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01/24/2006: "2006 Canadian election results reaction"

I don't get it. I just don't get it.

We've gone through an election where the governing Liberal party was attacked on all sides by the other parties. The whole election was started because of a sponsorship scandal. The leader campaigned with a union leader who openly endorsed a different party while on the campaign trail. He was dogged by scandal after scandal. He was surrounded by people repeatedly saying stupid things, attack adds that backfired badly. Misquotes, mistakes, miscues, etc.

And yet, somehow, his party managed to hold on to 33% of the seats in parliament (103 out of 308) and 30% of the popular vote. That's only a drop of 32 seats from the last election, which was before most of the real scandals were fully publicized.

I fail to understand the depth of support for this corrupt and arrogant party.

Replies: 2 Comments

on Thursday, January 26th, Alan said

Hi Bruce,

Big fan of your software, first visit to your blog

Everything you've said is true. But IMO, the primary reason for continued Liberal support is simple: Many Canadians don't want a leader with extreme, socially-conservative views. They can't abide Harper's past remarks on abortion, gay rights, and the Iraq war.

To his credit, Martin has done an excellent job balancing the budget, elimiating the deficit, and paying down the debt. The sponsorship scandal is upsetting, but Martin was cleared of formal responsibility by the Gomery commission.

I'm not implying Martin and the Liberals are perfect; they're not. But for people who find Harper unacceptable, they're often the only realistic alternative.

Regards,
Alan

on Friday, February 24th, Bruce Guenter said

That could also be stated as "Many Canadians believe Harper is a leader with extreme, socially-conservative views." There is at least some evidence that much of that belief is fostered by media that makes the most of conservative shortcomings.

The effects of financial policies are not immediate, and take a while to realize their full effect. While Martin has balanced the budget, he likely has done so as a result of some of the changes introduced by previous governments. Also, while balancing the budget, he has fudged the numbers to leave himself with massive surpluses at the end of each year. Normally that would be a good thing as it could be used to pay down our debt, but when coupled with a PM that wants to "leave a legacy", it amounts to massive unbudgeted spending.

I also find the clearing of the Gomery commision somewhat suspect (although Gomery appears to have been biased against the Liberals in general from the start), much in the same way I would suspect the CFO to be innocent of any knowledge of financial wrong doing in a company. If Gomery says he didn't know, I'm willing to accept that, but I think he should have known.

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