Election in Review - May 2011

CON 167 NDP 102 LIB 34 BQ 4 GRN 1

‘Because Canadians chose hope, we can now begin to come together again, as we must, as Canadians, as fellow citizens, friends and neighbours.’

— Prime Minister Stephen Harper accepts his majority mandate in Calgary on May 2.

MAJORITY RULES

Designed by Jessie Willms.

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Choosing historic change over status quo, Canadian voters have handed the Conser-vatives a majority government and given the NDP its first crack at Official Opposi-tion.

Canada’s electorate dramatically altered the parliamentary landscape by sidelining the Liberals, kicking out all but four mem-bers of the Bloc Quebecois, and sending the very first Green Party MP to the House of Commons.

Michael Behiels, a professor of political history at the University of Ottawa, called the outcome “a major transformation.” But the unprecedented victory for Jack Lay-ton’s NDP may wield little influence over Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s agenda in the end.

“Now that he has a majority, it doesn’t re-ally matter whether they’re NDPs or Lib-erals in opposition,” Behiels told iPolitics. “He has control over the Senate, so the op-position will be screaming and hollering, but there’s not a lot they can do. With a majority, he will push his agenda and leg-islation without any need to compromise on anything.”

One major change Behiels expects will come with a Harper majority government is a decentralization that will give more funding and decision-making powers to the provinces.

Harper achieved his majority mandate with a big breakthrough in Ontario, pick-ing up 11 more seats than in 2008 and making critical penetration in the former fortress of Toronto. Behiels said Conserva-

tive inroads in key parts of Ontario means Harper will be forced to shuffle a bit to the middle to keep his caucus happy.

“Now that Ontario is so heavily in there, I think the so-cons (social conser-vatives) will be held at bay,” he said. “A lot of those winning seats in the urban areas will be more moderate conserva-tives. This may move him slightly more to the centre now that he has more mem-bers coming from Atlantic Canada and Ontario. Compromises will be made in caucus and cabinet to accommodate a lot of the social issues.”

In Calgary, Harper was humble in ac-cepting his majority mandate, praising his opponents and promising to represent all of Canada’s regions and citizens — no matter how they cast their ballots.

“At the end of it all, Canadians made this critically important decision today … they chose hope, unity of purpose and a strong Canada,” he told the cheering throngs of supporters as tears streamed down the face of his wife Laureen. “And because Canadi-ans chose hope, we can now begin to come together again, as we must, as Canadians, as fellow citizens, friends and neighbours. For our part, we are intensely aware that we are, and we must be, the government of all Canadians – including those who did not vote for us.”

Conservative Sen. Marjory LeBreton, who travelled on Harper’s tour, said secur-ing a majority will allow the government to carry out long-term planning without the “guillotine” of an election threat hanging

overhead. Key priorities will be passing the budget and leftover criminal justice legis-lation, she said.

The NDP wave in Quebec means dozens of rookie parliamentarians will occupy seats in the Commons. And while the NDP surge putting the boot to the Bloc Quebe-cois is a good thing for Canada, LeBreton noted it also reduced the Conservative count in the province to six – five less than in 2008.

“That’s a disappointment, but in no way will it affect the way the government handles issues in Quebec. We’ll have good cabinet representation,” she said.

Harper promised to get back to work soon, and while the new dynamics take shape inside the fresh Parliament, party politics will also be at play outside the Commons. Gilles Duceppe quit as Bloc leader last night and Liberal Leader Mi-chael Ignatieff, who offered to stay on to help rebuild the party after leading it to crushing defeat, may be next to go.

Layton, who had limped out of the cam-paign gate but sprinted to a record-setting finish, extended an olive branch to Harper, offering to work together in the best in-terests of Canadian families and to foster a respectful, positive House of Commons. But he vowed to press for the priorities of the NDP: reducing poverty, tackling cli-mate change and repositioning Canada as a peacemaker around the world.

“I’ve always favoured proposition over opposition, but we will oppose the govern-ment when it’s off track,” he said.

Canadians choose change for 41st ParliamentTue, May 3, 2011KaTHleen HarriS

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Take a look at the next Parliament and who won’t be walking the halls of the Hill. No Michael Ignatieff, no Gilles Duceppe. Gone too are four Conservative cabinet ministers, hockey legend Ken Dryden and vocal opposition critics Mark Holland and Ujjal Dosanjh.

They are among about a dozen well-known incumbents who lost their seats Monday night, victims of the massive shift to the NDP, the collapse of the Bloc Que-becois, and the dramatic drop in Liberal fortunes.

iPolitics.ca has compiled a list of high-profile former Parliamentarians whom voters rejected, some to nobody’s surprise and others to everbody’s shock:

Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff: This is a story that none of the political pundits or seat projectors saw coming. The Lib-eral leader was one of the many casualties as the party’s fortress Toronto suffered a critical blow. Consultant Bernard Trottier claimed Etobicoke-Lakeshore riding in the Toronto suburbs, stealing it from the Liberal leader after he won handy victories in 2006 and 2008.

Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe: The party leader was one of the dozens of incumbents who fell victim to the Bloc’s decimation in Quebec, losing to New Democrat Hélene Laverdiere. Duceppe was first elected in Laurier-St.-Marie in a 1990 by-election. His defeat 21 years later followed a victory by a massive margin of 15,000 votes in 2008. Pundits, who started to speculate about Duceppe’s ouster in the waning hours of the election campaign, say that he ran a lacklustre campaign in his Montreal constituency.

