What the GOP Can Learn from Canada’s Conservatives

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

MICHAEL BARONE
MAY 9, 2011 12:00 A.M.
The Anglophone continues to move rightward.

Some years ago, the columnist and editor Michael Kinsley sponsored a contest to come up with the most boring headline. The winner was “Worthwhile Canadian Initiative.”

Well, Canada held an election last Monday, and the result was anything but boring. It amounts to something like a revolution in Canadian politics and has lessons, I think, for those of us south of the border.

The headline story is that the Conservative party of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who has headed minority governments since 2006, won an absolute majority of seats, 167 of 308, in the House of Commons. It was a result practically no Canadian pundit or psephologist predicted.

Going into this election, center-right parties in the four major Anglosphere democracies were at the brink of but not quite fully in power. The British Conservatives formed a government with the leftish Liberal Democrats in May 2010, the Australian Liberals are in opposition by virtue of the votes of a couple of Outback independents, and American Republicans won the House of Representatives in November 2010 and are now forcing significant cuts in public spending.

In Canada, Harper’s Conservatives have already cut taxes and modified spending programs, but always with the tacit consent of the separatist Bloc Quebecois, or the left-wing New Democrats, or the long-dominant Liberal party. Now they’re on their own, and we’ll see the results.

But the installation of a majority government by itself is not a political revolution. The biggest changes in Canada were indicated by the devastating defeats of two of the opposition parties.

The Bloc Quebecois was reduced from 50 seats to only four. Formerly it represented most of Canada’s second-largest province. Now it represents a tiny rump.

French Canadian separatism has been a major force in Canada since Charles de Gaulle came to Montreal in 1967 and spoke the deliberately provocative words, “Vive le Quebec libre!” There have been two referenda in which the voters of Quebec rejected separatism by only narrow majorities.

Now it looks like separatism is as dead as de Gaulle. The vast majority of Quebec’s ridings (the Canadian word for districts) elected New Democrats, some of whom didn’t campaign and don’t speak much French.

Quebec’s Francophone voters seem to have decided to vote for a party that favors a European-style welfare state rather than one that favors a separate Quebec. The New Democrats won 58 seats in Quebec, enough to give them 102 seats in parliament, enough to make them the official opposition party.

The third huge development is the humiliating third-place finish of the Liberal party, the preeminent party in Canada since its first election in 1867. Liberals headed governments for 70 years in the 20th century and have provided most of Canada’s well-known prime ministers — Wilfrid Laurier, William Lyon Mackenzie King, Lester Pearson, and Pierre Elliott Trudeau.

They have been more of a nationalist, opportunistic party than a left-wing one. Public spending ballooned during Trudeau’s nearly 20 years in power, but the Liberals cut back spending sharply in the 1990s, when Canada faced a fiscal crisis very much like the one the United States faces today.

Liberals long boasted that they were the only party with backing in both English- and French-speaking Canada. Now they have little backing in either one.

They elected only 34 members of parliament, and their leader, Michael Ignatieff, lost his own seat. Liberals hold sway now only in central Toronto, where Canadian media are concentrated, in Anglophone Montreal, and in the economically lagging Atlantic provinces.

The Conservatives’ triumph offers a couple of lessons that may be relevant to U.S. Republicans. One is that smaller government policies, far from being political poison, are actually vote-winners.

The second is that a center-right party can win immigrant votes. Conservatives won 35 of 54 seats in metro Toronto, many in ridings heavy with immigrants. One tactic that seems to have worked was to circulate videos of Indian- and Chinese-Canadian Conservative candidates appealing for votes in their native tongues.

The simple message is that this is a party that likes and respects you. Republicans could do something similar, with Sen. Marco Rubio, Govs. Susana Martinez and Brian Sandoval, and Reps. Allen West, Tim Scott, and Quico Canseco, all elected in 2010.

So Canada has moved from a four-party politics rooted in its own special history to a two-party politics more similar to ours. Nothing boring about that.

Michael Barone, senior political analyst for the Washington Examiner, is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a Fox News Channel contributor, and a co-author of The Almanac of American Politics.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

The GOP is Democrat-Lite. I dont expect much change till the fat is in the fire and new players step forward to snatch the fat from the flames. During Florida's recent legislative session the GOP dropped its pants to moon voters, every opportunity that came along. Their hubris and insolence is surprising.

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

The GOP is Democrat-Lite. I dont expect much change till the fat is in the fire and new players step forward to snatch the fat from the flames. During Florida's recent legislative session the GOP dropped its pants to moon voters, every opportunity that came along. Their hubris and insolence is surprising.

I've been saying that for some time, although I think Angelo M. Codevilla was more on point with his elite class - country class examination of the two parties...



Left and Lefter!
http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=735560

 

[unregistered]

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

Amazing how Lit's Canadian left wing were all kicked to the curb by the real people in Canada isn't it? They're always so astute and full of advice on American politics, one wonders how they might have been steamrollered by the conservatives in Canada.

*chuckle*

 

[unregistered]

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

They must be appalled beyond all recognition.

Not just them, but our dedicated Democratic Socialists from across the pond so proud of how efficient and self-sustaining an egalitarian system is, of course, until they need to take on Momar and realize they are short on munitions, men, and delivery systems...

__________________
I'm Hungary for some French-fried €PIIGS!
A_J, the Incredulous

 

[unregistered]

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

And still Utopia teeters as Greece tries to deny its problems and demands inflation...

