Well, we're essentially looking at a status quo result for a $300-million dollar election that garnered the lowest voter turnout in history. My numbers were way off, especially since the Bloc won two-thirds of the seats in Quebec when I thought they'd take a deeper hit. For a while I was worried the Bloc might form the official opposition.
I also thought the Liberals would have fared much better, but they didn't. It's going to be a tense year for them now, as they face broke coffers and the need to once again deal with the issue of leadership. Dion is not liable to leave the post easily until his own debt from the leadership convention is paid off. His former challengers have also all been re-elected so they're still in the running, though I still secretly hope for a couple of new names to advance themselves for the job.
Harper missed winning his majority but it's not going to make much of a difference. Just as the last year seemed to go, no one is going to collapse his government for the foreseeable future - unless the Grits get a new leader by spring, and if the economy continues to tank, giving them an opportunity to shake Harper's growing support.
It's election night and not long before polls close here in Ontario. I hope you all got out to vote. Even if one doesn't like the choices, I think it's always important to at least show up, and then spoil your ballot with profanity directed toward the worst of them.
This time around I did mark an appropriately crafted "X" on the ticket though. I had my choice made a week ago and now it's a matter of waiting to see how it goes both locally and nationally. While I've never been one for watching sports on the television, a good election night will keep me glued to the set without fail.
I can't predict the outcome with any certainty, but I suspect Harper's going to gain another minority. Despite the losses to manufacturing, there's a big buzz about the tories here in Ontario and that'll likely balance losses expected in Quebec. At the final tally, I'll estimate the break down in seats to be something like:
Conservatives ..... 122 Liberals ................ 101 New Democrats ..... 53 Bloc Quebecois ...... 31 Green ....................... 1
How confident am I in those numbers? Not very. It's anyone's game this time.
UPDATE: It's going to be a Conservative minority, but I'm way off on those numbers.
It was a bit of a curiosity that the Canadian leaders debates were for scheduled the same night as the Vice Presidential debate in the States and folks are taking bets on which ones Canadians will be watching. On one hand, you have Sarah Palin while we will now get Elizabeth May. Six of one, half a dozen of the other, you say.
But if that's not enough competition for attention, how's this:
Anomaly Television has reported that October 14th is not just our planned Election Day in Canada, but worldwide, it's also the coming out party for our interstellar neighbours, the Pleiadians. Yes, it's First Contact Day. [HT: The Debris Field]
There are several videos on the Anomaly TV website so check out the link. No word yet on who they might be coming to endorse, and I'll hold my tongue as to any speculation.
I'm getting caught up on some reading over the weekend and made a comment on a friend of mine's blog, One-sided Argument. El Cid, the author, is bully on the Canadian banking system and despite my usual doom and gloom, I think he's probably right. The fact that Harper is not engaging in a bail out for the banks in Canada is a good sign that ours are stable. However, I'm still of the mind that this election call was rushed due to the knowledge that things are going to get pretty tight soon. Best try to get re-elected now.
One of the biggest hits to Canada may come when the U.S. dollar plunges, which is going to be inevitable now that Washington is absorbing the debt of Wall Street. However, according Reuters, we've been weening ourselves off reliance on the greenback in favour of Euros, while our exposure to Fannie May and Freddie Mac is limited to 6% of reserves.
On the upside, countries with greater exposure may lose big too, keeping things at least partly level. U.S. debt is everyone's debt these days. China has expressed concern over what amounts to the U.S. printing money to cover the losses (see a post on Piglipstick, for example.) If my meagre economic understanding is right, this would sink the dollar but theoretically home values would remain numerically constant. Your house would still be worth $250,000 U.S., but $250,000 U.S. would be worth a lot less.