Cabinet minister Lawrence Cannon: In the Pontiac riding just across the river from Ottawa, the dramatic ascent of NDP

fortunes in Quebec claimed Canada’s for-eign affairs minister. The Conservative heavyweight was defeated by come-lately New Democrat Mathieu Ravignat, a ka-rate teacher and social science researcher who was nominated just two weeks ago. Cannon, who took a mid-campaign break to attend Libya talks oversees, had held this largely rural riding since 2006. How-ever, NDP support in the neighbouring ridings of Hull-Aylmer and Gatineau had a spillover effect.

Cabinet minister Josée Verner: The in-tergovernmental affairs minister in the Harper cabinet, Verner lost her Quebec City seat of Louis-Saint-Laurent to Al-exandrine Latendresse, a young and un-known New Democrat. There was specu-lation in the late days of the campaign that Verner was vulnerable and she failed to survive the massive swing to the left. Verner’s defeat came after she won her rid-ing by 10,000 votes in 2008.

Cabinet minister Jean-Pierre Blackburn: The veterans affairs minister in the Harp-er cabinet fought a losing three-way battle with the Bloc and the NDP. In the end, he lost his Jonquiere-Alma seat to New Dem-ocrat Claude Patry, a union boss and 35-year veteran of the Alcan plant. The riding was once held by former Bloc leader Luc-ien Bouchard and Blackburn seized it by a narrow margin in 2006, winning a bigger victory in 2008.

Liberal Mark Holland: The Liberal critic on public safety and one of the most vo-cal MPs on the opposition benches was bumped off by Conservative star candi-date Chris Alexander, a former ambassa-dor to Afghanistan. Dubbed the Liberal “attack dog” on all things law and order, Holland took on the Harper government on everything from prison building to G8

security spending. The fact that he was a home-town boy was not enough to save this scrappy 36-year-old in the Toronto exurb riding of Ajax-Pickering.

Liberal Ken Dryden: The NHL hockey legend saw 50 years of consecutive Lib-eral victories in the Toronto riding of York Centre slip away, losing the seat to Con-servative Mark Adler. Dryden, a cabinet minister in the Paul Martin cabinet, had been attacked by his opponents for be-ing absent in the riding between elections and skipping too many votes in the House of Commons in recent years. He saw his vote share diminish steadily in each of the last four elections. The constituency has a large Jewish population, and the Harper government’s strong support of Israel was considered to be a factor against Dryden.

Liberal Joe Volpe: The former immigra-tion minister in the Paul Martin govern-ment, Volpe held the Liberal stronghold of Eglinton-Lawrence since 1988. Volpe was defeated by Joe Oliver, a lawyer and businessman whom Volpe beat by a barely comfortable 2,000 votes in 2008. The To-ronto constituency was one of several 416 seats to fall to Conservative challengers, given the party its first breakthrough in Toronto since 1988. Volpe, while credited with being a workhorse for his constitu-ency, was a casualty of a defection of tra-ditional Liberal voters, mainly Jewish and Italian, to the Conservatives.

Independent Helena Guergis: This feisty former Conservative cabinet, running as an independent after Prime Minister Stephen Harper kicked her out of caucus, didn’t come anywhere near her Conserva-tive challenger Kellie Leitch, a physician and former Order of Canada recipient. In fact, Guergis didn’t even finish second in Simcoe-Grey, after winning handily in

Stars who won’t be back on the Hill Tue, May 3, 2011JaniCe TibbeTTS

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2008. In the end, the Conservative name prevailed and the party did not pay a price for ousting Guergis, for what turned out to be unfounded criminal allegations.

Liberal Ujjal Dosanjh: Another vocal crit-ic who relentlessly took the Harper gov-ernment to task over what it knew about Afghanistan torture, among other things. B.C.’s former NDP premier, Dosanjh lost his Vancouver South riding in a tight race against Conservative Wei Young, whom he beat by only 22 votes in 2008. The Con-servatives have paid a lot of attention to this ethnically diverse constituency, in part because the election outcome is con-

sidered to be an indication of the party’s support among Chinese Canadians.

Cabinet minister Gary Lunn: Another cabinet minister in the Harper govern-ment, Lunn was unseated by Elizabeth May, giving the Green party its first MP in Canadian history. A longtimer from the Reform days, Lunn fell after winning the riding by 2,000 votes in 2008. Many pun-dits were predicting Lunn’s return to Ot-tawa, in the face of dwindling Green sup-port nationwide. However, May managed to capture enough votes from traditional NDP and Liberal supporters to comfort-ably secure the seat.

Liberal Ruby Dhalla: Her riding of Brampton-Springdale became a fierce battleground between the Liberals and Conservatives in their bids to dominate new and rapidly growing constituencies in the Toronto suburbs. Harper kicked off his campaign in Brampton and Ignatieff stopped in to help try to defend the constituency from Parm Gill, the Conservative victor.

Dhalla first captured the riding in 2004 and she was a well-known MP who made headlines two years ago when a former nanny alleged she was exploited in the family household. A court case remains unsettled.

