French voters dumped a controversial conservative president who imposed austerity (albeit a very modest dose) and elected a socialist to take his place last week. One year ago, many acknowledged the unpopularity of Nicolas Sarkozy, but few thought he was beatable. French Socialists were in disarray following the scandal that ruined the hopes of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the presumed favourite to win the Socialist presidential nomination.
Then François Hollande, "Monsieur Normale," won the presidential nomination for the Socialists, and on May 6 Hollande defeated Sarkozy. Could the same thing happen in Canada?
Stephen Harper has been Canada's prime minister for six years, but five of those years he led minority governments in which the Conservatives held less than half of the seats in the House of Commons. On May 2, Harper completed his first year with a majority government. Without having to trim his sails to accommodate opposition parties, Harper has been able to introduce new austerity measures and advance a more conservative policy agenda.
Meanwhile, Canada's New Democratic Party -- the largest party in opposition and a proud member of the Socialist International -- has a new leader, Thomas Mulcair. One year ago, the NDP was led by former Toronto city councillor Jack Layton. Layton's death from cancer left the party without an effective champion in the House of Commons, and the other main opposition parties, the Liberals and the Bloc Québécois, also spent much of the year seeking new leaders, making it possible for the Conservatives to enjoy their first year with a majority government in easy dominance of the Canadian political landscape.
Now a new poll conducted for the Canadian Press news agency by Harris Decima shows the NDP pulling ahead of the Conservatives in the popular vote.
It is too early to predict the outcome of the next Canadian election, which isn't due until 2014. Still, Harper will have to be careful to avoid Sarkozy's fate. Anxiety over his budget austerity, a political scandal, or even the outcome of the U.S. presidential election in November could lead Canadian voters to seek an alternative to his Conservative party.
Francophone Thomas Mulcair has a chance to hang on to the strong support the NDP gained from Quebec voters in the last election, when they elected NDP candidates to 58 of the province's 75 seats in the House of Commons -- where they comprise more than half of the NDP's 101 Members of Parliament.
In the unsettled global economy today, political assumptions everywhere are being revised. It is not impossible that Canada will follow France, choosing a socialist over a conservative to captain the ship of state -- in Canada's case, perhaps a canoe of state -- through rough seas ahead.
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It's about time we kick our own Sarkozy out of the office.
Harper is to the far right of Mulroney while the Liberals under stewardship of the incompetent Iggy, veered too far into "BlueDog Dems" territory.
The citizens are finally starting to wake up to the flim-flam game the right has been pulling on them for decades. The selling out of their rights and freedoms in deference to the banks and the oligarchies, with the ordinary individual left to pick up the enormous bill when the brown stuff hits the fan.
People are no longer willing to follow austerity programs which are soley caused by the incompetent actions of the conservatives, and their corporate buddies. They have finally had enough, and the usual right wing lies and tricks no longer appease them. .
This trend is occurring in Canada too, as people finally see Harpo and his clowns for the one-trick pony they have always been. Hopefully, we will get rid of Harper before he completely destroys our beautiful Canada. Whoever follows already has a lot of repair work to do.
And another election is "due" if the courts rule appropriately on election fraud in the seven cases currently before them.....
This kind of phrase must be in the talking points circulated by the PMO/PCO/Tory "brain" trust......though in this case it's interesting that it's 2014 not 2015 that's getting bandied about.
But by repeating this phrase, the propagandists are trying to help smother the media war that has been waged to try and sweep electoral fraud under the carpet, or downplay its significance. To make us forget that there were sweeping irregularities in the last election challenging the legitimacy of the current government in all its swaggering arrogance.
We want another election. Not in 2014 or 2015. But this year. Not one more bit of rightist claptrap should be brought into policy until the electoral deck is swept clear of the taint of corruption and third-party manipulation ("GOP participation").
No doubt if the courts order those seven byelections, there will be a federal government (=Tory) appeal, trying to hold things up in court and kick it upstairs to the Harper-dominated Supreme Court. A la Jeb Bush. The honourable thing to do, for a government and politicians that were honourable, would have been to resign and start over. Instead we are faced with a legislative juggernaut that types like this Hudson Institute "pundit" are here to rationalize and defend and to protect. By raising red herrings, and repeating the mantra that the Tories will be in power for another few years; instead of another few months.
http://viableopposition.blogspot.ca/2012/04/austerity-and-anarchy-is-there.html
I can see Harper's popularity sinking, but not for the reasons that Sarkozy's did.
This one hopefully will be booted out on its derriere by the courts before this year is over, though.....
Still, it's heartening to see the austerity governments being turfed in favor of an Icelandic approach, which until now it seemed nobody realized was the real way to tackle problems. Proving once and for all that Keynesian economics hasn't outlived it's usefulness.