There's a lot of fear that this situation would solidify China's dominance but I think they're going to have more problems when their major market implodes. More recalls of Chinese products isn't helping either. China needs to sustain a high rate of growth to keep its awakening citizens happy. On top of the prospect of decreased exports, they could be faced with an exodus of foreign firms soon. Not only is trade protectionism becoming an election issue in the U.S. but those Chinese who are demanding better lives for themselves will be buoyed when the government there forces the creation of labour unions in international corporations doing business in China. While their economy has been on fire for the past decade, this might start to starve the oxygen out of it.
And if the seriousness of things still hasn't sunk in, the Marmot's Hole had a few choice quotes on the matter from the American press.
UPDATE: Maybe it's just me being at home alone tonight, but it sure feels like somethings up. The moon was deep red over Toronto when it came up, and now the CBC is showing "The Grapes of Wrath" as their midnight movie. Real funny, guys. We're doomed.
Out of some kind of need for closure, the Alberta election results are now in. Ed Stelmach by a landslide. Alberta stays blue, a tory winning streak since '71 they tell me.
Not to be amiss in posting for posterity, Alberta is set to go to the polls on March 3... but with the price of oil these days, how much longer before they're electing a Prime Minister instead of a premier. Here's a link to the Separation Party of Alberta for some mid-campaign reading.
Of course if they do, with all the Easterners working out there we'll still get the taxes (just newly categorized as foreign income) but we'll also be able to get rid of Stephen Harper. Maybe it's not such a bad deal.
Results from the Saskatchewan election came in last night and Brad Wall, of the Saskatchewan Party, is the new premier of the province of Saskatchewan.
First only three seats in the Newfoundland election, then the fiasco of the Quebec by elections, and now zilch in Saskatchewan. It's not been a great season for the Grits.
Governor General Michaelle Jean has delivered the speech from the Throne and overall, it doesn't seem to be as confrontational as many had suspected it would be. With the Dion's Liberals suffering from even more internal divisions, now would have been the time for Harper's Conservatives to force an election and quite possibly gain a majority. However, what we received was a basic, almost textbook conservative plan that doesn't leave a great deal open to controversy or to justify the opposition parties collapsing the government.
With that said, the N.D.P and the Bloc Quebecois have already stated their their intention to vote it down, but their votes are irrelevant. It all boils down to the Liberals. Rumour has it that key grit leaders will vote against it while backbenchers and the majority of the caucus will abstain or be absent, allowing the vote to go through and the speech be passed.
To that point, Dion is not taking interviews tonight, but Michael Ignatieff was quick to get on CBC and implied that the Liberals didn't have to vote against it to be unaccepting.
Specifically, the throne speech has a number of basic conservative pledges. Cutting taxes is a big one, including the reduction of a further 1% off the GST. There are also promises to help families and young people. This was pretty much assumed after the government posted its recent surplus.
Dealing with increasing crime is also a major component to the throne speech, including the challenge to pass the conservative anti-crime bill. The plan includes harsher mandatory sentences for gun crimes but will also address the useless and money-sucking gun registry.
Culturally, there are a couple of very noticeable inclusions. One is a commitment to address remaining issues around the Chinese Head Tax. Another, is a significant promise to support Quebec's desire for international representation by involving them more greatly in Canada's dealings with UNESCO. I think this might be more serious than it will likely be played. This goes beyond any domestic acknowledgements of Quebec's "nationhood" and brings such a perceived stance to an international stage. It could, dangerously, shift the debate to where the nations of the world will seize the right to arbitrate separation, rather than having it remain primarily an internal conflict that we deal with ourselves, within Canada. Meanwhile, the rest of us are to improve our relations with the United States.
Afghanistan could remain on the table past the 2009 deadline, and into 2011. There are calls to increase the strength of the forces and promote freedom and human rights around the word.
Kyoto now has an official time of death (77 days from now, I guess.) There is no way to achieve the goals set out in the Kyoto Accord by the 2008 deadline, obviously. Somehow, this doesn't seem like an argument against Kyoto's virtues, so much as an acknowledgement that the conservatives have dragged their feet to a point of no return. Take that up a level and it's an end-of-the-world realizing policy. On the upswing, there's a promise for a world-class Arctic research facility to be built. That way we can better watch as our north melts around us.
