The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Whether the results of Election 2008 are good or bad depends your political perspective. From a Tory point of view, the results do not represent a Stephen Harper victory, even though the Conservative seat count is up 17 seats to 143, and they won Ontario, the Prairies and B.C. The Liberal perspective? TheyÕre down to 76 seats from 95, with the lowest vote count since the days of John Turner and significant losses in B.C. and Ontario. The major blame must be put on Stphane Dion for his incompetent leadership and commitment to policies like the Green Shift, which became unimportant as economic concerns took over. The economyÕs dominance also affected the other Liberal Party, the Greenies, whose one MP finished last in his B.C. riding and whose leader was soundly beaten by Peter Mackay. The Greens got about seven per cent of the vote but won nothing. The Bloc Quebecois, led by the wily Gilles Duceppe, did better than expected, winning 50 ridings. The Bloc started the campaign way down in support but were helped by DionÕs unpopularity outside Montreal and QuebeckersÕ negative reaction to HarperÕs youth crime proposals and cuts to some arts programs. ItÕs strange that these minor issues would play a part, but give the credit to Duceppe. What about the NDP? Jack Layton did well in a few areas, such as Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, parts of Ontario and Manitoba. And wonder of wonders, he won seat in Alberta. LaytonÕs 18 per cent of the vote got him 37 seats ÐÊnot as good as Ed BroadbentÕs 43, but not bad! LaytonÕs only Quebec MP, Thomas Mulcair, elected in a previous by-election in a Liberal stronghold, squeaked to victory to become the only NDPer to win a Quebec seat in a general election. Word is that Mulcair hopes to succeed Jack as leader someday. Linda Duncan won by 400 votes in Edmonton-Strathcona, beating long-time Conservative MP Rahim Jaffer. This was a real surprise in a Tory province. To no oneÕs surprise, young New Democrat Niki Ashton defeated Liberal Tina Keeper in Churchill. The vote turnout was very low and Keeper wasnÕt that far ahead of Conservative Wally Daudrich. In Winnipeg, the NDP won their three seats as expected. Also as expected, Rob Clarke won easily in Desneth-Missinippi-Churchill River over Liberal David Orchard. Some individual races in the West were quite interesting. Liberal Anita Neville defeated Trevor Kennerd in Winnipeg South Centre, but the race was close and it was probably NevilleÕs last. She is the only Liberal left in Manitoba, and football hero Kennerd will probably run again. Shelly Glover, the Mtis police officer, won easily over Liberal incumbent Ray Simard in St. Boniface, and the other Mtis Conservative, Rod Bruinooge, won easily in Winnipeg South. Manitoba now has two Mtis MPs, both Tories. In rural Manitoba, it was no contest in most seats as the sitting MPs garnered huge majorities, including Vic Toews, whom some writers speculated would suffer in his religious riding due to his personal problems. It never happened. New candidate Candice Hoeppner won in a walk in Portage-Lisgar, the safest Conservative seat outside Alberta. Candace is young, charismatic and politically experienced Ð she was HarperÕs Manitoba organizer when he ran for party leader. Which MP won most decisively? No, it was not Harper, who was over 20,000 ahead in Calgary Southwest, but Maxime Bernier in Quebec, he of that famous love affair. The scandal did not affect his campaign in the least! The national turnout was down significantly. In fact, some reports say it was the lowest in history at about 59 per cent. Why is a mystery, but will be blamed on everything from a tired electorate to a negative and dull campaign. The fact is every voter has an easy time in voting if they want to. Perhaps many feel their vote is not important, but in a democracy, it really is. We will undoubtedly hear a lot more about this low turnout and ways to fix it. RogerÕs Right Corner runs Wednesdays.
