Prime Minister Harper

Harper has a bit of a problem. Unfortunately, the NDP does not command enough seats to make a majority when combined with the Tories. CPC plus NDP would still be a couple of votes short. There goes Harper’s best bet for a stable minority government. The NDP will be pretty well irrelevant. This is bad news for both the NDP and the Tories.

But the fact that Martin has resigned means he can probably depend on the Liberals, at least for a while. They cannot afford an election until their leadership is settled. And they literally cannot afford an election soon in the literal, financial sense. In fact, if Harper is cunning, the thing to do is to introduce any tough legislation the Liberals are going to have a hard time supporting while their leadership race is on. They'll have a Hobson's choice.

The Liberals were down on the Tories (and on their last outing) by six points. Tories up six. It looks as if SES-CPAC was spot on. Best poll for the second election in a row.

Granted, given how bad the Liberal campaign was, there was reason to hope for a landslide. I hoped for a landslide. On the other hand, it's pretty unusual for an incumbent party to be voted out in such good economic times.

It is good news for Canada, I think, that almost all the frontbenchers for both parties are back. That will also make the Liberal leadership interesting. Landslide Annie is gone, though, and so is Pierre Pettigrew.

It irritates me how everyone in the MSM is referring to “prime minister designate” Stephen Harper. Nobody has designated him prime minister. It is up to the GG to do that in due time. One might refer to him as “prime minister presumptive,” I suppose.

Andrew Coyne:

“Ontario, outside Toronto at any rate, is joining the West. The democratic values and hardy optimism that are hallmarks of the West’s political culture have worked their way into the Ontario psyche. More and more, the West’s interests and values are also Ontario’s.”

I think that’s right, at least of Leeds-Grenville and, broadly, the Ottawa Valley area, where I laregly grew up. Folks there have a lot more in common, in their political and social views, with Alberta than with downtown Toronto.