Federal Election Results
– The Crisis of Canada’s Political System Continues
Despite the
declarations of their leaders that they were happy with the results of the
January 23 federal election, the fact is that every party participating in the
election suffered a setback. The Conservatives failed to achieve the majority
or strong minority they were seeking. The Liberals failed to hang onto power. The
NDP, while increasing its seat total, failed to achieve the status of holding
the balance of power that it so desperately needed. The Bloc Quebecois not only
failed to win more than 50 percent of the vote in Quebec, as it had predicted,
but actually declined in popular support from the 2004 election. The Green
Party also declined in its percentage of the vote, while the other small
parties failed to make any headway in ending their political marginalization.
At the same
time, Canada’s
ruling class managed to make some headway in overcoming one aspect of the
disequilibrium that has gripped the Canadian political system since the
collapse of the Mulroney Conservatives in 1993. As a result of the failure of
first the Meech Lake Accord and then the
Charlottetown Accord, the Progressive Conservative Party split into three
factions – the Progressive Conservative Party, the Reform Party and the Bloc
Quebecois – all of which were regional parties with no chance of forming a
majority government. After a decade of abortive attempts to re-establish a
viable opposition party, the Canadian ruling elite is now on the verge of
accomplishing that objective. During this election not only did the
Conservatives make enough headway in Ontario
to achieve a minority government, but they managed to pick up several seats in Quebec at the expense of
the Bloc Quebecois.
However,
re-establishing a viable opposition party - that is one which is capable of
becoming the ruling party - is only half of the equation. The other half of the
equation is the fact that the Bloc Quebecois has routinely won enough seats in Quebec to deprive either the Liberals or Conservatives of
a majority government unless one or the other collapses in Ontario. Therefore, unless the ruling elite
can succeed in marginalizing the Bloc Quebecois during the next few years, the
crisis of Canada’s
political and electoral system will likely continue, with one minority
government falling, only to be replaced by another minority government. During
this election Stephen Harper attempted to re-establish the Mulroney coalition
with the conservative wing of the sovereignty movement by talking about
decentralization and increased power for the provinces. Such attempts are
likely to continue during the upcoming period.
It has also been
suggested that the Canadian people emerged victorious in these elections by
preventing a Harper majority. It is true
that the weak minority government of the Harper Conservatives will find it
extremely difficult, if not impossible, to implement any of its social
conservative policies because none of the other parties can afford to support
the Conservatives on those issues. Therefore, the Conservatives will be reduced
to implementing the agenda of the Martin Liberals, on whom they will have to
rely to prop them up. That is the agenda of deeper integration with the U.S.,
the gradual shift in military policy away from “peacekeeping” and towards an
aggressive combat mode, as well as creeping neo-liberal domestic policies. In
other words, even a weak Conservative minority will have no difficulty in
implementing the anti-social, neo-liberal agenda of the Canadian ruling class.