10.27.2015 01:34 AM

In this week’s Hill Times: why the Liberals won, and why the CPC and NDP lost

What happened?

In politics, as in life, the simplest explanation — while beguiling — is not always the best one. So, too, was the interminable Canadian general election of 2015. No single thing can account for a change this big.

“Big” is the only way to describe what transpired during the nearly 80-day campaign, and its culmination on election night.

• When compared to 2011’s debacle, the Liberal Party of Canada increased its share of the vote by more than 4.1 million — an improvement of 60 per cent

• When also contrasted with 2011, the New Democratic Party shed nearly one million votes — a loss of almost 30 per cent support.

• There was an impressive and welcome improvement in voter turnout, which reached nearly 71 per cent — the highest it has been since 1993.

• Many, many seats changed hands, principally benefitting the Liberals — they took nearly 90 from the Conservatives, and almost 60 from the New Democrats.

In the House of Commons, the extent of the changes are seen most dramatically: the Conservatives have now assumed the spot held by the New Democrats, the New Democrats have been consigned to the lonely Commons perch once held by the Liberals — and, of course, the Liberals have vaulted to the lofty heights of government, and now sit where the Conservatives once did.

It all reflects what we saw during the writ and pre-writ period, with every one of the three main political parties having occupied the first, second or third spot in voters’ affections. For more than a year, Canadian voters were comparison-shopping, and moving around in a way that we had not seen before. At any given point, Harper, Trudeau, or Mulcair were considered the best choice for prime minister — and then summarily discarded.

Why?

As noted, while embracing a single, pithy explanation for it all is seductive, it probably isn’t the best way to approach an event as immense and as multifaceted as Election 2015. But a few observations can be made—three in particular, one for each of the parties.

1. The NDP: collapse

One million votes: that is what Thomas Mulcair lost from Jack Layton’s 2011 achievement. He lost those votes—and the NDP’s coveted official opposition role — for myriad reasons.

Chief among them: Mulcair did not win the debates. In an era where few voters still watch these televised contests, this should not have been fatal. But for Mulcair, it was: Ottawa-based journalists — the ones who still cling to the false notion that Question Period is relevant — were enthralled by the NDP leader’s prosecutorial style, and his ability to hold the government to account. They spared no glowing adjective, and predicted that Mulcair would win every debate. But he did not: his style was affected and condescending. He seemed phony.

Another problem: the NDP ran a low-bridge, frontrunner campaign when their frontrunner status was anything but certain. When an aspiring leader is always playing it safe, it gives wings to the notion that he or she is arrogant, or has a hidden agenda, or both. Paradoxically, taking no risks is in itself a risk. The NDP took none.

Finally, Mulcair embraced the losing electoral strategy of Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath and Toronto mayoral candidate Olivia Chow: he moved to the right. On deficits, on defence, on virtually any issue, the New Democrat leader didn’t sound like a traditional New Democrat. In his mad dash to get to the centre, he left behind his bewildered core vote, who accordingly wandered over to the more progressive Trudeau Liberals.

2. The Conservatives: Harperendum

In the days since Election 42, it has become conventional wisdom that the entire result can be reduced to a single cause: namely, that everyone hated Stephen Harper, and everyone voted to get rid of him.

As mesmerizing as this rationalization may be, it doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. The numbers tell the tale: the Conservative Party shed only 50,000 votes between 2011 and 2015. In percentage terms, they dropped by less than a single point. That is all.

While many Canadians may have professed to detest the departing Prime Minister, his core vote did not, and does not. Through serial scandals and assorted policy Vietnams, the one-third of Canadians who self-identify as Conservative did not give up on their man. Unlike progressive voters — who are highly promiscuous and flit, butterfly-like, between the Liberals, the New Democrats and the Greens — the Conservative bedrock remained with Stephen Harper.

