Election Results and My Disappointment

My personal opinion on yesterday's election: disaster. I was shocked when I checked the news this morning to find out we now had a Conservative majority, an NDP opposition, a negligible Liberal party, a practically non-existent Bloc Quebecois and a Green MP.

I knew that a Liberal majority (ha!) or even minority wasn't happening. I was hoping for a reduced Conservative minority, and polls showed the NDP were doing well so I expected them to increase their presence. I think I was really hoping for a centre-left coalition, a government that could actually hold on for more than a year and that could be effective. Instead...this.

A lot of undecided voters, or disaffected Liberal voters, or people who didn't like Michael Ignatieff and didn't believe Jack Layton could really be Prime Minister, in the end seemed to think that there just wasn't really any choice besides Harper. Really? Harper? The one whose party has been found in contempt of Parliament, who has muzzled cabinet ministers and MPs, who has limited access for the press? The one who has cut funding to women's organisations and squandered a budget surplus, who claimed to have steered Canada through the recession by taking credit for policies enacted by the previous Liberal governments and then denied there was a recession at all? The one who twice prorogued parliament to avoid disclosing information and losing power? Yes, that one.

This is what has really disappointed me. It's not that the party that I don't support won. It's democracy, that can happen (though, to be fair, just under 40% of the country voted Conservative, which means about 60% did not. If that's not reason enough for an AV or PR system, I don't know what is...). No, it's the fact that, for whatever reason, Canadians decided that transparency, openness, freedom of expression, freedom of the press, respect for parliament and democracy and truthfulness were not really that important. (True, again, for 60% of people these things were important, but about 200,000 more people voted for the CPC in this election, so there's that.)

From the Globe and Mail's April 27 endorsement of Harper: "Mr. Harper could achieve a great deal more if he would relax his grip on Parliament, its independent officers and the flow of information, and instead bring his disciplined approach to bear on the great challenges at hand. That is the great strike against the Conservatives: a disrespect for Parliament, the abuse of prorogation, the repeated attempts (including during this campaign) to stanch debate and free expression. It is a disappointing failing in a leader who previously emerged from a populist movement that fought so valiantly for democratic reforms."

To me, these are not small failings that can be shrugged off. These are some of the most fundamental principles in a modern democracy. We don't say suppression of dissent and debate is okay as long as we have stability. That's what dictatorships do. And no, of course I'm not saying that Canada under Harper is a dictatorship; I'm saying that it's very important not to lose sight of the closed nature of Harper's government just because we didn't suffer as badly in the economic crisis as everyone else.

Now that we have four or five years under a Harper majority, it'll be interesting to see how these issues play out - will he relax his grip now that he doesn't have to fight tooth and nail for his government, or will he tighten it because, frankly, he can?

Election Results and the Slow Death of the LPC

I have many thoughts on yesterday's election, but I'll split them up into a few posts so if you're interested in some and not others, you don't have to be too bored.

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So that's that. Far from the result I was hoping for, Stephen Harper's Conservatives were elected to a majority government yesterday with 167 seats (all figures from Elections Canada). The NDP is now the official opposition with 102 seats, up from 37. The Liberal Party had its worst showing ever, going from 77 to 34 seats, and its leader Michael Ignatieff has resigned after failing to win his own riding. And the Bloc Quebecois was all but eliminated, winning just four seats, none of which belonged to leader Gilles Duceppe. Voter turnout was 61.4%, up from 58.8% in the 2008 poll.

Some people are talking about the left vote being split - that people who didn't want to vote Conservative went far-left instead of centre-left, voting NDP instead of Liberal, which helps to account for the LPC's dismal showing. There's some truth to that - 53.4% of the vote went to the NDP, Liberal and Green parties, and 39.6% to the Conservatives - but look at the seat changes. The NDP only took six of their seats from the CPC (and lost two to them); they took 16 from the LPC (and lost one to them), and, amazingly, they took 45 seats from the Bloc Quebecois. The vast majority of the party's gains were in Quebec, where, in the 2008 election, the party won one seat. That's right, one. And it was their first in 17 years. Most of the Liberal seats in the rest of the country went to the Conservatives, particularly in Ontario and the Maritimes.

So Quebec rejected the separatist BQ, threw out half of their Liberal MPs and a few of the Conservatives who'd managed a seat in the last election, and voted overwhelmingly for the NDP. And this was no question of splitting the vote - the Liberals polled the lowest of all of the major parties in the province (14.2%), while the NDP took 42.9% of the popular vote. The NDP is due credit for running a great campaign and for convincing people to give the 'third party' - who a decade ago barely qualified for official party status - a chance.

