Canada's New Conservative Government

I've been delaying writing anything about yesterday's federal election in Canada because I've been trying to tie it into the context of pollster Michael Adams's book Fire and Ice: The United States, Canada and the Myth of Converging Values, but I haven't been able to find a link to a nice summation of the book. However, especially after looking so long to find one and coming up empty, like that's going to stop me.

If you're in the States, unless you've been paying very close attention to the news, you probably missed the fact that Canada held an election yesterday for a new Parliament and prime minister. The Liberal Party, recently plagued by corruption and scandal, was booted out in favor of the Conservative Party. Sort of. In the last Parliament, the Liberals led a minority government--they had more seats than any other party, but they didn't have a majority. It was wobbly from the get-go, and when the New Democratic Party (NDP) pulled its support in November, the Liberals couldn't maintain their government, so yesterday's election was called. The Conservatives will also have a minority government. In fact, they have fewer seats than the Liberals had before the vote, so their government has the potential to be even more precarious.

Conservative Party leader and prime minister-elect Stephen Harper was generally perceived as a right-winger in the past, but he ran this time as a moderate. And this is where Fire and Ice comes in. On the whole, Canadians are generally more progressive than Americans, so although the two major national parties call themselves conservative and liberal, they are hardly analogous to any political parties that may come to mind to Canada's immediate south. If we do want to make comparisons, Michael Adams has one for us. He says that the most progressive U.S. state is Massachusetts and the most conservative Canadian province is Alberta. No surprise there on either count. But what is surprising is that Adams claims Massachusetts and Alberta to occupy roughly the same place on the political and ideological continuum. Although Canada may be prepared for Harper to be more conservative than Canada as a whole, Canadians are not looking for anything close to a George Bush-type conservative to lead the government, and if that's the direction Harper tries to take the country, he won't stay in charge for very long.

Actually, by U.S. standards, this particular manifestation of the government probably won't be there very long anyway. A minority government lasts for an average of 18 months in Canada (Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin's most recent government lasted from June 2004 until November 2005--17 months). In Harper's favor is the fact that Martin announced that he's going to step down as party leader (although he'll hold on to his seat in Parliament), so the Liberals will be squabbling among themselves rather than focusing on being an opposition party to the Conservatives for at least a little while. But even so, it's entirely likely that Canada will see another Parliamentary election before the U.S. inaugurates a new president.

For details about the election and the transition, check out this article in The Globe and Mail. And if any Canadian readers (I know you're out there) want to sound off in comments, please do so.