntsic for the Liberals after leading for much of the night. However, the Liberals managed to retake Brossard-La Prairie with a new candidate after a recount. That puts the Liberals at 14 seats in Quebec, which is higher than the 13 won in 2006 under Paul Martin. No doubt this improvement of Liberal fortunes in Quebec is largely due to Stephane Dion’s stellar performance in the French leaders’ debate. It was also good to see Justin Trudeau elected in Papineau. However due to the narrow margin in Papineau, I think it likely that Dion’s excellent French leaders’ debate performance helped put Trudeau over the top.

By contrast however, the Liberals were sadly wiped out in English speaking New Brunswick. The Liberals did much better in French speaking New Brunswick and Dion’s French debate performance probably helped there. What was particularly amazing was that in Madawaska-Restigouche Liberal incumbent Jean-Claude D’Amours increased his margin of victory to several thousand votes over the 800 vote margin he had last time. In part this was due to a slight decline in the Conservative vote, but it was largely due to a substantial increase in the Liberal vote largely at the expense of the NDP. No doubt that some of this was due to strategic voting as a result of the near-Tory win last time. Also the fact that there was a new NDP candidate probably decreased the NDP vote as well. But part of it I am sure is Dion’s excellent French leaders’ debate performance. In addition, I have no doubt that Harper’s poor French leader’s debate performance hurt the Tories in Madawaska-Restigouche.

Sadly I fear Elizabeth May may never win a seat in Parliament. Her chances in a by-election are iffy and her chances in Central Nova are even more iffy. In addition, next time I’d expect May to have a Liberal opponent in Central Nova in addition to the Conservative incumbent. The whole deal about not running a Liberal candidate against May in Central Nova was entirely a Stephane Dion thing and I expect the next leader of the Liberal Party to run a candidate in every single riding as the Liberal Party traditionally does. The Green Party may not even get into the leaders’ debate in the next election because the Green Party no longer has a single MP in the House of Commons and having Blair Wilson was one of the main reasons that May was included in the election’s leaders’ debate.

I was glad to see the Tories wiped out in Newfoundland and Labrador. The NDP won St. John's East with about 75% of the vote and almost won St. John's South-Mount Pearl over the Liberals with the Tories at only 12.6%! In St. John’s East the Tories got a mere 9.3%! I, like all Liberals, wish the rest of Canada could have voted like Newfoundland and Labrador. I’m glad that at least some parts of the country agree that the Tories shouldn’t be in office. I would like to thank Danny Williams for single-handedly wiping out the federal Tories in Newfoundland and Labrador. The strange part is that Williams is a Progressive Conservative, himself a Tory! How strange that a provincial Tory was one of the Liberals best allies in the election.

To be honest, while I’m obviously disappointed in the New Brunswick Liberal results, they do not surprise me too much. English speaking rural New Brunswick is Atlantic Canada’s only Bible Belt so it is not surprising that the Tories do well here. Even English-speaking cities in New Brunswick are somewhat socially conservative so it is not too big a surprise that the Tories won Saint John and Fredericton and almost won Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe (it was probably the francophone minority in Moncton that saved the Liberals here). On a related note, Dominic LeBlanc from Beauséjour, New Brunswick has been the first to announce his bid for the Liberal leadership and I may support him. We need a new leader who can win back government, defeat Stephen Harper, and implement a centrist vision for Canada.

Quebec provincial by-elections

There will be 3 provincial by-elections in Quebec on May 12th. One of these is in the riding of Hull. I would be incredibly surprised if any party other than the Liberal Party won the by-election in Hull. I interestingly found an editorial written by Fred Ryan that discusses the Hull by-election. The editorial says that the share of the vote for the PQ in the Hull riding has been growing(http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/city/story.html?id=e66221f2-93e8-4ad2-9e8f-ccdcf904ab38). However, I looked at election results for Hull and found the opposite to be the case.

Looking at elections from 1994 onwards, we get the following:

1994 election: PQ – 41.12%
1998 election: PQ – 32.02%
2003 election: PQ – 25.47%
2007 election: PQ – 23.93%

As you can see the PQ vote in Hull has actually been dropping.

As a side note, in the 1995 referendum Hull voted about 70% NON and 30% OUI. In the 1992 Charlottetown Accord referendum Hull voted about 44% NON and about 56% OUI. In the 1980 Quebec referendum Hull voted about 67% NON and about 33% OUI.

The PQ remains a sovereigntist party. Hull has twice voted overwhelmingly against Quebec sovereignty. Therefore I personally feel that it is not a good idea for federalist voters in the Hull riding to vote PQ as a protest vote. Electing a PQ MNA, especially one in such a federalist riding, advances the PQ’s sovereignty agenda and I do not believe federalists should vote to advance the sovereigntist agenda even indirectly. I believe that in the circumstances it is best for Hull to have an MNA from the governing party which is the Liberals. This may sound cliché but indeed it would be a government MLA who would best be able to fight for improved health care service in Hull.

