Election night the Canadian people spoke.

Well finally some sanity as returned to Canadian Politics.
Minority governments do not work the largest party as to dance with the devil to get their agenda through.
I still can't believe that some people think its acceptable to jump into bed with a party that wants to break the country up.
What happened last night I think the largest group of Canadians accepted that the economy is the issue.
Yes Layton did well thanks to the folks in Quebec who have voted Liberal or BQ for the last twenty years and switched their vote to the NDP to punish those parties, they could not stomach going all the way over to the right.
The Liberals are in total disarray interesting listening to Bob Rae's comments last night certainly hinted to me that after only appealing to less than 19% of Canadians they were open to discussions (Code to merge with the NDP, remember where Rae started).
I turn on my TV this morning to see that in a huge surprise Ignatieff as resigned.
The NDP Jack Layton has it made for the next four years, big enough to be the opposition, in a position where he can stand up for every cause in the world, knowing full well that he will never have to deliver on anything. He will enjoy his four years as being Mr popular, but he needs to remember those 60% of his seats that came from the protest vote in Quebec will evaporate on him come next election when the Quebec voters see how ineffective he is.
The Bloc good riddance to a party that as spent twenty years saying to the rest of Canada give us what we want or we will leave.
The Green Party Elizabeth May, I was going to do a comment about whack jobs but thanks to her one seat the only thing she will achieve is being invited to the next debates.
The Conservatives, Stephen Harper I will admit not the most exciting or dynamic person in the world. But he was right the economy was and is the issue. You can be critical of his fiscal policies but I ask how much of that was driven by the fact he had to do that to keep the minority government in power.

Now the great debate begins about Harper ruling with 60% of Canadians opposed to him and his party. Well anybody that knows me knows I am a man of numbers. Since World War II Canada has gone through twenty two elections out of those the governing party as had 50% or more of the vote four times, twice with exactly 50% once with 50.1% and once with 53.7%. On the average the governing party as won with 42% of the vote and held 54% of the seats not much unlike this government who won with 39.6% of the vote and 54.2% of the seats.
Lets also not lose sight of the fact that of those 22 elections where the government was put in place 18 times with the minority support of the Canadian voters, eleven of those government were Liberal.
But the simple answer there was a time up until the end of World War I where governing parties on a regular basis had a majority of Canadian voters supporting them, up until that point Canada had similar to the USA a two party system. How is any party going to get a majority of votes with five parties running in the election the Bloc and the Greens took 10% of the vote between themselves then you have the three main parties to fight over 90% of the vote, maybe it will change if Mr Rae convinces the few Liberals that are left to merge with the NDP.
If the two left wing parties want to keep splitting their vote that's a decision they will have to make. Can you picture now the Liberal Democratic Party of Canada led by Jack Layton with Bob Rae as his loyal second in command.

Note: I assumed the largest majority of the people that read my blog live in Alberta. On my poll 67% of my readers voted for the Conservatives they received 67% of the vote in Alberta?. Surprisingly I did not realize I had a bit of a following in Quebec, 15% of the people that participated in my poll choose the BQ a little bit of the mark considering they only received 5% of the vote.

What price will "WE" pay? Some comments and questions.

Crazy things are happening in Ottawa

Harper took things to the brink, he thought the opposition would blink, they didn't.
Did he think that they would bring down the government, force an election and then he would get the majority he so badly wants.
Shrewd decision by the opposition to form a coalition.
The opposition takes the position that the Tories did nothing to stimulate the economy.
Would they have been so outraged if the government was not taking away the parties political dollars? What did they do for the 140 years prior too the taxpayers funding them?
Some people argue that the taxpayer funds the parties so they can avoid being influenced by big business, large unions. When did that stop?
The coalition how much money will they put in to stimulate the economy?
How will the government pay for these programs? deficit, increased taxes, borrowing?
How will they choose who gets the money and who does not?
Will they pour Billions of dollars in to companies that will go bankrupt in six months anyway?
If the Taxpayers are being asked to share the pain, will the big companies employees? (All the way from the guy on the production line to the CAO)
What is the price of this coalition?
Who will the NDP look after?
The Bloc, will Quebec get it's fair share or more?

Taxpayers there will be a price to pay, and ultimately it will be the taxpayers. Do not be naive do not think that Harper pushed this to the edge for the betterment of the country, nor the Liberals, NDP, or the Bloc are forming this coalition because it is the right thing to do.

This is indeed all about power and who will have it.