Give your brains in at the campaign trail
In not so surprising news, all our politicians are idiots.
Jack Layton accused Paul Martin of killing the homeless because he cut low-cost housing funding. Well, okay, I also think that was icky, but Paul Martin isn’t exactly a murderer.
This wouldn’t be particularly interesting — though it’s unusual, because personal attacks are fairly rare (except the evil reptilian kitten eater from another planet thing, which was more weird than an honest to goodness personal attack) — except that current projections have the Liberals 20 seats short of a majority (135 seats out of 308), which means that they’d have to band with some other party. The Conservatives are almost guaranteed to be the opposition (98 seats), and I can’t imagine the Liberals and the Conservatives actually joining up, even if they weren’t the opposition. Which leaves the Bloc Quebecois (54) and the NDP (21). Now, if the NDP + Liberals don’t actually hit 155 (the magic majority number this year), I’m not sure what will happen. Something interesting, but not necessarily so great.
Gilles Duceppe — well, frankly, I can’t imagine the Bloc ever agreeing to anything with the Liberals. Which means if there’s a minority government, either Paul Martin has to suck it up and deal with Jack Layton or a new election will happen.
There’s a possibility that some gaming of the system will happen. A lot of people, like me, want a Liberal minority government. This means that they need to win enough but not too many seats. (People who want a Conservative government don’t have to play any such games.) Another Liberal majority would be a really bad thing for Canada, especially if they got well under half of the popular vote.
The provincial Liberals have screwed up in both Ontario and Quebec, too, which means they’ve lost a lot of federal support in two important provinces. And recent scandals are still recent — Paul Martin called this before support for him dropped even further, but I don’t think this was a good time for him. I’m not sure there could have been one.
I might just be too hopeful; I was desperately wanting a minority government last time, and they got something like 165 seats out of 301.