The proper way to eat crow is to take small bites, chew thoroughly and resist the urge to regurgitate. You should only have to eat crow when you have really screwed up. And we did. Big time. We made our assumptions about the election outcome two days after the national debates. It was premature.
It was not that we did not recognize the problem in Quebec. It was there for all to see. Despite his forcefulness in the debates, Gilles Duceppe and his party were fading. The Bloc had run its course with Quebec voters. Change was necessary. There was a determined youth movement that could not abide Harper, but bought the bad memories of their elders and Harper’s lies about the Liberals and saw the Bloc’s narrow focus as self defeating. Only the NDP was left. What helped the NDP in Quebec is they are close in social policy to the provincial Parti Quebecois.
But that hardly explains Ontario. Ontario voters got sandbagged. The phenomenon in Quebec was played in the media as a national experience. The media skewed the figures and said it was alright to vote NDP in Ontario because Harper would only win a minority. The threat of the NDP helped drive the Conservative voters to the polls. And the decimation of the Liberals carried into Ontario as the split of NDP-Liberal votes allowed the Conservative victories that Harper needed for a majority.
We lost our election bets. In Babel, we lost with a very decent Liberal candidate. Maybe he is too decent. The NDP candidate came second in her second time around. The Green candidate was a gentleman as always. The Conservative is an incompetent who brings nothing to the table in Ottawa but another mindless vote for Harper.
As we chew on our crow, we contemplate four to five years of a Conservative majority. God help us. We are faced with four years of a vindictive and vengeful Stephen Harper.
Expect the Ottawa opposition parties to kiss their voter subsidies goodbye.
Suck it up seniors and forget those old age subsidy increases.
Just wait until Jim Flaherty does his Michael Harris number on Ottawa’s mandarins!
And you though our international reputation was slightly tarnished? Just wait until Emperor Harper does his world tour.
Corporations can go ahead and pollute for fun and profit.
It’s the big corporations that get all the goodies now.
There is no help for small business. There will be no help for innovators.
We can probably expect the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to become a fond memory.
Why should Harper support abortion anymore?
Forget same-sex marriage. Forget peace-keeping.
Now the Conservatives can lie to the House of Commons with impunity.
Be quiet or they will start hanging people again.
And how will they fill all those jails they want to build?
O’Canada, who will stand on guard for you?
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