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The much-anticipated NDP wave washed over Quebec Monday night, creating a dramatic sea change in the politics in that province.

A party which had only ever elected one MP from Quebec in a general election in its history, swept across Quebec winning 58 of the province’s 75 seats. The Liberals were reduced to seven seats and the Con-servatives six. The once dominant Bloc Québécois was almost wiped off the elec-toral map, managing to salvage only four ridings.

A desire by Quebecers for change coupled with NDP Leader Jack Layton’s personal popularity and the NDP’s careful position-ing of itself as an attractive alternative for Quebec’s soft nationalist voters appears to be at the heart of the historic result.

However, it may be too soon to know whether Monday’s election results signal a realignment of the federalist-sovereignist divide that has dominated federal politics in Quebec for the past 20 years.

The results are a devastating blow for the Bloc – at least in the short term. It lost its leader after Gilles Duceppe lost his seat and resigned. It also lost its official party status in the House of Commons along with the budgets and resources that come with it.

Duceppe has so dominated the party since he became leader that there is no ob-vious successor.

In the longer term, however, a majority right wing Conservative government with little representation from Quebec coupled with an official opposition full of rookie

Quebec MPs could potentially provide the sovereignist movement with the winning conditions it has been seeking for years.

While the Bloc has been decimated, the more important goal for the sovereignist movement has always been forming the government in Quebec and setting the stage for a referendum. A recent Léger Marketing poll showed Pauline Marois’ Parti Québécois with a comfortable lead over Premier Jean Charest’s Liberals by 38 per cent to 31 per cent.

A key challenge for NDP Leader Jack Layton and his Quebec lieutenant Thomas Mulcair in coming weeks will be dealing with a very large, and in many cases very young, contingent of new NDP MPs from Quebec.

For example, the NDP wave was so strong that it even swept into office an NDP can-didate who took off on a Las Vegas vaca-tion in the middle of the campaign.

Ruth Ellen Brosseau, an assistant man-ager of a Carleton University pub who has difficulty speaking French, is the new MP for the riding of the very French-speaking riding of Berthier-Maskinongé east of Montreal.

In some cases, people who only a few weeks ago were writing final exams for university will now be members of Parlia-ment with salaries of $157,731.

Only two members of the NDP’s Quebec caucus have any experience as MPs – Mul-cair and Françoise Boivin, a former Liberal MP who won the riding of Gatineau. A handful of others such as Romeo Saganash

of the Grand Council of the Cree have had experience in political arenas.

What remains of the Conservative’s Que-bec caucus has more experience and three have served as cabinet ministers – Chris-tian Paradis, Denis Lebel and Maxime Ber-nier. However, it will be difficult for six MPs to carry much weight in a 167-member caucus dominated by Ontario and Alberta.

The Liberals, already diminished in pre-vious elections have been reduced to seven seats – all of them in very anglophone and allophone areas of Montreal. But not even the Liberal party’s last Quebec bastion of Montreal was safe. Key players in the Liberal party’s Quebec caucus like Mar-lene Jennings and Pablo Rodriguez were washed away in the NDP wave.

Former astronaut Marc Garneau squeaked through in Westmount-Ville Marie by a few hundred votes after a see-saw battle throughout the evening with the NDP.

Among those left, two are potential can-didates for the future leadership of the party – Denis Coderre and Justin Trudeau who actually increased his margin of vic-tory.

While many Liberals were still in shock Monday night, Trudeau took heart in the fact that Quebecers had opted for a party that was both progressive and federalist.

Trudeau said the challenge for Liberals now is to rebuild.

“I think the party has to focus one of the things that worked well here which is lead-ership from the ground up.”

NDP tsunami devastates BlocWed, apr 6, 2011elizabeTH THoMPSon

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#Elxn41: From campaign stop to photo op...

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It wasn’t exactly a stellar night for Cana-da’s pollsters and seat projectors.

The main polling firms underestimated Conservative strength, with none pro-jecting Prime Minister Stephen Harper would handily secure his coveted major-ity government.

While pollsters accurately tapped into the dramatic rise of the NDP, they failed to correctly measure Conservative sup-port of 40 per cent. Those who took the extra step of venturing into seat projec-tions, missed the mark.

“I totally blew the final CPC strength and missed the majority,” acknowledged EKOS president Frank Graves.

“Well, that didn’t go well,” Eric Grenier, of the seat projection site threehundre-deight.com, wrote on his website. He was significantly off base in his predictions, low-balling the Conservatives and New Democrats and significantly over-esti-mating the Bloc Québécois and Liberals.

Graves attributed his miscalculations — also experienced by several other poll-sters — to a “late defection” of liberal vot-ers from the centre and right in fear of the NDP.

Another story that political polling in-dustry missed was the near obliteration of the Bloc Québéois. Although they were widely expected to plummet, the main polling firms and seat projectors did not

come close to projecting they could lose party status by securing only four seats.

The pollsters’ blurred crystal ball follows months of internal dispute within the in-dustry. Some pollsters — notably Allan Gregg of Harris-Decima — have bleakly assessed the business as one plagued by methodology problems in both telephone and online surveys, which are skewing re-sults.

The concern is that telephone surveys at-tract older Canadians, namely those who rely on land lines rather than cell phones. Online surveys, on the other hand, are said to attract younger voters.