But the real issue is the demise of the Liberal Party, the failure of Ignatieff to connect with voters in his own constituency and in the rest of the country. Part of Ignatieff's failure is due to very effective attack ads run by the CPC, which have been running since before official campaigning began. The Conservative Party has done a very, very good job of painting Ignatieff as too intellectual, too American, too elitist, to aristocratic - too out of touch with Canadians to be Prime Minister. And Ignatieff never managed to overcome this image - a lot of people who wouldn't call themselves Conservatives were uneasy about his leadership, or disliked the man. I was shocked yesterday to hear my mom offhandedly mention that my dad wouldn't vote Liberal because he hates Ignatieff; I wasn't aware that my father even knew who Ignatieff, or any other politician, was.

Ignatieff wasn't elected at a Liberal leadership convention; he came in second at the 2006 convention behind Stephane Dion and served as deputy leader, and took over as interim leader in 2008 when Dion stepped down. His leadership was ratified at a party convention six months later. Neither Dion nor Ignatieff inspired voters; the party's seats in Parliament have been in decline since the Sponsorship Scandal and subsequent election in 2004 (that election was under Paul Martin, who didn't have much of a chance after the scandal was made public. I still maintain that Martin, whose work as finance minister under Jean Chretien left Canada with a budget surplus and with bank regulations that helped us weather the financial crisis, which Harper took credit for, could have been a great PM had he had a real chance). The Liberal Party has been in decline for nearly a decade and has tried a series of quick-fix solutions: a too-early leadership convention without enough consideration of candidates, propelling Ignatieff to leadership only two years after he became an MP for the first time, forcing elections without any clear policy vision.

The party has overlooked the fact that has become glaringly evident in this election: nobody trusts them to move this country forward. It's not because of the Sponsorship scandal anymore - if anything this election showed that transparency isn't actually that high up on Canadians' lists of concerns. It's because the party has no vision. In opposition, the LPC gave the average voter the impression that it was really good at opposing Conservative policies, but not great at coming up with alternatives. If you asked people what the LPC stands for, I don't think anybody would have an answer besides whatever is the opposite of what the CPC says. Much as I like Ignatieff and think he'd have made a good PM, generally people don't trust a leader that nobody had heard of five years ago and who has no real record to go on.

A Conservative majority means that there can no longer be threats of early elections, and there will now be four or five years until the next one. As the LPC doesn't even have the official opposition to worry about anymore, they can and should take this time to re-build the party. To take their time picking a leader people will be able to connect with (and to realise that it's still to early for that leader to be Justin Trudeau, who while good-looking and charismatic is still young and inexperienced and will have to prove himself more than anyone else because of his name and needs to be given time to do that). To develop a real policy platform that is proactive rather than reactive, and to bring back the left of centre votes that moved to the right for economics and stability or to the left for leadership, real opposition or lack of anything better.

Coalition Government: Not the Worst Thing That's Ever Happened

The following is probably a bit dry, and isn't especially to do with media coverage. But it is something that is so rarely addressed and badly, if ever, explained in mainstream media that I felt the need to write something just to get it out there. So my apologies.

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An obnoxious parallel between the Canadian election campaign and last year's UK election campaign: an enormous amount of uneducated gasping about how terrible a coalition government would be.

In both election campaigns, there was a Conservative party looking likely to win the most seats, but not enough for a majority government. In Canada, we are familiar with minority governments, having had 11 (or more, if you count a few unorthodox cases) since 1921, including the last three. The UK has only had five minority governments (or hung parliaments) since 1910, the last in 1974. In much of the rest of the world, hung parliaments are common election results; the party with the most seats is asked by the head of state to form a government, and they try to gain the tacit or explicit support of one or more smaller parties in order to form a majority government. If the party with the most seats can't make a deal with any other parties, then the leader of the official opposition - the party with the second most seats - is asked to form a government instead. This is normal parliamentary procedure.

In both cases, as I said, the Conservatives were/are expected to win the most seats, but not a majority. In theory, they could try to lead a minority government (which tend to last around a year on average and lead to early elections, and which have proved troublesome for Stephen Harper's Conservatives in Canada over the last two governments), or they could try to lead a coalition. In both cases, the pre-election rhetoric has instead been based on the idea that the Conservatives could not make a deal with the smaller parties (the Liberal Democrats in the UK and the NDP and Bloc Quebecois in Canada) because of the differences in platforms and their distance on the political spectrum. So the assumption was that the UK Labour Party and the Canadian Liberal Party would instead be able to form coalitions and become the government.

Again - this would be normal parliamentary procedure. If the party with the most seats isn't willing to compromise or concede enough to win the support of another party, it can't govern. It represents too few people. If the smaller parties can compromise to form a majority coalition, they together represent the most people. This makes perfect sense.

