Colby Cosh: Craving stability, Canadians elected a perilously unstable government
I think we have to admit from time to time that Westminster-style parliamentary democracy can have a schizoid quality. Canadians voted in a general election last night amidst an atmosphere of looming dread and economic panic. We were obviously desperate for safety and stability: voters of the left-wing luxury-beliefs parties turned against their leaders, and toward Mark Carney, with the savagery and single-mindedness of Cossacks having a pogrom. (Sympathy for federal New Democrats isn't a natural impulse for me, but hoo boy. Some of those riding totals, man.)
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But safety and stability aren't on the ballot in their own right, and the result of our collective desire for these things, as often happens, is a House of Commons that offers instability and uncertainty. The Liberals have fallen just short of a majority in their own right, and are led by a man who has not yet felt the caress of a parliamentary pew. He articulates a grand vision of Canada which promises everything to everyone, while guaranteeing fast economic growth: this would be surely be hard enough with a Commons majority, even if you believe he has the right recipe tucked away in his desk.
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Which I don't, but, Lord, let me be wrong. Carney enjoys awesome, even frightening power within his own party, and the opposition on his left flank is seven-eighths dead, but he will have to bargain for legislation with lower beings, establish actual policy priorities and assemble a cabinet. The newspapers will be filled with guesswork about what this might look like, and reporters will be snatching at the smallest micro-hints.
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The Conservative opposition is now bound to have a difficult year, with their leader inexplicably, inexcusably ejected from the Commons. Dedicated haters of Pierre Poilievre won't find anything at all inexplicable about the Carleton disaster, but there will need to be a proper autopsy. Especially since Poilievre's party gathered more vote share nationally than any right-wing party — or combination thereof! — has achieved since the days of Mulroney.
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