I think I should be eating a heaping dish of fresh crow to start off the morning. While I was pretty much bang on about the byelection results (even predicting a possible win Montmagny–L’Islet-Kamouraska–Rivière-du-Loup), I was surprised by the margins between the winners and the losers.
The NDP can pat itself on the back this morning. It won New Westminster–Coquitlam by a very healthy margin over the second place Tories. I think we’ll be hearing a lot more about the HST from the NDP in the next little while since the federal Liberals will be forced to vote for the HST enabling legislation when it comes up in Parliament.
The Dippers also did well in Hochelaga and Cumberland–Colchester–Musquodoboit Valley where they pushed the Liberals back to third place.
Of course the news of the night was the Tory win in the Bloc held riding of Montmagny–L’Islet-Kamouraska–Rivière-du-Loup
The astonishing thing there is the consistent rise in the Tory vote since 2004: 2004:9.11%; 2006:25.07%; 2008:30.63%; and in 2009:42.7%. If I was a blochead, I’d be concerned.
So the big winner in the byelection is the Tories. Three cheers for William Lyon Mackenzie Harper. He deserves it Barney must be weeping, wailing, and nashing his teeth right about now.
All things being equal, I don’t think the Tories need worry about fighting an election in the near to middling future.
The other news of the eveing of course was the continuing and ongoing collapse of the Liberals as a national party. Imagine, the Liberals were THIRD PLACE in all four byelections. Not only that they have been competitive in these ridings in DECADES.
Thing about that for a second and weep for the state of democracy in our country. A healthy federal system would comprise of two strong federal parties with strength in all areas of the country. And what do we have? We have one national party. As hard as it is to believe that’s now the Tories. And we have a rump Liberal party with pockets of support in Atlantic Canada, the cities of Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver. And by all the recent polls their Toronto bastion is under seige by the Tories and the NDP is nipping at their heels in Montreal. This does not bode well for the health of our political system over the long haul.
Michael “We Americans” Iffnatieff’s office released this statement:
“The by-election results last night show that we have a lot of work ahead of us. Canadians want an alternative to the Harper Conservatives. Our job in the months ahead is to earn the confidence and support of Canadians.â€
If the byelection results are to be believed, the alternative that Canadians want is the NDP and not the Liberals.
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