But the rhetoric from the Conservatives, particularly now in Canada (in the UK they went on to form a coalition with the Liberal Democrats, and one which has proven very successful for their own party's policies and fairly disastrous for the Lib Dems) has focused on the idea that a coalition government is somehow anti-democratic, power-usurping and vaguely evil. That if the leader of the opposition formed a coalition with smaller parties, he would be stealing power, ignoring the will of the people. That somehow a minority government representing 30% of the population is more representative than a coalition government representing 50%+.

The rhetoric also says that a coalition government is inherently 'chaotic'. In practice, a minority government, which can occasionally gain support from opposition politicians but has no formal agreement, is far worse. Coalition governments are formed when parties sit down and develop a manifesto that they feel represents their grouped interests, and they generally abide by them unless policy is introduced which is contrary to the agreement and splits opinion. A coalition led by the opposition is no more chaotic than a coalition led by the party with the most seats.

The strangest thing about the opposition to coalition governments is that opponents behave as if coalitions have never worked - as if there are no examples of effective coalition governments. In reality, in many countries around the world with multi-party systems, coalition governments are common practice, and they don't seem to be falling apart.

Some examples of coalition governments currently in power: UK, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland, Italy, the Netherlands, Brazil, Chile, India, Japan, Indonesia, Kenya, Senegal and Algeria.

(The worst example? Belgium, which has recently passed the 300 days without government landmark because its parties have been unable to form a coalition. But Belgium is plagued by deep regional divides and there is speculation that the country could actually split up because of the divisions. So it's not exactly the most representative example, and is certainly the exception to the rule.)

The important thing is that the idea of coalition governments isn't demonised in the election campaign; firstly, this tends to delegitimise the coalition if it is formed afterward, and hurts the credibility of the leaders who go around proclaiming they wouldn't form coalitions and then go and form them. Secondly, in countries where coalitions are the norm, it's easier to get an idea of what the coalition policies might be after the election - knowing which parties are likely to ally, and which policies are likely to make it through to the coalition document. One of the biggest disappointments for Lib Dem supporters in the UK was the vague assumption that a coalition was more likely with Labour than the Conservatives because Labour was the more leftist party. Some Lib Dem voters would not have voted for a coalition with the Conservatives. And most Lib Dem voters would not have voted for the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition policies, which included raising tuition fees (despite the Lib Dem election promise to lower or abolish them) and massive public spending cuts.

If coalitions are a possibility, the voters need to know what, and who, they're voting for, which is why discussion should be open and transparent, not hampered by false accusations of power-stealing and bad democracy.

On the Ottawa Sun

I confess, I haven't been paying as much attention to the election coverage as I'd hoped. And living in the UK means I missed last night's Canadian leadership debate, though I caught up on the highlights this morning. And then this article from the Ottawa Sun was brought to my attention. And this editorial.

This is election coverage at its worst. There is no mention of the policies discussed in the debate, just a transparent attempt to draw a link in readers' minds between Michael Ignatieff and Mao Zedong based on...what, exactly? Ignatieff did not quote Mao, but used a similar phrase. Whether he realised what he was doing or not, the Sun would have us believe that this comment is a real insight into Ignatieff's character, that lurking beneath the surface is a communist dictator waiting to seize power and kill millions of people. It's a pathetic bit of partisanship that has no place in journalism.

I wandered over to the Sun's website to check out the rest of their debate coverage. Their main story on their 'Debate' tab is 'Harper ahead in duel: Poll'. The headlines of the related stories: Iggy channels Mao, Cdns. heard message, Tories head for a majority, Harper best for battlefield, CBC compass points red, AG to investigate leaks, Tories fighting for faiths. Obvious bias?

Of course everyone knows that media outlets tend to have a political bias and often come right out and endorse one party. And Sun Media has never been shy about its Conservative leanings. But such heavily editorialised journalism, and editorials presented as news (as in the first Ignatieff article I posted above) are far over and above the kind of bias that can be detected in other media outlets; for example, the Toronto Star is often called out on its Liberal bias, but its debate coverage does not read like a list of Liberal Party talking points.

Some would say that the Sun papers are tabloids and we shouldn't expect the same standard of journalism there as in other publications. But the Ottawa Sun is a very popular daily paper, and while some people are aware of its bias or its shortcomings, many are not and read it the same way they would any paper: as a genuine source of news. Especially in an election campaign, I think it's disgustingly irresponsible to trot out opinions disguised as fact.

And yes, of course there are many journalists and media outlets guilty of this, across Canada and elsewhere. I've picked the Sun because of the horrible examples on hand, but by no means mean to say that there aren't others out there with the same problem!