Harper’s principal problem was that he was a Prime Minister who had been in power for a decade—and every prime minister becomes unpopular after a decade. Harper had held onto his loyalists, but he could not acquire new ones. In Election 2015, poll after poll registered the same result: only a miniscule number of voters indicated the Conservative Party was their second choice. To win again, Harper needed to grow his vote by six or seven more percentage points. But he could not, and did not. It ended his decade.

3. The Liberals: undersell, overperform

Justin Trudeau won, mostly, because he adopted Jean Chrétien’s well-known maxim: he undersold, but he over-performed.

In this regard, the Liberal leader was greatly assisted by his opponents. Their research had clearly shown them that Trudeau was seen by the electorate as too young and too inexperienced, and therefore a risk. The New Democrats and the Conservatives accordingly spent untold millions on ad campaigns to exploit this vulnerability.

In one extraordinary bit of political symmetry, the Tories and the Dippers came up with nearly-identical anti-Trudeau ad campaigns in virtually the same week in August. Just prior to the dropping of the writ, the Conservatives commenced aggressively promoting their ubiquitous “just not ready” theme about Trudeau — and the New Democrats debuted advertising stating that “Justin Trudeau just isn’t up to the job.”

The CPC and the NDP didn’t land on the same strategy by chance: their quantitative and qualitative findings had shown them it would hurt Trudeau. And, for a time, it did.

The “just not ready” and “just not up to the job” attacks also produced an unexpected result, however. They lowered expectations about Justin Trudeau so low that he could not help but exceed them. In debates, in media encounters, at rallies and on the hustings, Trudeau did far better than any of us had been led to believe he would. The campaign, which went on for week after interminable week, assisted him, too: he literally grew as a candidate within it. The Justin Trudeau who started the campaign was not the one who ended it.

Those, in the end, are the three most plausible explanations for what happened in Election 2015. The NDP tried to be something they weren’t; the Conservatives could not acquire new friends; and the Liberals were grossly underestimated.

There is no single, simple reason for the result in Election 2015.

But, for our purposes, three will suffice.

 

 

50 Comments

  1. DougM says:

    Harperendum is the reason. Just like 2011, 60% did not vote for the winner. The left may be promiscuous, but the NDP have their core (as do the Greens, Bloc, etc). With hindsight being 20/20, if Harper had stepped down say 18 months ago, the results might have been quite different.

    • Kevin T. says:

      If it was JUST a Harperendum, then no one would have so thoroughly gotten the keys to Canada’s future. It would’ve a been a cautious minority, but instead, we got another genuine Trudeaumania wave for this next chapter in Canada’s history.

      • DougM says:

        “we got another genuine Trudeaumania wave for this next chapter in Canada’s history”

        Um, I hate to burst your bubble Kevin, but the Liberals got 0.1% less of the popular vote than the Conservatives did in 2011. I didn’t hear anyone saying the 2011 result was any sort of mania, sweep or landslide. Even in terms of seats as a percentage of the house the Liberals got 54% compared to the Conservatives…wait for it…54% in 2011. I’m glad that you are happy, but there was no “Trudeaumnia wave”.

        • Kevin T. says:

          Sorry to burst YOUR bubble, but that was an ass-kicking if there ever was one. Let’s see who does the most FOR Canada with their majority. Reality hurts for cons at the moment, and I can see it getting worse as they are on the outside looking in for Canada’s huge party in 2017. The con nightmare won’t be over anytime soon.

          • Maps Onburt says:

            Nice try… the conservative support is rock solid.. Trudeau managed to get most of the ABC voters to go with him this time but we’ll see if he can hang on to that with 4 years of the NDP and the Conservatives picking at every scab. You really shouldn’t let this victory go to your head. 6 weeks ago your party was nowhere in the polls. If this election showed anything (and Alberta’s) is that the electorate can be very fickle and that any of these three parties can form a government. Take Canadians for granted at your peril.

          • Kevin T. says:

            Rock solid with NO room for growth, as was very apparent.

          • KBab says:

            Maps, keep in mind that although voter participation went up the Conservative vote went down.

            Ignore that at your peril.