Nothing in this throne speech is designed to really push that button that wil result in an election, and with the state of the Liberals right now, it would be astounding if Stephane Dion collapses the government in a confidence vote over it.
On the flipside, it's not necessarily a good election lead in for the Conservatives if it does go that way. It's generally quite vague and ambiguous. It hardly convinces Canadians that the Tory government is indispensable to our future. A lot will depend on whether the house can be brought together to support government policies, as is hoped for in the speech.
A lot will come down to crunching the numbers for those tax cuts. The remnants of our manufacturing sector might be lamenting dolar parity these days, but for the rest of us who are seeing our spending power rise, having more of those soaring dollars in our pocket with each paycheque could stimulate a lot of consumer spending and juice up the economy.
Results are starting to come in and it looks like Dalton McGinty will easily win his own second majority government in Ontario.
Estimates so far are putting the Ontario Grits, under McGinty, at about 70 to 72 of Upper Canada's 107 seats, a slight rise over the 67 they had at dissolution, and the first repeat majority for Liberals there in seven decades.
Final results on the accompanying referendum aren't in yet but sources are suggesting that Ontario has voted against adopting a Mixed Member Proportional system. That's bad news for the Greens and the N.D.P.
In related news, the elections daisy-chaining continues as Saskatchewan will now be getting their own provincial election, slated for November 7.
Williams took nearly 70% of the vote in today's election, and 43 of 47 seats when to his Progressive Conservative party. The Liberals took three and the N.D.P. captured the remaining seat.
There's now talk of a fall election, after Gilles Duceppe has threatened to pull Bloc Quebecois support for the government when they present their throne speech on October 16th. It's mostly seen as a bluff to save some face after the Bloc failed to do well in the recent Quebec byelections. Harper was seen to have gained the most ground (besides the N.D.P.) and this may be Duceppe's attempt to take him down a notch.
It all hinges, the Bloc say, on the Conservative government's acceptance of five key demands.
1. Elimination of all federal spending powers in provincial jurisdictions.
2. Assistance for workers in the ailing forest industry.
3. Continuation of supply management in the agricultural sector.
4. Kyoto Protocol to be respected by the Tories.
5. Harper government to make a clear commitment to pull out Canadian soldiers from Afghanistan when the current mission ends in February 2009.
Demanding that Kyoto be respected is probably a deal breaker right there for the Tories, but Afghanistan may prove to be the biggest sticking point. Recently Peter MacKay had suggested to NATO members that Canada may not be in Afghanistan after 2009 but that's been tossed off by many as an attempt to keep the conflict open that long, while public support drops and calls to pull out earlier come more often.
Noteworthy is that the Afghanistan issue took another hit this week with accusations by the N.D.P. that the Canadian military had provided the words for Hamid Karzai's speech in Parliament last year though it's been been denied by the Afghanis. Karzai is also under pressure at home and could use a bit of help, it seems. Afghanis are apparently blaming Canadians for their part in killings there, and shouting "Death to Canada", presumably not under guidance from Canadian military speechwriters.
Also, it's been suggested Karzai may seek Canadian help in convincing the U.S. to refrain from spraying Afghan poppy fields. Who better to help than Canada, a country going through it's own problems related to past defoliant spraying, in our case with Agent Orange in Gagetown.
When the vote comes down in October however, the pressure will be on the Liberals to collapse the government and they might be a bit gun shy after getting shut out in Quebec. Even with both the Bloc and the N.D.P. calling for an immediate withdrawal of troops, the Liberals probably won't seize the chance to topple Harper over this increasingly unpopular war. Doing so would surely give the Tories a majority, and then we'd never be out of Afghanistan.