 

[unregistered]

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I've been saying that for some time, although I think Angelo M. Codevilla was more on point with his elite class - country class examination of the two parties...



Left and Lefter!
http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=735560

I suspect the GOP is where it was just before Reagan came along. Back then (60s) it was filled with Rockefeller Liberals and Hillary was a Goldwater Girl. Then Nixon came along and loaded us up with new agencies like EPA.

Cloth-coat Republicans gotta boot the bums out periodically cuz plenty of Libs are embarrassed by Democrat Krusty the Assclown and Sideshow Bob, and hide out amongst GOP pols.

2012 will be interesting to observe. As awful as Obama is all the GOP has to offer is has-beens, Erik Estrada and Suzanne Somers, doing infomercials in the middle of the night.

 

[unregistered]

 

[badbabysitter]

Amazing how Lit's Canadian left wing were all kicked to the curb by the real people in Canada isn't it? They're always so astute and full of advice on American politics, one wonders how they might have been steamrollered by the conservatives in Canada.

I'm going to try to explain this to you once again...


40% of the country voted for Conservatives.. 60 % of the country voted for everyone else

hence.. the 40 % won

Voter turnout was an all time low, the rural ridings aere where the Conservatives struck gold.. with our system its not how many people vote for you, it wether you carry the ridings

for example.. lets say in a riding in Toronto, 40 thousand people voted Green.. yet in Buttfuck , Manitoba, 10 thousand people voted Conservative...... both ridings win; but this just means 10 thousand people have the same sort of political might 50 thousand do

plus, Conservatives in Canada ( as I've said before, and will say again) or what you'd consider Blue Dog Democrats are very very liberal Republicans.. at least for the most part

and the other thing about Canadian politics you also dont seem to get, is that it shifts...4 years from now it will be a brand new government.. if this election has shown us anything with the destruction of the Bloc and Liberal party, the MASSIVE boost to the NDP who are now the offical opposition party ( which they have never been, winning a record number of ridings) and the the first green party seat

 

[unregistered]

 

[badbabysitter]

Bottom line seems to be that "everyone else" includes every imaginable wacko on the left...does it not?

every wacko on the left?

if 60% of the population voted against the Conservatives, does that mean 60 % of the population are wackos?

and please note, this was the lowest turn out in years.. we've had nothing but election after election the lat few years

 

[unregistered]

 

[badbabysitter]

Nope, only that every left winger must have been part of it. All things liberal seems to have been totally repudiated by those who care enough to vote, and making reference to those who didn't, as if they count for something, is wrong. You snooze, you lose.

Alrighty, guess I need to clarify some difference in political affiliations


Conservative Party.. mostly right of center.. some very moderate, some very far right


Liberal party ... middle of road, to just right of center

Bloc Quebecois... Quebec centrist, left wing on healthcare and culture, right wing everywhere else

NDP.. stereo typical left wingers


Green party.. left wing, big surprise there

thusly Liberal is something far different then up here compared to what you have in the Sates

 

[unregistered]

 

[badbabysitter]

So which party won the election?

In my riding it was an NDP massacare

and yes, the Conservatives won.. but trying to compare our Conservatives to US conservatives is like saying the KKK and the Black Panthers are the same because they both hate jews

 

[unregistered]

 

[badbabysitter]

Puleeeze dear. I suspect the majority of Canadian conservatives favor limited government, just like ours do here, no need to inject an unfair racist analogy.

I was reaching for any analogy, but will admit thats unfair


as for more limited government.. that's clearly not been the case with Harper.. he still has yet to release information on massive military expenditures

and a couple years back, he was facing a vote of non-confidence which would have removed him from power and caused a general election..so he went to the Governor-General had her suspend Parliament untill he could reconvene it on hos own terms

that's right.. he didnt want to face democracy so he overthrew Canada's government... we technically didnt even have a government for a few months


the biggest similarities between the conservatives north and south is on economic policies, military spending, privitization of healthcare religous matters, women's rights ( or lack therof) , and the criminal justice system

 

[badbabysitter]

and you're somewhat right about my " commune".. its generally thought that Canadian governments interest ends at the wester border of Ontario and the easter borders of Quebec

and hell, i voted Green in my riding, and they placed third.. which was still ahead of the Conservatives in my riding

 

[Wrong Element]

MICHAEL BARONE
MAY 9, 2011 12:00 A.M.
The Anglophone continues to move rightward.


Michael Barone, senior political analyst for the Washington Examiner, is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a Fox News Channel contributor, and a co-author of The Almanac of American Politics.

I don't see where the GOP can learn anything from Canada's Conservatives--for starters, it's not like they can possibly go any further to the right. But the Conservatives barely increased their percentages in the last election. They won more seats because the #2 and #3 parties collapsed, while the #4 party (the most left-wing of Canada's parties, inconveniently for this analysis) had the biggest gains. If the opposition ever unites again, the Conservatives are going to have to do a little better than their typical 38%.

Barone used to be a sensible and dispassionate analyst regardless of his political beliefs, but now he's all about the spin.

 

[Wrong Element]

and you're somewhat right about my " commune".. its generally thought that Canadian governments interest ends at the wester border of Ontario and the easter borders of Quebec

and hell, i voted Green in my riding, and they placed third.. which was still ahead of the Conservatives in my riding

I asked once in here what there is about Canada's other left parties that the Greens find unacceptable. Those seem to be almost entirely wasted votes on the left, over differences with the NDP and even the Liberals that I can't imagine are very significant.

 

[unregistered]