          • aggo says:

            Indeed it was a stunning victory for Trudeau and the Liberals, but the fact is, NO party can take anything for granted.

            Any more obvious points I can think of, I’ll let you guys know. 🙂

          • Maps Onburt says:

            No room for growth with the most hated (by the left) PM of all time. Put anyone with a sunny disposition in there with the same broad economic policies and then talk. Look at the numbers. Most of the people that voted Liberal didn’t vote for Trudeau or his policies… they voted for change. You guys crack me up. You were in the ditch 5 weeks ago but somehow now all Canadians will love you for the next 20 years. Keep thinking that.

  2. KBab says:

    There is the millennial vote. If you give the Conservatives a quarter of the new vote, about a million, then the core vote was down.

    Justin Trudeau is more patient, more determined, and more strategic than most suspected. Look at the files he held during his seven years as MP.
    Youth, youth, youth.

    He won because he was ready for the change Canada was ready for.

    Also, curiously, last night I started reading Walter Stewart’s “Shrug” about Trudeau the Elder in power, 1971. The invective he piles on Trudeau is a little shocking. But what is revealed is the beginning of a process of centralization in the PMO that ultimately resulted in the most autocratic of Prime Ministers Stephen Harper. Now Harper had a love hate relationship with Trudeau. He learned much from him, and emulated a great deal. But Harper had none of the charisma that Pierre had so he resorted to stealth and fear instead. The ironies keep building up.

  3. Kevin T. says:

    Kinda glad I never read Peter C. Newman’s obituary on the Liberals.

  4. cgh says:

    Agreed in all three points, particularly the NDP vote collapse. Reminds me of David Peterson’s fall in 1990. He went into that election with a strong lead, but over a short campaign it evaporated completely. As noted at the time, and it applied to Mulcair at the beginning of this election, “His support was a mile wide and an inch deep.”

  5. Agree. Mulcair as Opposition prosecutor was effective. But as a public debater he was affected…and failed to infect national voters with passion or integrity

  6. Alex says:

    This is possibly the best analysis that I have read on what happened. Like you said, one could name a lot of other reasons (e.g. Niqab, the Grits growing the electorate a-la-Obama, etc.) but your summary is really good.

    If the Grits don’t mess this up, they could be in power for a really, really long time. While the Tories are not going anywhere with their roughly 30% base, the Dippers were crushed. It’s true that on paper this is the second best result for the NDP in terms of seats. But in the real world, the Liberals have now captured BOTH the centre-left and centre vote, leaving the NDP to potential irrelevancy.

    Given that the majority of Canada is to the left of the Conservatives, we could be in for a decade or more of Liberal power (unless, of course, the Scott Reid-Bill Blair wing of the Liberal Party decides to muck things up again, leaving the door open for some future Jack Layton to save Team Orange).

  7. Mike Adamson says:

    What explains the increased voter turnout if not disaffection for Harper? I agree that the length of the Conservative tenure must be given its due but Harper was the government in terms of popular identification, thus it’s no surprise that he was the focal point for public dissatisfaction.

  8. Matt says:

    Personally, I think the Harperendum played into this more than you think.

    Now this is just a feeling I’m getting, but I think a lot of those who voted Liberal this time were one offs. People who either awoke from their electoral slumber for the sole purpose of getting rid of Harper, or jumped ship from the NDP to ensure Harpers defeat after it became clear the Dippers were not going to win.

    I suspect those voters will go back to sleep or back to the NDP in 2019.

    Apoll on CBC’s Power and Politics the day after the election seemed to agree. It asked why did you vote Liberal:

    Their platform 18%
    Trudeau 7%
    Time for a change 74%
    Other 1%

    • ottlib says:

      Yep, that was what Liberals said in 2006. The Conservative victory was just an aberration, an expression of anger by Canadians but the sending the Liberals to the Opposition benches got it out of their system.

      All the Liberals had to do was choose a new leader and put a fresh coat of paint on the Big Red Machine and and all of those votes that the Liberals lent to the NDP and the Conservatives in 2006 would come back in droves at the next opportunity.