Also, the industry has pointed a finger at the media for over-hyping results. An-other identified problem is that response rates in general are declining as pollsters compete with telemarketers.

Graves disputes that response rates are affecting results — he said that credible research shows it makes no difference.

Nonetheless, he said it’s time for poll-sters to do some soul-searching and look at lessons that can be learned from the 2011 federal election campaign, including wildly fluctuating pools through the early and middle weeks.

One possibility, he said, would be for the notoriously competitive industry to set aside differences and jointly devise “a gold-sealed election poll that is impec-

cable from Day One.”One pollster who was not talking about

lessons learned was Nik Nanos of Nanos Research. He came the closest of all the top pollsters in assessing party support, including the Conservatives, whom he pegged at almost 39 per cent, based on Sunday polling.

“Nanos numbers looking good,” he wrote on Twitter as the election results came in.

Nanos was among the pollsters who did not venture into seat projections.

In the end, the popular vote break-down was 39.62 per cent for the Conser-vatives and 30.62 for the NDP. The Lib-erals captured 18.91 per cent, while the Bloc Québécois took six per cent and the Greens almost four per cent.

A 2009 article by in Vue, the magazine of the Market Research and Intelligence Association, the umbrella group for the industry, asserted that pollsters generally have performed well in elections.

They have been particularly successful in “telling the right story when it comes to trending” — which the article says is a vital component of the job.

Nonetheless, the article, by Leger Mar-keting pollsters, concluded that the in-dustry should start asking itself questions rather than just asking questions of po-tential voters.

It it time for pollsters to question themselves?Tues., May 3, 2011JaniCe TibbeTTS

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Elizabeth May unseated Conservative cab-inet minister Gary Lunn with a resound-ing 48 per cent of the vote Monday night, becoming the first elected Green in Cana-dian history. The third time was the charm for May, who ran unsuccessfully in Lon-don, Ont., and against Conservative star Peter MacKay in Nova Scotia.

The feisty Green leader beamed Mon-day night when she delivered her victory speech to a large crowd of supporters on Vancouver Island.

“We’re on TV, guys!” May said with a laugh upon taking the stage. Earlier in the night, she had again expressed her anger at being left out of the televised national lead-ers’ debate.

“Today, we’ve proved that Canadians want change in politics,” May said with an enormous smile. “We ran a very non-parti-san campaign. We ran a co-operative cam-paign.” She pledged to always speak truth to power as Saanich-Gulf Islands’ elected Member of Parliament.

The 2011 campaign marked the first time the Green Party embarked on a specific mission to elect its leader. Saanich-Gulf Is-lands was identified as a riding with Green leanings, and May moved to Sidney soon after losing her 2008 bid to unseat MacKay in Central Nova.

The Green team focused heavily on the riding, with May spending three-quarters of her time there even before the writ was dropped. An August 2010 poll gave her 32 per cent of the riding’s support, slightly trailing Lunn, who commanded 34 per cent.

When the election was called, it was all hands on deck. The party transferred near-ly $67,000 to its Saanich-Gulf Islands rid-ing association in 2009, on top of a $25,500 transfer from Central Nova. It opened two constituency offices, though one was tem-porarily closed after a driver crashed into it.

In contrast to 2008, when May launched an extensive national tour, the party lead-er stayed close to home in 2011, spending many mornings on the side of the road, waving to commuters.

May inspired an exciting race, and 11,000 voters came out to the advance polls in Saanich-Gulf Islands — more than any-where else in British Columbia.

The advance polls were considered key to a Green win, in order to capture votes from the 4,000 University of Victoria students who live in the riding during the school year, but were set to finish up their exams before the Easter weekend. The Greens courted the early vote, including a stunt on the Thursday night in which Young Greens drew lines with sidewalk chalk to point the way to polling stations. The effort paid off — and the returning officer even reported many young people had taken advantage of the special ballot option that allows people to vote even before the advance polls. May went on to win by riding by 2,000 votes.

But the 2011 campaign was tougher for May than the 2008 version. “I wasn’t ex-pecting that,” she told iPolitics.

The greatest challenge was her fight to be included in the national leaders’ debates. It was a fight for democracy, she argued.

The public outpouring of support for May did not sway the consortium, and so she took on a legal battle. She filed a Char-ter challenge against the consortium’s de-cision in federal court, but this push was derailed after the judge refused her request to have the case expedited in time for the debates.

May became concerned that, in the flur-ry of coverage around the debate issue, the Green Party’s status had actually been hurt. “I want issue coverage,” she said. “We’ve been trivialized, as if I’m a pushy outsider trying to get in a door marked No Greens.”

But when Parliament reconvenes, there will be a seat marked with May’s name. No longer will she watch question period from the rafters. She’ll be the one ask-ing the questions, more than likely of her longtime rival Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

A gracious Harper congratulated May on her “historic” win when he delivered his own victory speech in Calgary Monday night. She also received a congratulatory phone call from Lunn.

In 2008, Lunn won the riding with about 1,500 more votes than the Liberal candi-date. But Harper knew the riding was vul-nerable — he made two trips to the riding since the writ dropped, the first in March, and the second during the Easter weekend.

May said this election is a testament to Canadian democracy.

