Canada Voted

Turning on the TV last night at 10 PM (when the first results began to emerge), one inescapable fact had to be contended with:  The Quebec political landscape has changed dramatically.  From 48 members of parliament the Bloc Quebec is down to 3 (maybe 4).  Not only did they lose the election, the also lost the popular vote – at 23% its lowest showing in nearly 17 years of existence.  The lowest figure that anyone anticipated for the BQ was to retain 20/25 seats (that would have been considered a terrible loss) – 3 or 4 seats is a disaster, especially since the BQ will no longer be considered a party in parliament and therefore will loose financing and speaking opportunities.

The Conservatives won a majority (deservedly so) [167 seats], and the Liberals were decimated [30 seats] with their worse showing ever (I mean since 1867 when Canada came into being…).  For the first time ever, the Liberal Party is neither the opposition nor the government.  

Over the past 10 days the mood of the Quebec electorate had begun to change with the NDP support rising quickly [103 seats].  The Bloc Quebecois noticed, and changed its strategy, from one of “Quebec First” to this election is not about left/right, but about Quebec independence.  They brought out the big guns of the independence movement (Parizeau, Larose, Marois) and they hammered that message.  It was pointed out (everywhere in the press) that this was a very risky strategy, and their worse possible outcome emerge with a total rejection of the Bloc Quebecois by the electorate (what impact this will have on the provincial political landscape is unclear).  Voters rejected the “sovereignty” message, in fact it probably made things worse, turning off many BQ supporters with the radical dialogue, proving (if proof was required) that the BQ movement (since it only fielded 75 deputy it stood no chance of ever winning a Federal election) was a fight of our past.

I mentioned before that political parties are driven by the youth (although they don’t usually vote much), they provide the energy and the new blood required for a party to remain relevant (and cool), but with a majority of Quebec graduating students being from newer emigrant stock that have no interest in Quebec’s 50 year old fight for independence.

Where the BQ goes from here is unclear.  Oblivion is an obvious outcome, but the BQ could still survive.  One important factor is the Conservative’s agenda to cut the public funding of federal parties – introduced in the last parliament it was withdrawn, but now that the Conservatives have a majority… The only real problem for the Conservative is that they money game is currently very unbalanced, apparently in Ontario the spending was 15:1 in favor of the Conservative who had a massive war chest.  For the BQ the lost of Federal funding may be the last nail in the coffin.