Usually I don't comment on Canadian politics, being a recent immigrant. I'm an American citizen. I should be getting my landed immigrant card any day now though, and after long contemplation, I have decided that when the time comes, I'll become a Canadian citizen.

I think the Conservatives are correct that the voters are tired of the Liberals, but I think they are mistaken that this implies that the Conservatives will win the election. Instead, I think the NDP will pick up any seats the Liberals lose.

I have yet to see much evidence that the Conservatives ever do anything for Canada but make complete jackasses of themselves. For example, the are constantly urging we should be more like the US. Most Canadians think, why don't they move there then? They say we should have gone to war in Iraq, and that we should have privatized health care, just like the US system that leaves the poor to die in the street, and actually costs a great deal more than the Canadian system. (If Canadian health care was so expensive, why could I pay for a doctors office visit for only $25 before I got my health card? In the US, an uninsured person would have to pay $100, and even someone with insurance would have to make a ten or twenty dollar copayment.)

Harper has been raising hell about gay marriage, apparently not because he actually objects to it, but to shore up his support among conservatives, who were apparently starting to regard him as somehow too far to the left. This despite the fact that gay marriage is already legal in most of Canada, and most Canadians either feel that's the way it should be, or don't care either way. Harper's position on gay marriage will lose him support among Liberal Canadians who might have otherwise supported him.

The Liberals, on the other hand, don't have that strong a position even without the scandal. I'm constantly reading complaints in the press, and hearing from Canadian friends, that the Liberals are no more "liberal" than the Democrats in the US are.

The Democrats traditonally represent the working class, but they don't really: instead, they're as much in the pocket of big business as the Republicans are, but they are able to deliver working class votes to the fat cats, because the common folk just don't know any better. I have an American friend from Massachussets here, and she voted for Kerry because she really believed he represented the left. Yeah, right!

From everything I've been able to see, I think the Liberals are the same way. What I think the sponsorship scandal has been able to do is to demonstrate this to the public. But that doesn't mean that a voter who used to vote Liberal is going to vote Conservative. No, they're going to vote NDP.

The Bloc is powerful in Quebec, but so obviously represents only the interests of the Quebecois that they could never form a government. What I think will happen is that the NDP will gain, the Liberals will lose, the Block and the Conservatives will tread water, and the NDP and Liberals will form a coalition government.

Can you do that here? In any case, the NDP will have more of a voice in any future government.

would be the best thing; for the very simple reason that I'd rather have Parliament actually governing rather than spending half it's time in a partisan fight amongst each other. Now that's not to say I want an election; however, the CPC and BQ are killing the productivity of the parliament, and it's going to take a smackdown from the voters to get them to stop.

Just pulling things out of my ass, (barring any bombshells coming out of Gomery) I think a spring election will bring a very strong BQ; they're going to make the most gains. Just to go out on a limb, we could be talking single digit seats for the Libs in Quebec. They're pissed about the scandal, and the current provincial Liberal government is in deep shit as well. In Ontario, I don't think CPC will pick up as many seats as they hope. The ridings that were close I think will side with the Liberals again this time around, for the reason you stated: most people don't want an election. The West and the Maritimes are a bit of a wild-card at the moment. Anne McLellan (sp?) is going to have a hard time surviving in Alberta, and David Anderson has said he's going to run again in Victoria. Those are two seats I suspect will go CPC. The smattering of Liberal seats around BC (including the one I live in), I really don't know. I could see them going either way, but I'm going to assume for the moment they'll keep the status quo for the same reason ontario will.

The rest of the west and the Maritimes are where the NDP stands to make the biggest gains, particularly Manitoba/Saskatchewan. For the NDP, the best scenario is for the Liberals to look like they'll be heading for a Minority government. My take is that if people think it'll be a Liberal Minority, they'll vote NDP to keep the Libs in check. If they think it'll be a CPC minority, they'll vote Liberal to try and keep the CPC out.

Interesting times...

-mh
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[Mostly Harmless]

For starters, I fully agree with mostlyharmess's analysis.  I'll add to that though, from the perspective of the Alberta rednecks in charge of the CPC right now (the reason why people like you and I call them them the RCs).  They know as well as anyone that they are not popular with Canadians -- the fact that they lost most of their support and the Liberal support bounced back after just a week confirmed that.  They also know that as time passes, the Liberals and the NDP will move forward on policy that Canadians like, proving that they are making a working minority government situation, so a fall or winter election bodes poorly for the RCs.

So they have to gambit and go for the gold now while they still have a slim chance at taking power.  It's a dumb gamble that could easily backfire on them, but it is a life and death struggle for them right now.  The CPC knows that they cannot continue on with the Alberta rednecks running the joint, and you can see the Ontario and Atlantic Conservatives paying attention to this.  Specifically, look at Belinda Stronach: her moderate stance on social policy and her fiscally responsible approach make her the ideal candidate to face the Liberals.  If she was leading the CPC right now, they would have easily capitalized on the Gomery inquiry and would be WAY ahead in the polls now.

Harper and his redneck buddies know that they are in short-term danger of losing control of the CPC to moderates like Stronach and McKay.  Their only chance at holding on to power is to win an election while the Gomery stuff is still fresh, hoping that Canadians will forget for a second who they actually are.  It's a bold gamble, but really that gamble was forced upon them by the fact that they are so unpalatable to non-Albertans.  They want to remake Canada in their image, and this is probably the very last opportunity they will have to do that in a long long time.  If they lose this election, or if the election is delayed until the winter, they will likely lose control of the conservative party to the moderates.

If Harper were truly interested in creating a responsible alternative to the Liberals, he should do the honourable thing and step down now, feigning some personal or medical crisis.  Let McKay or Stronach take the lead, and give them time to rework the image of the CPC before a winter election.  They'd likely win that in a landslide, and could responsibly clean up some of the Liberal corruption while not wrecking the country in the process.  But of course, Harper is not interested in doing that, he's interested in trying to make Canada into a big version of Alberta, and like George W Bush he'll be in for quite a shock when he finds out that cutting federal taxes doesn't automagically work to balance budgets when you're not sitting on a big pile of oil.


_{Sure, you've got the facts on your side -- but that's just your opinion.}