“It’s an election that proves that pundits aren’t very useful. The electorate makes the decision.”

Green MP celebrates historic victory: ‘We’ve proved Canadians want change’Tue, May 3, 2011Sonya bell

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The once-mighty Liberal Party has been reduced to a rump.

A dismal electoral showing — bleed-ing to the left and the right to finish with a record-low number of seats — left many long-time supporters soul-searching and some openly weeping. Leader Michael Ig-natieff accepted “historic responsibility for historic defeat” and instructed the party to look in the mirror to determine what went wrong and how to move forward.

“There was a longing for change, a yearn-ing for change. We can be proud of the role we played in triggering that longing and desire for change, unfortunately we could not be the beneficiaries of that longing for change,” he said during a concession speech in Toronto.

Making the already devastating blow worse, Ignatieff lost his own seat in Etobi-coke-Lakeshore.

Liberals across the country have already begun a post-mortem on what went wrong – and when. Akaash Maharaj, a senior resi-dent at the University of Toronto’s Massey College and past Liberal national policy chair, said it’s tough to pinpoint the prob-lems. With Canadians despairing over a “crisis” in democratic institutions, the par-ty should have been fighting an easy target.

“Why, at a time when Canadians feel there is such a serious problem in the polit-ical system, have Canadians not entrusted the Liberal party to be the solution?” he asked. “The Liberal Party will be engaged in a great deal of soul-searching for the next few months, asking the question, if the Liberal Party can not defeat a Con-servative government that in the minds of Canadians has crippled democracy and mismanaged public finances, I think it’s reasonable to ask itself, in its current form, who could it defeat?”

The Liberal Party brand took a beating

with the sponsorship scandal. But Maharaj believes the party has also lost touch with its grassroots by adopting a presidential-style, leader-centric approach that fails to engage masses of liberal Canadians. For too long, members have been living under an “illusion” that a messiah will arrive to lead the party out of the wilderness.

“I think the greater issue is that the party has been allowed, under a succession of leaders, to atrophy as a national politi-cal movement and increasingly become a campaigning vehicle for the leader of the day. And that is not a sustainable model,” he said. “I think Liberals have to confront the fact that the leader has not been the problem, nor is he the solution. It requires a wholesale rejuvenation of the Liberal Party as a national institution.”

Maharaj said Ignatieff was damaged early and badly by Conservative attack ads that cast him as a “visiting professor.” The Liberals didn’t fight back fast enough.

“In politics, as in life, you never get a second chance to make a first impression,” he said. “No political leader wants to find himself in a position where he is being de-fined by his enemies instead of himself.”

The Conservatives managed to take what should have been a great strength – an in-ternationally respected intellectual – and turned it into a slur. In the end, the Liberal campaign compounded its mistake by re-sponding late to the criticisms by repack-aging Ignatieff.

Former Liberal cabinet minister Jim Peterson said while there will be varying opinions on what could have been done differently, there is general agreement that Ignatieff delivered a strong performance and solid platform. Some of the party’s problems that must be addressed are more systemic, such as building strong fundrais-ing and riding association networks.

“I don’t think we need radical reform. I don’t think we need bloodletting,” he said.

One veteran Liberal said insiders began to get nervous after the debates, when NDP Leader Jack Layton scored powerful punches. After a strong start to the cam-paign, it was becoming clear Ignatieff was not connecting outside core supporters.

“That basically solidified in people’s minds that the Liberals were over-confi-dent, cocky, feeling they had some sort of right to govern,” he said. “It worked. People already had this view created by the Con-servatives of the Liberals being elitist, and Layton was able, with his lines, to define that in people’s minds.”

The unexpected rise of the NDP present-ed a strategic conundrum, as the Liberal game plan has been to win over NDP sup-port to stop the Conservatives.

“When the NDP gets so strong that they are tied or ahead of you, that strategy be-gins to backfire on you,” he said.

Post-election analysis will no doubt point to other problems– including the party’s failure to resonate outside big cities. Yet despite the defeat, Liberals do not appear to be in a rush to embrace a “unite-the-left” movement – an endeavor some believe would risk disenfranchising even further those in the centre-right of the party.

Maharaj said considering that kind of “seismic shift” in Canadian politics due to one election result would be a “gross over-reaction.” Instead, the Liberals must work to rebuild and strengthen their support – and learn from strategic mistakes.

“I suspect the NDP has fared well in this campaign because with the Conservatives and the Liberals attacking one another, the NDP has been able to come up the middle. By the time those two parties trained their guns on the NDP, the campaign was virtu-ally over.”

Liberal post-mortem begins in wake of record defeatTues., May 3, 2011KaTHleen HarriS

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Whether it was viral videos of Rick Mer-cer urging youth to vote, a youth flashmob during Stephen Harper’s visit to Guelph, or a University of Western Ontario student kicked out of a Conservative rally for hav-ing a picture with Michael Ignatieff on her Facebook page — the youth vote received a lot of attention this election.

Often, when youth come up during an election it’s in reference to their generally dismal turnout – after all, only 37.4 per cent of 18 to 24 year olds voted in 2008.

While young voters are often referred to as a homogenous unit, it’s one of the most diverse voter groups. The youth vote ranges from recent high school grads to young pro-fessionals — of all backgrounds — in both rural and urban ridings.