      It did not quite work out that way I think.

      It is nice to see Conservatives having the same attitude. It virtually guarantees the Liberals will be in power for most of the coming decade.

      By the way, I am going to go out on a limb and say that he next leader of the CPC will be a placeholder who will be replaced in 2019, after they lose the election of that year. Odds are none of the current hopefuls for the leadership of the CPC will ever become PM. The next Conservative PM is not on anybody’s radar at the moment but he or she will be after 2019.

  9. MC says:

    I think you are a bit too kind to Harper. I don’t think that his principal problem was voter fatigue. It mattered, yes, but I think his principal problem — and the reason he could not, as you say, acquire new friends — was that he truly represented a set of ideals or values that the majority of us just don’t like. We recognize that there is a bigoted streak in Canada – particularly in Quebec and Alberta, it seems – and we can live with that, provided they’re not trying to foist their attitudes on the vast rest of us who don’t want those ideas to drive our national policy.

    I don’t think the niqab issue was singularly damaging to Harper, but it became emblematic of what I think is the principal problem with him. Is it reasonable to require women not to wear the niqab during the Citizenship ceremony? It might even be, and a majority of Canadians agreed it is. But the manner in which it was handled, and the accompanying declaration about a barbaric practices hotline, could not have sat well with almost anybody. Though obviously done for (misguided) political expediency (no wonder Lynton Crosby took off in the night, as it were), I think that it served to solidify public opinion that Harper simply could not be trusted *not* to use inflammatory bigotry for personal political advantage, which said a great deal about the man that I suspect no one but his most virulent detractors really wanted to believe was literally true. This only served, I think, to amplify to his opponents (a literal majority of the country) that he had to go, which made strategic voting work better than I have ever heard of (though my experience as an observer in this regard is limited).

    I also agree with you that Trudeau benefitted from the longer election period. He was given time to grow into the role. If the Conservatives had cut him down earlier, when all his stupid and silly remarks still resounded around him, and his fluffiness could not appear to be dispelled, they might have done better. But, frankly, it’s probably good that they did not. I continue to have my serious concerns about Trudeau. I have not been his fan from the start, though I seriously gave him the benefit of the doubt in the beginning. He dashed that on the rocks rather quickly. Nevertheless, even I feel what I believe a majority of Canadians feel – a twinge of hopefulness. The boy won the day; he gets to take the seat of the prime minister; I am hoping that, despite my misgivings which are legion, he will wear it well. We – the nation – deserve it.

  10. !o! says:

    I like the 50k vote stat, I was shocked when I first saw it with the turnout numbers on the day after the election, and it’s a good thing to know and think about. It should be tempered a little bit by the notion that our population probably increased by about 10% in the last four years.

    • !o! says:

      oh, and loved that Chretien interview on CTV. He should give more talks and interviews. He has a lot to say, and lots of people like me like listening to him say it.

  11. Cath says:

    Your assessment is sound Warren.

    However I would have added:

    Mulcair – tried to be Notley and run on her fumes. The party also misinterpreted the Alta. revenge vote. Their core voted strategically against them and for Trudeau. They didn’t count on that.

    Harper – Over stayed. Agree. He left a still healthy opposition a core with which to rebuild.

    Trudeau – I’m cool with the “under sell, over-perform” mantra, but he had a MSM doing a LOT of work on his behalf……pulled him along when no one else was….even other Liberals.

    • Mclind says:

      Totally agree. The MSM was the biggest cheering crowd in the whole of the country. Now waiting to see if they will report any issues on our new Prime Minister as they did on our former.

      • Mike says:

        You guys really should give this whole MSM are Liberal cheerleaders a rest, the facts don’t support your position.

        Not one national newspaper chain endorses Trudeau. The National Post endorsed Harper, the G&M endorsed the CPC, Trudeau could walk on water and Sn Media would ask why he can’t afford a boat.

