Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper proclaimed following his 2011 election victory that Canada has become more Conservative – in a big-C way – and that it was here to stay.
He was wrong.
Over the last week in Mr. Harper’s own beloved Alberta, a classic public education and health care loving, small-c Red Tory was selected to lead the Progressive Conservative Party and become that province’s next Premier.
A few days later, Prince Edward Island re-elected a second straight majority Liberal government.
On Tuesday, Manitoba lifted the NDP to its fourth majority in a row.
Dalton McGuinty (J.K. Warren via Flickr)
Then came Thursday night, the pièce de résistance, Liberal Dalton McGuinty returned to power as the Premier of Ontario for a third consecutive term, one seat shy of a majority.
Much like the Prime Minister’s menacing insistence on building expensive U.S.-style prisons and scaring Canadians about crime when all statistics show Canada is safer than ever, his calculations about Canadian society doesn’t add up either.
Canada hasn’t become more conservative in the sense the Prime Minister wishes. His stated dream of a country that abandons universal programs such as health care and education seems unreachable now, particularly in the re-election of Mr. McGuinty in Canada’s largest province.
From Alberta to PEI, Canadians in the last seven days have shown they are not willing to sacrifice services for dubious promises of lower taxes. That should alarm Harper Conservatives, as that’s the only formula they offer to Canadians, who have asked in return, “tax cuts, and then what?” Conservatives like Mr. Harper and most recently Tim Hudak, don’t have an answer to that question. Given all that’s happened in the global economy, they wouldn’t dare play the tired and disastrous ‘free market’ card.
The Prime Minister and Mr. Hudak wrongly believed that the federal Conservative election triumph, and the earlier victory of anti-public service Toronto mayor Rob Ford, created a hard right wing momentum that would sweep the country. They believed their own hype, as the slang goes.
While Mr. Harper enjoys an untouchable majority in Ottawa, his ideological contemporaries are not so secure in local affairs.
Mayor Ford is spiraling down in public opinion. Torontonians, even in the suburbs where he received his greatest support, no longer believe the mayor’s false line that Toronto has “a spending problem, not a revenue problem.” Mr. Ford used that adage in a bid to cut taxes and reduce public services. Ontario Conservative leader Mr. Hudak attempted to borrow this rhetoric for his campaign against Mr. McGuinty’s government.
Clumsily, Mr. Hudak laid out a vision that offered platitudes about taxes, mixed with lots of uncertainty, and an asinine threat to cut jobs. At least we know after Thursday night when Mr. Hudak’s Conservatives were shut out in Toronto, that the city doesn’t have a big-C Conservative problem.
Mr. Hudak discovered Ontarians don’t mind taxes if they are receiving their health care and education; that they like working and earning a fair wage for their troubles. This is why Mr. McGuinty was put back in power, it’s also the reason centrist democrats, Liberals and Red Tories – not Harper ideologues – are still holding strong throughout Canada.
Tags: Canada, Conservative, Dalton McGuinty, election, Liberal, NDP, Ontario, Politics, Rob Ford, Stephen Harper, Tim Hudak, Toronto