Worth Sharing

Warning: if you're interested in this sort of thing, you may soon become lost in the articles/blogs linked in Andrew Potter's blog, and the ones linked in those pieces, etc. Maybe look through when you have some time on your hands and no deadline looming.

Andrew Potter on the Sun and CBC's Vote Compass.

If you follow me on Twitter or we're friends on Facebook, you'll know that I promoted the Vote Compass as a fun way to see where you stand in relation to political parties. I didn't think of it as "see how you should vote" - I thought of it as "see how little you probably agree with the party line from the party you think you're supposed to vote for". I've read conflicting claims on whether the Compass is actually biased toward a Liberal vote (that is, that no matter what you put you'll almost always be told you're closest to the Liberal Party), and haven't looked into it myself yet, so I can't really comment on that at the moment.

First of all, people shouldn't be using the Vote Compass to figure out who they should vote for. If they genuinely don't know who to pick, the Compass might point them in the direction of a party or parties that they might want to look into further. If nothing else, the issues addressed in the questions may make them realise they actually care about those things, and look into what each party says about them.

But the fact that people who know who they want to vote for are upset because the Compass tells them to vote for the wrong party was exactly my point - people can become too fixated on the party line on issues, and on making that party line their opinion. When presented with opinions to choose from without having the party's opinion on hand, people may be surprised to find out their opinion is different - and that's okay. You can still vote for a party without agreeing with what they have to say on every issue. In fact, I doubt there's a single person alive who agrees with the party line on every issue - political parties are by nature pluralistic, and can't possibly be tailored to individuals. When you vote, you vote for the candidate or party that best represents your view and that you think would do the best job for your riding (well, country - regardless of the political system, many/most people likely still vote based on who they want to be Prime Minister, not who they want to be their local MP).

I'm interested to see how this whole thing plays out though - a new, different story when election campaigns provide same old, same old.

Belated Response

I never did get around to posting after the TUC protest a couple of weeks ago, which means I won't bother saying much about it now since it's all a bit outdated. I did have a look at the coverage on Sunday, and it was pretty much what you'd expect. The more liberal papers tended to run higher numbers of attendees (ranging up to 400,000) and their headlines played down the trouble caused by the more radical elements. The more conservative papers generally went with lower attendance estimates (as low as 200,000) and featured photos and headlines about violence and police more prominently. Headlines aside, though, the things that went on outside of the march - the occupation of Fortnum and Masons, the paintballs thrown at police officers and allegedly tax-dodging businesses on Oxford Street, the vandalism of the Olympic clock in Trafalgar Square - were really the main focus of all coverage. Some better-meaning pieces opened with a paragraph that pointedly recognised the mass of peaceful protesters, but still went on to talk quite a bit more about the rest. But even if 400,000 people are marching peacefully, it's still news if anyone goes and smashes windows and throws paint on Oxford Street, so it's wrong to think that there should somehow be no media coverage just because the protest leaders would rather highlight the peaceful elements.

Yesterday someone posted this article on Twitter, defending the Black Bloc's tactics. While I generally don't agree with it, I do think it makes an important point about the distinction between violence and vandalism. Commentary during and after protests from politicians, police, opponents and peaceful protesters always condemns the 'violence' perpetrated by a few rogue elements. But is breaking shop windows or spraypainting buildings and monuments really violence? If this were an isolated incident on any night of the week, it would just be vandalism, and not noteworthy at all. Of course, there have been incidents of some people attacking police with protest signs, bottles, bricks, etc., and of course this is violence. I just think it's important that we use the right words in the right context.

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The election campaign in Canada is under way, and I'm already annoyed. First, by the jibes being traded on Twitter by Michael Ignatieff and Stephen Harper over the possibility of a one-on-one debate. "You said this but now you've taken it back", "My staff offered this and got no response", blah blah blah. People who are trying to be elected as Prime Minister of a country should not be engaging in petty who said what, schoolyard taunting online. It's pathetic. Second, the condescending campaign sloganing: met with REAL CANADIANS today, repeating RURAL CANADIANS over and over to show they aren't forgotten. It's so transparent and superficial. And I know, I know, it's politics. Sometimes I just hope for something a little better from the people who are supposed to be our nation's great leaders.

Finally, I'd forgotten the most annoying thing of all about election campaigns - my partisan Facebook friends. My newsfeed is basically a list of articles about why Harper or Ignatieff is terrible and will ruin this country (or already has). Worse than these, which are presumably meant to at least educate, are the status updates that don't really mean anything and serve just to shout loudly about who that person is voting for and why everyone else is stupid for not doing so. Urgh. I wish we could have some sort of moratorium on party hacks for the duration of the campaign.