        I don’t watch a lot of television but the shows I do watch always have panelists either from all three parties or from across the political spectrum.

        • Maps Onburt says:

          Sorry, this is nonsense (or gracious host’s opinion notwithstanding). Nobody gives a flying fig what the editorial section of the newspapers is going to say but the VAST majority of the columnists were violently against Harper. NewswatchCanada.ca which is the NationalNewswatch for conservative types went days between positive articles for Harper while it was impossible to find anything remotely friendly on NationalNewswatch. Every day you’d have articles from Michael Harris, et al painting the Conservatives as the evil empire. Try finding any balance on CBC… with the possible exception of the three party panel with Chantal, Andrew Coyne and the other guy, it was impossible to find ANYTHING positive on that network. Even the normally Conservative guy Coyne dramatically went over to the NDP during the middle of the campaign. The media definitely had an impact making Harper seem like the evil empire.

          • Campbell says:

            It could be, of course, that Harper and the Conservatives weren’t doing anything positive for the media to report about…Doesn’t need to be a conspiracy.

          • Elsie Marley says:

            “NewswatchCanada.ca which is the NationalNewswatch for conservative types went days between positive articles for Harper….”

            Perhaps there isn’t much “positive” to say about Harper in the first place & the journalists are reporting that fact. Some “conservative types” (aka Harper apologists) blame journalists rather than the architect of his own misfortune, even going so far as to ascribe a mental illness to anyone who dared/dares criticise the former leader of the Conservative party and his political machinations over the past decade.

            No matter how much you polish a turd, it is still a turd.

        • fan590 says:

          Great post Mike and right on the money.

          And in many interviews on tv that people are calling ‘soft’ on Trudeau you only need to re-watch them and see they are now viewed as helping JT only because he was well prepared and did a good job. The man stepped up to the plate and hit it out.

        • Jack D says:

          Very true.

          Personally I find these sort of accusations as outright anti-intellectual. It promotes a sense of distrust based out of laziness to provide valid rebuttals to criticisms. Its an easy way to avoid a reasonable counter argument when you question the fundamental partiality of the media as a whole.

          Given what occurred in this election with regards to endorsements, that accusation of biases doesn’t hold true anymore –and nor should it. The reality of the matter is that when any given party has been in power for a very long time, they inevitably accumulate a wealth of criticisms. Attacking the integrity of the Canadian “MSM” does nothing but create a false perception of an “us versus them” dynamic where any dissent is seen as rooted in inherent resentment towards your party and its policies.

          Rationally, the suggestion that every single member of the media is a cheerleader for a certain party would be untenable.

  12. Austin So says:

    I’d say that you didn’t highlight one important point: the progressives decided that political activism by way of voting is more powerful than sitting out in protest of the system.

    That increase in voter turnout biased in favor of the Liberals.

    Time for the Progressive Conservatives to come back as a real alternative instead of this facade that calls itself the Conservative Party of Canada. And frankly it will be hard because the Liberals have just succeeded in occupying a big fat portion of the middle.

  13. Phil says:

    One thing that’s been overlooked: the Liberal machine has been rebuilt & retooled.

    In his Oct 20 speech JT noted that there were ~80K volunteers, and “knocked on doors” + “phone calls” was in excess of 12 million!

    I also read somewhere that US Democrat machine supported the Liberals with a lot of new IT tools.

  14. Jon Evan says:

    It was the message about the economy and you know it’s always about that.
    There was nothing hopeful from SH or TM just balanced budgets which is boring like the status quo economy i.e. recession!
    Now, look at the USA! Stimulus after stimulus after stimulus and hope on the horizon of an improving economy. Certainly the poor $CAN makes us look/feel poor whenever we cross the border.
    So, JT made sense that if we are all borrowing to finance things because interest rates are low why not the federal gov’t embark on more spending to stimulate the economy?
    This provided an alternative to boring. Even my father-in-law a previous conservative deputy finance minister voted for Justin because of that!

