Majority

Sample tweets this evening:

"If you want to have an abortion or some gay sex, do it in the next couple of hours."

"Only in Canadian politics can you show contempt for your boss and get a promotion for doing so."

...and my contribution: "Well, Canada, the last election you'll ever have was mighty interesting".

I'm only half joking, you know. Given the contempt Harper has repeatedly shown for everything to do with the democratic process, if he can figure out a way to do away with elections entirely, he will.

Bittersweet evening. On the positive side, the Bloc is sitting at a measly two seats. In the immediate short term, this is fantastic news for Canada; how it plays out long term is anyone's guess. Quebec is now, as a province, almost entirely alienated from the federal government. That does not bode well: of such alienation are protest movements born and nurtured. It will be very interesting to see if Layton can hold the strong beachhead he has established in Quebec. I'll give Quebec one thing: when they decide to vote for somebody, they do it en masse.

The Liberals have also suffered a crushing defeat, and the good in this is much more unambiguous. When Martin was first turfed, the overwhelming attitude coming out of the party was not "we screwed up" but "you screwed up". Successive thrashings have only heightened their confusion: "why do you voters keep electing those...barbarians?" Maybe now that Ignatieff has led them into a rout, they might take the time to really examine why they were booted in the first place. I'll give them a hint and echo Jason Kenney: they took voters for granted.

Another small positive: Elizabeth May WILL be at the next leader's debate, always assuming of course that Harper permits one. The Green Party has grabbed a toehold in the Canadian Parliament. I predict that her toehold will--over several electoral cycles--become a foothold; I may live to see a Green Party government in this country. Kudos to May.

Now for the negatives. I try very hard to see other points of view, but trying to understand how forty percent of this country has voted for Harper is an exhausting undertaking. I'm left with the despairing notion that to a sizeable subset of our citizenry, the ends obviously justify the means: it's perfectly okay to shutter Parliament; to muzzle the press; to stifle dissent in any form; to destroy scientific information that does not jibe with ideology; to run roughshod over democratic process while ballooning the deficit and breaking promises and laws--including election laws.

My question to Canadians who voted Conservative is: what ends justify those means? What promises hooked you? Megajails? (For whom?!) Jet fighters? Huge CEO bonuses Corporate tax cuts? I'm sorry, I just don't get it.

Jack Layton. I did not expect to see the NDP get over a hundred seats. Layton moves into Stornoway and...then what? As the Opposition to a majority government, I'm not sure he'll get much done. I'd be very curious to see if he seeks a merger with the Liberals. I don't think such a merger will happen, but if Jack is smart, he'll move his party ever so slightly to the center.

And Harper? No idea where he'll go with his majority. I'm not sure I want to know.