Near the end of the campaign, iPolitics.ca and Postmedia News hosted Youth Debate 2011 where young federal party activists used policy, platform, and partisan jabs in an effort to win over the elusive youth vote.

Nearly 100 young people were in the au-dience, with more tuning in online, to hear Conservative Alykhan Velshi, Liberal Eliz-abeth Dubois, New Democrat Isaac Cock-

burn, and Green Jonathan Halasz sound off about post-secondary education, job cre-ation, and electoral reform.

The debate was more civilized than the national leaders’ debate, according to young people in the audience.

“There was more actual discussion,” Natalie Tremblay, 19, said. “The candidates weren’t so polarized.”

But the participants did stick close to their party lines — including lines of attack.

Less than 20 minutes into the debate, Conservative representative Velshi broke out a favourite Conservative buzzword, re-ferring to his opponents as “the opposition coalition.” He also worked in two attacks on Michael Ignatieff’s years abroad, saying it must have been in the United States that the Liberal leader learned polarity and at-tack politics.

Liberal candidate Elizabeth Dubois fired back that Ignatieff embraces open and transparent government, in contrast to Harper, who was found in contempt of Par-liament and has banned young people from his rallies on the basis of their Facebook ac-counts.

NDP representative Cockburn broke in to say that this was the sort of partisan back and forth that Jack Layton would fix in Ot-tawa. He then decried Ignatieff’s attendance

record in the House of Commons.Halasz, the Green representative, brought

it full circle when he fingered the Conser-vative Party as the first to bring American-style attack ads to Canada. He pointed out that, in contrast, the Green Party’s first and only attack ad this election was against at-tack ads.

During the 90-minute debate, the partici-pants took questions from the audience and over email and Twitter. The queries were largely youth-centred, such as where the parties stood on lowering the voting age, online voting, tuition fees, and political rep-resentation of women and minorities.

Katherine DeClerq, 21, said it was a nice change to hear about topics that are more important to youth, such as electoral re-form.

But Curtis Fraser, 28, said there was no need to focus on “childish” issues. He wanted to see the pre-determined topics ex-panded to include international trade and defence.

“We make adult decisions about adult is-sues.”

There are 3 million Canadians under age 25 who are eligible to vote on May 2. The youth debate was organized and webcast by iPolitics and canada.com to encourage them to cast their ballot.

‘Adult decisions about adult issues’

Wed, apr 27, 2011Sonya bell anD MeG WilCoX

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In the end, perhaps it was not that com-plicated.

For many observers, the rise of the NDP was the biggest surprise of the 2011 campaign. It raised many questions. For starters, how did the nation’s perennial also-ran — the fourth party of so many Parliaments — manage to galvanize the electorate?

The NDP’s rise in Quebec has been building progressively during the past de-cade since Jack Layton first took control. The manifesto crafted in 2005 — “Qué-bec’s Voice and a Choice for a Different Canada” — pledged that the party would encourage support in the province “by the social democratic values of co-operation, recognition, equality, respect, flexibility, transparency, and honesty.”

It was a positive message directed at a province that had for decades sided with a separatist federal party. Layton hit the road to sell the message outside of Quebec.

Back to the beginning

On the first day of the 2011 campaign, Jack Layton gathered a medium-sized crowd of supporters to the Chateau Laurier in Ot-tawa.

On TV screens, the NDP faithful watched the prime minister explain how an “unnecessary election” would jeop-ardize Canadian stability and safety — a warning that would define the narrative of his campaign.

When Harper was done, Layton stepped up with a slightly different message. “Ste-phen Harper sees co-operation as a weak-ness,” he told the crowd. “I view it as a very Canadian strength.”

There were questions about Layton’s

own strength. He was living with cancer and just back from hip surgery. Observers wanted to know if the vivacious campaign-er was up for the campaign. He spoke that day with his arm tucked through the half-circle loop of his by then-familiar forearm crutch. Shortly before his surged in the polls, he would graduate to a cane.

In the early days of the campaign, Layton pushed aside questions about his health. It was business as usual, he insisted, though perhaps not for others.

“Mr. Ignatieff’s words don’t match his actions,” Layton told the crowd on open-ing day. “And he’s betting you don’t no-tice.”

Just watch me, Layton seemed to be tell-ing the crowd.

The peasants are restless

Political tides have shifted during the past year or so. In Calgary and Toronto, for example, new mayors stand in contrast to the cities they were elected to lead. Cana-dians have grown skeptical of politicians, political parties, and even of the system.

“Going into an election campaign as an incumbent, you have to inoculate yourself against that anger or you’ll become the fo-cus of that anger,” says former NDP cam-paign director Robin Sears.

Sears says it’s a point that should have occurred to Stephen Harper.

“You can run a fear-driven campaign and you have enormous credibility and you have the agreed and obvious icon of whatever it is you think people should be fearful of,” Sears says. “Unfortunately for Harper, he is that icon to many people.”

On Monday evening, the Conservatives pulled off their majority.

As the results rolled in, it was clear NDP success was not built on Conservative fail-ings, but rather something else. The par-ty’s success in Quebec was almost total. In crippling the Bloc, it succeeded in doing what some in Canada have been trying to do for years.

But how?

