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The Results Are In Posting Date: Oct 27 2008 2:16AM I never thought I would see it in my lifetime – the NDP just won the federal election. And almost as shocking, the Bloc Québecois came second.
I’m not sure how I feel about having Jack Layton represent my country to the rest of the world. I mean, how will president Medvedev react when Mr. Layton starts barking at him with his Toronto French and making unsubstantiated claims about his arts policy? How is Gordon Brown going to feel when the Canadian prime minister starts yelling at him for no reason during the next G20 summit? And more importantly, when did the G7 – a nice, select group of the world’s most powerful nations – become the G20? Is this so we could keep including Italy? Is there a running agenda item at these meetings during which the leaders look to see how far Italy has fallen in the world rankings of economic powers and then votes to change the G-number so our friends from Rome can keep attending?
And of course the big question now that Jack Layton is prime minister is, How long will it take before Michelle Obama asks the Secret Service to arrange an “accident” during Olivia Chow’s first visit to Camp David? My money is on two days or less.
These are all important questions which, I know, you don’t think need to be answered on account of Jack Layton did not, in fact, win the recent federal election.
Well, if he didn’t win, who did?
It certainly wasn’t Stéphane Dion. He has already locked himself in the garage with his car running. Of course, it’s a hybrid car, so his idling vehicle is producing no more carbon monoxide than my toaster oven. As a result, monsieur Dion will get to sit in that car until the leadership convention, trying to figure out how exactly he became the first leader of the Liberal Party of Canada not to serve as prime minister since the Boer War.
When your job performance is worse than anyone who has held your position since Queen Victoria was a sitting monarch, not a holiday, you definitely did not just win an election … unless you’re George W. Bush, in which case, maybe you did.
The other person who might have, but did not, win the election is Stephen Harper, but he certainly didn’t win it either. This is a man who called an election for one reason and one reason only – he thought he would get a majority government. Then the election came and he didn’t get his majority despite the fact that the Liberal Party of Canada was being fronted by a man who doesn’t speak English and managed to turn a very voter-friendly environmentally responsible agenda into a tax. If you were a politician running for office and part of your platform was to have supermodels providing free sex to anyone who wanted it, but you called the program the “Pooty Tax” and then you couldn’t formulate a thought well enough to explain to people that what you really wanted to do was help them get laid, you would deserve to lose too. In fact, you’d be doomed to lose and lose big.
Well guess what? Stephen Harper ran an election against that guy and still didn’t get a majority. Stephen Harper ran an election against the dude selling the Pooty Tax and the Conservatives still don’t control parliament. Just goes to show you that anyone not wearing a belt buckle bigger than a bread box does not trust Stephen Harper. The Liberals could run Osama bin Laden against Stephen Harper and still we’d have a minority.
Mr. Harper is the prime minister, but let’s not fool ourselves – this result was a thrashing. He too, must go.
But here’s the exciting part. This no-winners election means that Canadian politics should soon be rid of the Harper v. Dion charisma-vacuum challenge. In its place will rise the battle between Michael Ignatieff, the intellectual stud, and Peter McKay, the plain old stud.
It’s going to be the classic political duel between the egg head and the frat boy, between Mr. Smarty Pants and Mr. Popular. This will be a battle worth watching. |
