THE CANADIAN ELECTION

Canadians could be forgiven for being grumpy this week at having to traipse to their fourth general election in 7 years. They responded by dropping a bombshell.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper of the Conservatives had won the previous two, though without obtaining an overall majority. This week's election took place after he had lost a vote of confidence, when the opposition parties ganged up on him. Far from agreeing with the opposition, the voters rewarded him with 167 seats in the 308-member House of Commons, a clear majority and up 24 from the previous Parliament.

Not content with that, they delivered a crushing blow to two of those opposition parties, the Liberals falling from 77 seats to 34, and the Bloc Quebecois from 47 to just 4. The Liberals were Canada's "natural" party of Government for most of the twentieth century, and it is the first time ever that they have not finished either first or second. Their leader, former Harvard professor Michael Ignatieff, lost his seat in Toronto, and has already said that he will be resigning. The Bloc represents the aspirations of Quebec for greater autonomy within Canada and/or independence from it. After being a major issue for most of the past 20-30 years, it appears that Canadians are now much happier with the constitutional status quo. Their leader Giles Duceppe also lost his seat, and has resigned as leader.

The other big winners, apart from the Conservatives, were the New Democratic Party, a left-of-centre group with strong roots in the west of the country, who increased their representation from 36 to 102, with notable gains in Quebec. In the process they replaced the Liberals as the official opposition. It was also a good day for the Greens, who won their first ever seat in the House of Commons, in a British Columbia constituency.

Opposition Parliamentary managers must be ruing the decision to call that no-confidence vote.

Walter Blotscher