The other two by-elections are in ridings that were held by the PQ. One of them was held by former MNA Diane Lemieux who resigned her seat over disagreements with party leader Pauline Marois. The other riding was vacated by former PQ leader Andre Boisclair who chose not to stick around after being forced out of the party leadership. These two ridings are likely to stay PQ. In one of them, former Bloc MP Maka Kotto is running for the PQ. Kotto’s resignation, however, created a vacancy at the federal level that has created a potential by-election. I have long found that Quebec, especially at the provincial level, has more by-elections than other provinces. This seems to be because Quebec politicians, especially those at the National Assembly, are more readily willing to resign their seats than politicians in other provinces. The Charest government is currently doing well right now in terms of popularity and I wish all 3 Liberal candidates the best of luck.

Quebec and Jean Charest

I’m glad the Charest government survived its budget vote on Friday. The budget passed 46-44. There was one missing Liberal whom I haven’t figured out who it is. I’m glad the PQ backed off and now the tax cuts can take effect.

Speaking of the PQ, it is unfortunately true that former PQ leader André Boisclair’s sexual orientation had a negative impact on the PQ in the campaign trail. I find this odd because Quebec is supposed to be very tolerant of homosexuality. In fact it is. The only exception seems to be Quebec shock jocks. Shock jocks are radio jocks who make their career out of purposefully making inflammatory statements. Shock jocks have a propensity to exist in the United States, but I find they are even more common in Quebec. As a result, Boisclair suffered homophobic slurs against him by at least two shock jocks, one of whom is now a federal Member of Parliament. During the campaign, a shock jock used a French homophobic slur against Boisclair that I can’t remember. Then at the time of the leader’s debate Independent MP André Arthur called Mr. Boisclair a ‘p'tite fille’, a little girl, which is obviously a homophobic slur. Arthur is a former Quebec City area shock jock. It’s unfortunate that these shock jocks have to resort to personal insult. But it becomes obvious how much Boisclair’s sexual orientation negatively affected the PQ campaign.

Speaking of issues to do with sexual orientation, I want to discuss a topic that I am fascinated by – civil unions in Quebec. Since 2002, Quebec has had a civil union law. It allows two people who are both of the same sex or of opposite sexes to enter into a civil union. It gives largely the same rights as marriage. For opposite-sex couples, it gave a less legally entangling alternative to marriage. For same-sex couples, it offered them much sought-after spousal rights. The Quebec court later ruled that civil unions were not the equality needed under the Charter and immediately legalized same-sex marriage in Quebec. The civil union alternative is not available to anyone who lives in Ontario. I kind of wish Ontario offered a civil union alternative like Quebec. But I suppose marriages and common-law relationship recognition is good enough too.

I want to mention one more unique aspect of Quebec law. As in France, when a marriage between a man and woman occurs, the woman in the marriage cannot change her last name to her husband’s name. That is probably why Stéphane Dion’s wife’s name is Janine Krieber. Dion’s daughter has the double-barreled name Jeanne Krieber-Dion. For the record I can’t help but think it is sex discrimination that traditionally it is the male in an opposite-sex marriage that is expected to pass his surname to his children, but I can go on about that on another day. For now I want to just congratulate Jean Charest on being the first minority Quebec premier to survive a confidence vote in over 100 years.

Quebec's unstable minority government

I think I know the reason why Quebec’s minority government is proving to be so unstable. I think it is because Quebec has not had a minority government in over 100 years, and as a result Quebec politicians and Quebec in general has positively no experience in how to handle a minority government. At the federal scene, by contrast, there have been enough minority governments in recent memory that the federal politicians are able to handle a minority government with greater success.

I find it odd that at the federal level, the separatist party is propping up the Tories, but at the provincial level in Quebec, the separatist party is refusing to prop up the right-of-centre Charest Liberals. To me it defies logic. The PQ is deeply in debt and hasn’t even sworn in its new leader. And it still wants an election? Even when the most recent Quebec poll puts the ADQ in first place and the PQ in third place? The PQ opposes the Charest tax cuts on ideological grounds. The ADQ does not oppose the Charest tax cuts on ideological grounds. ADQ leader Mario Dumont instead argues that the tax cuts should not occur when there is a deficit. The ADQ is also opposing the budget simply because it is the Official Opposition and the Official Opposition always traditionally votes against the budget even in minority governments. It is for this reason that I believe it is fallacious when Harper attacked the Liberals for voting against his 2007 budget. The Liberals had every right to vote against the budget in its role as an Official Opposition fulfilling tradition.

I support the Quebec Liberals, although somewhat tacitly because Charest is slightly too right-of-centre for me. But the Liberals are the centrist party in Quebec politics whereas the PQ represents the left and the ADQ represents the right. So in that sense the Quebec Liberals fulfill the same role as in Ontario and federally as the centrist party. If, however, I were in charge of the Quebec Liberals the party would be more left-of-centre.

In conclusion I hope the Charest government does not fall on Friday and that instead something can be worked out to save the government.