Canadian Election Update

Pretty much says it all

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Election Results
Party	Current Seats	Election Results (Preliminary)	Net
Liberal	36	188	+152
Conservative	159	101	-58
New Democratic	95	38	-57
Bloc Québécois	2	10	+8
Green	2	1	-1
Strength in Democracy	2	0	-2

John Oliver lays waste to Harper

The Canadian election tonight has turfed out the Conservative Party after 10 years.

It really does amaze me that they reelected Stephen Harper 3 times.

He has always been very straightforward on the fact that he dislikes the idea of Canada as a modern western nation.

He vision of Canada appeared to be a white Christian Saudi Arabia. He makes Dick Cheney look like an environmentalist, and he was trying to starve the Canadian health system into oblivion.

I kind of figured that the game was up when Harper tried a Hail Mary by campaigning with: crack-smoking former Toronto Mayor Rob Ford.

Still, that did not stop John Oliver from risking the wrath of Canadian authorities by suggesting that Harper is Canada's dick boyfriend. ($5,000 CDN & 6 months in jail, but the video is worth it)

The NDP has completely cratered, largely because after unprecedented electoral success in the last election, they were the official opposition (2^nd place) for the first time ever, Jack Layton the party leader, up and got cancer, and was replaced by Tom Mulcair who tacked to the right, promising no deficits, which meant no austerity, and so ended up to the right of the historically more centrist Liberals.

One of the longstanding criticisms of the LDP is that they are seen as ineffective, and can be relied on to waffle^* rather than have the courage of their convictions.

So they gave up their ideology this time around, and got clubbed like baby seals.^†

It will be interesting to see how much the young Trudeau, the new PM to be, will be able to undo the damage that Harper has done.

My guess is that many of the changes that Harper has made will be very hard to roll back.

H/t Obsidian Wings for the kitty pic.

^*This is an obscure Canadian political and historical pun.
^†A somewhat less obscure pun involving Canada.