  15. Maps Onburt says:

    I think Mulclair’s arrogance cost him and Harper the election. He went into the debates thinking he was so far out in the lead he could dial it in… and it showed. He was never able to seem real and Canadians just didn’t trust him. When Trudeau passed him, he should have pivoted and gone after Trudeau but he kept on hammering away at Harper – driving anyone considering ABC to Trudeau. If he had it out with Trudeau and was able to knock him down, it might have been a minority Harper government while he’d retain the official opposition. That said, Harper was in cruise control this election. They didn’t give the voters anything to vote for (except more of the same) and let stupid issues like the Ford’s and the Niquab Hotline derail their messaging. Jenni deserves to be sent to the woodshed.

    • Terence Quinn says:

      I agree that Mulcair’s arrogance and not so great policy book took him down. But more importantly neither he nor Harper thought JT would shine through like he did. He was simply superb in all facets of the campaign and the other two just stood around and watched in deep panic.

  16. Houland Wolfe says:

    WK, the competing thesis is that the NDP got knee-capped by the niqab. When Harper lobbed that hard ball, the soft NDP vote in Quebec went Bloq. When others in Quebec and Ontario noticed the slippage, they decided to support the only party who could heave Steve – the Grits.

    • KBab says:

      You have a very good point Houland. But I am going to up it: If the Cons didn’t lob the niqab the NDP wouldn’t have lost so much momentum in Quebec and the ABC electorate would have remained largely undecided allowing the Cons to come up the middle.

  17. Jack D says:

    Blaming strategic voting as a cause of the NDP’s loss is a pathetically ignorant excuse for a campaign that flopped. There’s no two-ways around it; the electorate just did not buy into what the NDP and Mulcair were selling and that fault lays entirely with the braintrust of their campaign. Everything was a strategic miscalculation and to say that the fault is anyone’s but their’s is just ridiculous.

    Similarly, the notion that the CPC lost because there was just too big an appetite for change doesn’t hold up all that well either. It actually suggests that regardless of what decisions were made by the campaign, the CPC would have had the election in the bag had it not been for the desire for change. Greg Lyle tells us today that final nail in the coffin of the Conservative campaign was not Duffy, but the Fords –this was a tactical decision by the campaign that scared off a lot of swing voters. With the addition of the snitch line, Bill C-24 and the niqab stuff, Byrne and company were aiming their guns are their own feet. Change was indeed a factor, but campaigns matter as well and the Conservative campaign spiralled out of control near the end.

    Election 42 Winners:
    Trudeau and the Liberals for defying all expectations and escaping political elimination
    Change Voters
    Rational conservatives within the Conservative party looking for a change at the top
    Pollsters (for earning their credibility)
    Kathleen Wynne for making a pretty good bet, to her credit.

    Election 42 Losers:
    Loyal Harper Conservatives (now finding themselves angrily discontent as they now slip into the past)
    Stephen Harper
    NDP (just, the entire party as whole –devastating loss)
    Tom Mulcair
    Post Media and Globe and Mail (for appearing to be incompetent)
    Elizabeth May (returning with her massive caucus of one)
    Gilles Duceppe (for doubling the BQ seat count and not getting one for himself to sit in)

    I might’ve missed a few on either list, but I think that covers the gist of it.

    • Bill Templeman says:

      Jack, at the doors and on the phones — I volunteered for our Liberal candidate (she won)– I heard over and over again “I haven’t decided yet”. I heard this right up into the first week of October. Many of these people went on to say, “I’m going to wait and see who is most likely to defeat Harper before I make my decision.” All I am saying is that strategic voting came of age in this election. The ABC vote, along with new voters and aboriginal voters, were huge factors in the Liberal win. DougM is right. This wasn’t Trudeamania Take #2.

      • Jack D says:

        I don’t discredit ABC as being a major factor in this election, I just simply disagree with the suggestion that the Liberal momentum wasn’t earned.

        We all knew months ago that in the final weeks of the campaign, if one of the “change” parties started to slip away from the pack that the ABC vote would ultimately coalesce around one candidate/party.

