While the world was watching the news coming out of Pakistan about Osama bin Laden, closer to home voters in Canada went to the polls on May 2 and gave Tory Prime Minister Stephen Harper a solid majority in Parliament.
Conservatives have won or are ahead in 167 of the country’s 308 electoral districts. Harper will head the first conservative majority government in Canada since 1988.
The Christian Science Monitor is calling it a “political earthquake” for Canada, noting that the traditional center-left Liberal Party finished a distant third with only 19 percent of the vote and that the separatist Bloc Quebecois was almost wiped out. The bad news for conservatives is that the socialist New Democratic Party “essentially grabbed the left-of-center votes from the Liberals,” coming in second with 31 percent.
Voters rewarded Harper’s economic management during the global recession and were apparently pleased that Canada’s economy continues to outperform its southern neighbor. This has been confirmed by Canada’s ranking in the Index of Economic Freedom, where it scored ahead of the U.S. in 2011 for the second year in a row as the U.S. fell into the merely “Mostly Free” category.
At least some voters know what they are doing. I live in CA, forgive my cynicism…
After nearly a generation of unbroken dominance in Quebec, the Bloc Quebecois was almost erased from the province's political map on Monday night.
Canada scored high on that list due to such things as free health care,and marriage equality. Two things most Canadians stand for.
Congratulations Canada! Looks like the Tea party enthusiasm has spread across the border. You will need the true leadership conservatism will bring. You should keep an eye on cost cutting.
DC: Take heed. Your turn is next in November 2012!
- Clean out the voter rolls of cats, dogs and dead people
- Start volunteering to be involved in the voting process – the more eyes the more transparency.
- Start looking at voting regulations and start following them
- Do not let bags of votes pop up. Before voting starts all absentee votes should be in a single place with third party accounting of each bag
- account for every voting machine
- lets start having police guard the process – we are now a banana republic
- start working for voter ID legislation and rescind same day voting.
- impose a nationwide 30-day moratorium on voter registration prior to any election.
- give local election boards enough time to weed out fraudulent or errant registrations.
We are losing this country to voter fraud in key places. It is time we start cleaning up this process quickly with enough time prior to the 2012 elections.
Error correcton:
-start working for voter ID legislation and rescind same day **voting**.
Should be
- start working for voter ID legislation and rescind same day **registration**.
Kudos to Canada for the elections, unfortunately they still have "Universal Healtcare," (comming this country real soon.) The Socalist aspect should be a concern to everyone due to the history of the movemenet that always ends NOT well.
@George Colgrove
Wow! Some great ideas, George. Isn't it funny how common sense isn't so common any more?
Viva ah los Conseratanos