Layton performed well in the debates. It helped that Ignatieff did not. He appeared on Tout le monde en parle, a popular Que-bec television show, which gave him a ma-jor bump in a province that had never re-ally considered him before.

The NDP plan for Quebec was part of it, but there was more. In an election that from the beginning struggled for a tan-gible theme or narrative, more and more it was to be about something else – a choice between images.

Lewis H. Lapham once noted that “in place of an energetic politic, we substitute a frenzied spectacle. … The one attribute that can be known and seen comes to stand for all the other attributes that re-main invisible.”

In a weird way, at their core, Harper and Ignatieff had the same message as Layton: Through them, Canada could be a better place — a country setting course for better days. A stronger nation. Only the messag-ing, the imaging, was different – and Lay-ton himself no doubt played a part.

While Harper made the case for eco-nomic stewardship, his campaign was built on repeated warnings about the dan-ger lapping at Canada’s shores. Harper asked for Conservative stability, but talked about the opposite.

For his part, Ignatieff talked about Lib-

Behind the orange door? Opposition leader Jack LaytonTue, May 3, 2011Colin HorGan

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eral stability, but asked instead for a crip-pled Conservative Party.

Layton, on the mend himself, talked about stability and strength and defiantly waved his cane in the air.

Working it

On the second-to-last day Saturday of the campaign, Layton appealed to a capacity crowd in Montreal. “Let’s work together,” he urged almost a thousand people at the L’Olympia theatre in downtown Montreal, the heart of Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe’s riding.

“Let’s roll up our sleeves and start the work right now!”

Layton thanked the crowd, then glad-handed his admirers, the message of the collective effort hung in the air.

It was an extension of his first speech in March – the one that scolded Stephen Harper for not being open to co-operation.

It resonated with Toronto student Giulia Cifarelli.

“[Layton’s] different policies and plat-forms, it’s all people-focused,” she told iP-olitics on election day. “It’s very focused on starting from the community and working your way up. And I guess if you’re starting with the community and you have some-one fighting for you at the top, too, some-where in between, you’re going to meet.”

During the campaign, it became less about what Layton was fighting against, and more about what he was fighting for. By the time he stepped off his podium in

Montreal, he was no longer facing ques-tions about his health or the size of the crowds.

Instead, Layton was responding to ques-tions about his party’s platform.

And as much as it showed the shift in media focus, Layton was sprinting away. NDP popularity numbers jumped almost overnight.

At that point, questions about the finer points of the policy might not have mat-tered, says Sears. By that time, he says, peo-ple are voting “on the basis of character… and overall perception of the leader of the party.”

They don’t care about individual policy items, he says. “That dissection — or an analysis process — that you go through at the front end, not at the back end,” he says.

On election day in a downtown Toronto coffee shop, at least one Liberal-turned-NDP supporter agreed.

“Jack Layton’s messages I always see are very positive, he has a very warm persona,” said Allison Costa. “Every time I see him in the public, he seems like a very person-able person.”

In 2005, Layton promised to give Que-bec voters a voice. In 2011, he promised the same to the rest of Canada.

Then, Monday.

Orange Crush

As the projections began to jump on the big screens at the Metro Toronto Conven-tion Centre, the NDP faithful poured into

the expansive room, and cheered their new MPs as the seat count climbed higher.

By the time it was over, the NDP had earned more than 100 seats.

Despite the NDP’s success, the Conserva-tive numbers grew faster quickly. Watch-ing the numbers, the crowd remained hap-py but subdued. The organizers pumped dance music through the speakers at full volume, and New Democrats stood in bit-tersweet irony. Their massive victory has been tempered by Stephen Harper’s first majority government.

In the end, the Conservatives had man-aged to win again.

“I’ve always favoured ‘proposition’ over ‘opposition,’ ” Layton told the crowd of more than 3,000 just after midnight. “You can count on New Democrats to bring people together across political divides,” he said.

He listed the things for which Canadians voted on Monday: universal health care, better pensions, and help to make ends meet.

For the most part, the crowd was respon-sive to the victory that would have been complete if it weren’t for the “almost.”

“If we stick together, there is no challenge we cannot overcome,” Layton said. The crowd roared. Happy, at least, to finally have a voice.

Layton then quoted NDP stalwart Tom-my Douglas.

“Dream no little dreams,” he told the throng, before leaving the stage cane in one hand but almost at full strength.

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In a whirlwind election campaign, there was one thing Canadian voters could count on: Stephen Harper’s choice of ap-parel. From Vancouver to Cape Breton Island, the Conservative leader proudly sported his quilted lightweight Team Can-ada Olympic jacket.

Retail price: $100. Adding a patriot twist to his softened image: priceless.

The jacket was this election’s powder blue sweater vest and cuddly kitten rolled into one patriotic slam-dunk, according to fashion consultants.

“I think he’s hitting the right note,” Ed-monton-based fashion consultant Shirley Borrelli told iPolitics. “We were all proud of the Olympics, whether we lived in west-ern Canada or eastern Canada.”

“If he’s going after the hockey vote, he’s doing very well,” agreed Leah Morrigan, an image consultant in Toronto. “He’s one of the guys.”