        That said, that shift towards the Liberals wouldn’t have happened had Trudeau not successfully been able to distinguish himself from the other two leaders. The policies, the platform, the messaging, the debates and the overall tone throughout the campaign of the Liberals took them from being in distant third from the start of the campaign to first in the polls.

        All in all, the Liberals ran an excellent campaign and to say that their success came solely at the behest of the change-vote ignores the strategic successes of the red team’s campaign.

      • Tim Sullivan says:

        Strategic voting is always over-hyped and not well understood. It is a tool for tools to fool the fools. Losers use it to comfort themselves and winners use it to beat the losers.

        Case in point. In what universe is beating Paul Dewar, Peter Stoffer or Leslie Megan, or any of the other Dippers in favour of a Liberal required to take Harper from power? Better yet. If I wanted anyone but Harper and had a Dipper MP, wouldn’t I want to have as many Dippers to at least hold a balance of power in a minority government?

        • doconnor says:

          Many low information strategic voters wouldn’t know about thier local NDP MP and vote based on reading half a headline suggesting the Liberals where the ones to win. With the rise in voter particapation in this election, there where probably a lot of people like that.

  18. Corey says:

    Good analysis. Small issue: Conservatives lost 200,000 votes since 2011 based on the numbers I’ve seen… Not 50,000.

  19. RogerX says:

    Mulcair had his ass delivered to him on a platter…. this wannabe PM Perry Mason who had zero authenticité …. and besides, why should Quebecers vote for a bearded ex-Liberal when they can vote strategically for a charismatic real Libéral… Justin Trudeau?!

    Mulcair has led the Dippers into political oblivion everywhere except BC and SK… and even then it was a meagre gain. In his election night concession speech, Mulcair looked frightened and sounded panicky… not good leadership for the Dippers who took a shitkicking by Justin the grade school teacher …. campaigning on the Left and likely governing on the Right. And now Mulcair and the NDP remnants will rot in the corner of the HoCs all because their leftist supporters abandoned them and voted strategically for the Liberals to stop hated Harper.

    The NDP pyrrhic victory…. at the cost of their seats and souls …. so obvious now.

  20. RogerX says:

    Let’s look at the numbers et voila a simple reason emerges.

    The NDP lost 43 seats in Quebec, and lost 22 in the ROC while gaining 5 in the ROC, in BC and SK. Many Dipper veteran MPs are now collecting on their gold-plated parliamentary pensions, all 1%-ers now!

    Quebec made Justin PM of all of Canada, while the leftists in the ROC abandoned the NDP to vote strategically for the Liberals to stop Harper. That was the result of strategic voting promoted by the leftist media, union bosses, aboriginal leaders…. and that’s our democracy. And that’s why the NDP tanked… and Mulcair had no “authenticité” either.

    The hatred of Harper was spewed non-stop by the leftists and their 10 years of hatemongering in the social media and internet was the most ugly thing I have ever seen, even scary. These hatemongers now have achieved their objectives and have given us a Liberal government for the next 4 years and probably another 4 more years after that.

    Ironically, the Liberals are more capitalistic than the Conservatives, and it is only Justin’s many superficial election promises that endeared him to leftists, druggies and Millennials.

    We’ve had a 10 year dose of Harper conservatism, and now we await Justin’s liberalism…. and hopefully no more vicious hatemongering from the failed defeatist leftists in our midst. Gonna be interesting… and there, I’ve got that off my mind and chest!

    • Raj says:

      The ugliest hatemongering I have ever seen was targeting Muslims through the barbaric cultural practices line, targetung addicts by attacking safe injection sites, and targeting refugee claimants my curtailing their medical benefits. Critiquing the government is the media’s job–attacking vulnerable groups like Harper did is despicable.

  21. Raj says:

    What this article is missing is an explanation on why voter turnout was so high. People weren’t just tired of Harper–a large group of otherwise apathetic people came to hate him and want him out.

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