Yesterday's byelections in Quebec caused a stir with the Grits being shut out and receiving only a fraction of the vote they'd hoped for. The Tories and NDippers are happy, though, having each picked up a seat. Especially, however, the NDP victory in Outremont has sent shockwaves, being only the second time they've been elected in Quebec and only the second time that the Liberals have lost that riding, long considered a stronghold, since 1935.
It's such an upset, that charges of conspiracy are now floating around the Liberals, to the effect that party members loyal to former leadership contender Michael "wants to hide his crap like a Puffin" Ignatieff may have sabotaged the byelection in that riding to call Stephane Dion's leadership credibility into question. Of course, more than Dion's leadership it ended up calling the credibility of the whole Liberal party's cohesiveness into question and has led to denials all around. They didn't lose on purpose; they really are just a bunch of idiots, sorry.
Attached to this scandal and deepening the mystery, is a strange email that made it's way around the Liberal national executive. On the surface, it was a resignation from Denise Brundson, VP Organization for the Young Liberals, which suggested that she had been in contact with reporter Stephen Maher, of the Chronicle Herald's Ottawa Bureau and that it had undermined "the unity of the party." It followed with the text of an exchange between Brundson and Maher. The problem, was that it was entirely faked.
Some mischievous imp was trying to imply that Ms. Brunsdon and Jamie Carroll were the source for my story and that they were in trouble with Mr. Dion's chief of staff, Andrew Bevan.
They were not the source for my story and soon a senior Liberal sent out a real e-mail praising Ms. Brunsdon.
This is an unusually nasty piece of business. Someone went to the trouble of setting up a fake e-mail account and sending out this fake e-mail to smear Ms. Brunsdon, an idealistic young Liberal.
It all leads to a rather peculiar state of affairs amongst the Liberals. Maybe it's time for the normally mild and demure Dion to show a little teeth.
My first blog initially began as the Kyungnam
Journal in April of 2001, six months after I first landed in South Korea
to teach English. Upon moving to Seoul in January of 2002, it became the
Kyungnam to Kyunggi Journal (K2K) and upon returning to Canada and the
establishment of Latenight.ca, it's been archived here for posterity.
I hope
you enjoy the photos and anecdotes of my time working in hagwons as
an EFL instructor in the South Korean cities of Changwon and
Seoul. I especially hope that prospective English teachers
heading overseas can benefit from this journal.
A few updates may still materialize however,
as Korea retains its connection to me through memory, habit and, now,
matrimony.
My first Latenight blog was begun in March of
2004, when I repatriated to my hometown of Miramichi, NB.
Some of the posts are a bit sparse of concrete
personal information, compared to my other blogs. At the time, I'd
begun a small publishing company and most of my life was consumed by that,
while the competitive nature of my business situation demanded I keep my
work-related posts a bit vague.
Nonetheless, even after moving away (again),
it is still my hometown and I hope to continue to contribute posts from
time to time. Miramichi is a town in transition and deserves a blog
of its own, so while I am not presently residing in the city, perhaps I
can still cast my gaze back home periodically.
Halifax was my home for a time when I was a
child. It's the city of my alma mater, Dalhousie. It's also where
I've spent the bulk of my working life in the publishing industry.
I returned to Halifax, the City of Trees,
in September of 2005. By then a seasoned blogger, I set up the Latenight Halifax section of this site then
and retrofitted the other blogs to match.
This blog covers my life in Halifax through
writeups and photos, and also the steps leading up to myr marriage in June
of 2007.
We eventually decided not to settle here
though, despite the years I've enjoyed in Halifax, and as of June 2008, we
followed the ol' Maritime tradition and left to hang our hats in Toronto.
Well, we're essentially looking at a status quo result for a $300-million dollar election that garnered the lowest voter turnout in history. My numbers were way off, especially since the Bloc won two-thirds of the seats in Quebec when I thought they'd take a deeper hit. For a while I was worried the Bloc might form the official opposition.
