New Brunswick election

For me personally the election in New Brunswick is kind of depressing. It was a massive Tory landslide. The Liberals were wiped out in Fredericton and Saint John. The very forceful strength for the Tories in Northern Francophone New Brunswick continues even without Bernard Lord as leader. Of course it is important to remember that this result does not show an embrace for the right as it would in many other provinces, or other countries. The New Brunswick PCs have always been a moderate brand of Conservatives who never have had specifically right-wing policies. There was very little right wing in the Tory platform and the Tories actually were to the left of the Liberals on the issue of tax cuts. That being said, the Liberals did run to the left of the Tories in some respects, notably in that it was the Liberals who promised a prescription drug government program. Nevertheless the New Brunswick Tory leadership continues to be Reddish Tory so one should not likely expect a hard right shift in governance in New Brunswick. This lack of polarization in New Brunswick (which is in contrast to the polarization we have seen in Ontario especially during the Harris years) could explain why the New Brunswick Tories in 1999 and 2010 have been able to sweep the province to an extent that former Ontario premier Mike Harris never could.

The landslide was so strong that Larry Kennedy, the Victoria-Tobique Liberal MLA who survived the 1999 Lord landslide was defeated in this election. Granted, that part of the province has shifted to the right federally since the 1999 provincial election. One bright spot from the Liberals perspective was that Liberal Chris Collins was re-elected in Moncton East – former Tory Premier Bernard Lord’s old riding. He won it by less than 200 votes but it was still major trend bucking. It makes some sense that he won it – he was the only incumbent Liberal running for re-election in a riding with the word Moncton in it, and Moncton is more Liberal than Fredericton or Saint John. Collins was originally a New Democrat, running for the NDP in the 1987 New Brunswick election. Needless to say he was defeated in this election because the New Brunswick Liberals won every single seat in the legislature. In 2003 he was inspired to run against Bernard Lord in his own riding when he found that the government and his local MLA, Mr. Lord, were not giving him enough government services to treat his son Sean for cancer. His son was being treated in Halifax and the government was not paying for the trips to visit his son in the hospital. In the 2003 election Collins lost to Lord by only 10% of the vote. Collins was elected to Moncton City Council in 2004. When the 2006 election came, Collins couldn’t run against Lord because he was travelling with his son outside the country at the time. However Lord resigned his seat when he lost the premiership and Collins easily won a March 2007 by-election. Unfortunately his son Sean passed away from cancer in July 2007 at the age of 13. After this tragedy, Collins was appointed to the provincial cabinet and was Minister for Local Government at the time of the 2010 election. He gets to be in opposition with 12 other members as the Liberals lick their severe wounds.

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.