Harper has been photographed in the jacket Easter egg hunting in Royal Oak,

B.C., serving fudge in Sydney, N.S., and ty-ing a child’s skates at an arena in St. John’s, NFLD. He also zipped it up at the North-western Ontario Sports Hall of Fame in Thunder Bay, and at a Vancouver Canucks sporting goods store in Vancouver.

The jacket is a great choice for these casu-al venues, Borrelli said. It sends a personal and patriotic message to voters.

“I love it. I think it really warms him up. I think it helps him relate. And I think it’s going to work in his favour,” Borrelli said.

This campaign, it’s all about being the homegrown boy. Conservative Party ads have consistently targeted Michael Ignati-eff’s years abroad as a Harvard professor as evidence that he is not committed to Can-ada. In the famous words of the attack ads: “He didn’t come back for you.”

But Vancouver-based image special-ist Mihaela Ciocan warned Harper not to overuse the Canada jacket.

“For most situations during the cam-paign it is best to err on the conserva-

tive side with tailored and softly tailored styles,” she said. “Plus these styles are what Harper appears most comfortable in, and that is essential because what feels best usually looks best.”

The Hudson’s Bay Company introduced the jacket ahead of the Olympics, and it sold out in stores before the Games ended. It was available on eBay for as little as $50 by March 2010.

Nevertheless, the look is not outdated, Borrelli said. She speculated Harper’s en-dorsement could drive up sales at HBC stores, where Olympic merchandise is still for sale.

A newly created Facebook page asks: Are You Getting Tired of That Canada Jacket Yet? In its first four days, it grew slowly to just more than 50 “likes.”

“I doubt that in the wake of the historic Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games, patriotic Canadians will turn their backs on such a symbolic jacket for political rea-sons,” Clocan said.

Thu, apr 28, 2011 Sonya bell

Sweater vest + cuddly kitten = The Team Harper jacket

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@meghw: MEG WILCOx Harper: will go to GG tomorrow to ask for dissolution of Parliament. Says “only pos-sible option”. #ipca #cdnpoli

@OttawaReporter KATHLEEN HARRIS Photographers position to shoot “Family Photo” of leaders politely shaking hands before they take the gloves off for debate #ipca #db8 @LizT1 ELIzABETH THOMPSON Duceppe congratulates Harper for answering first citizen’s question of the campaign. zinger. #ipca #elxn41 @emily_senger EMILY SENGER Reads like April Fools Day story but it’s real: French election debate date switched because of Habs game http://bit.ly/g7UsN4 #ipca#exln41

@devonblack DEVON BLACK I’ll say it: this format sucks. No one really wants to watch Iggy and Duceppe agree that crime is bad. #ipcadb8 @devonblack DEVON BLACK Iggy’s losing his temper on the democracy issue. Is it enough to make Canadian voters care? #debat @devonblack DEVON BLACK How do you cut “fat” without cutting pro-grams? Is Harper saying bureaucrats should exercise more? #debat

@so_bell SONYA BELL “How long does this go on for?” Hy’s crowd ready for the TV to be turned down again. #ipca #db8 @so_bell SONYA BELL Group of committed debate watchers at Hy’s shrinking. New arrivals not paying attention. Is this the apathy we speak of? #ipca @LizT1 ELIzABETH THOMPSON Ignatieff says Harper’s reluctance to do open town halls etc also an Americanization of Ca-nadian politics. New narrative. #ipca #elxn41 @LizT1 ELIzABETH THOMPSON Interesting tactic by Harper. Let Ignatieff and Duceppe bicker then wades in asking people to imagine them trying to run minority govt #ipca

@meghw MEG WILCOx OH: “the calibre of the debate depends on the calibre of the candidates... So it’s not too surprising” #ipca @meghw MEG WILCOx Most of the people at this party are saying the leaders are missing the major issues. It’s frustrating, they say #ipca

@cfhorgan COLIN HORGAN Canada is an “island of stability” says Harper. And hey, the crowd loves it! #CPC #elxn41 @cfhorgan COLIN HORGAN Crowd wanted to boo at one point, as Jack listed bad things happening in Ottawa, then held off... Jack “you can react”. Boos ensued. #elxn41#ipca

@so_bell SONYA BELL May gives a dif greeting and speech at every whistle-stop. I understand this isn’t the way all leaders do it. Dorval bound. #elxn41#ipca @LizT1 ELIzABETH THOMPSON @GeorgeTheCar Candidates for MP get lots of exercise on the campaign trail but leaders tend to spend the day sitting in planes, buses, cars.

@emily_senger EMILY SENGER A crying preschooler in front of Harper proves using humans as announcement backdrop can go wrong: http://bit.ly/hAGUdY #ipca#exln41

@LizT1 ELIzABETH THOMPSON Poster girl for the Conservatives and the Bloc doesn’t actually support either. Great sleuthing by @meghw http://bit.ly/gsLtwM #ipca

Debate:

Coalition: @LizT1 ELIzABETH THOMPSON Two Canadian PMs have tried to form coali-tions - MacDonald and Borden. Guess what party they came from? http://bit.ly/hfiaCl #elxn41 #ipca @cfhorgan COLIN HORGAN if there were ever an argmnt for better elemen-tary civics classes, this is it. we’d understand coalitions & avoid this silliness. #elxn41

Leaders:

#Elxn41 in tweets

Parliament dissolves: