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We spoke to MQUP author Brooke Jeffrey, former senior public servant and advisor to the Liberal party, for her take on the results.
1) Were you surprised by last night’s election results? How did they differ from what early polls and media suggested?
I think like most observers I was expecting a Liberal victory, but not a majority of this size. The magnitude of the “red wave” in Quebec, where the party did better than at any time since Pierre Trudeau in 1980, and in the west, where it took seats in Manitoba and Alberta and a significant number in BC, were the principal surprises.
2) What do the results say about Canadian voters?
Apart from the obvious point that everyone has mentioned, that it was time for a change, I think there are at least two important points to take away from these results. The first is that Canadians have NOT moved to the right, as many conservative pundits have claimed for more than a decade. Both the 2011 election and this one have seen more than two thirds of voters opt for a centre-left political party. The second point is that many people considered the Liberals to be finished after 2011, urging them to fold their tents and merge with the NDP in order to “unite the left.” Clearly voters think there is a difference between Liberals and the NDP, and it is not simply cosmetic. Justin Trudeau’s frequent references to liberal values and beliefs during debates and at campaign rally speeches were important factors in the Liberal surge in the polls, offering inspirational and optimistic options to the negativism of the conservatives. Trudeau’s “sunny ways” were an important difference, and offering hope, with lines such as “better is always possible”, touched a real chord with voters.
3) What challenges will this new government face? What opportunities?
One of the first things the Liberals will need to do is to decide what can be “fixed” after the destructive decade of Harper Conservatism, and how they will address those issues while ensuring that they move promptly on their own positive agenda of change. Perhaps Mr. Harper’s penchant for omnibus bills will serve them in good stead when they address the issue of his many unpopular “tough on crime” initiatives, for example. At the same time, the Trudeau Liberals have been handed four stable years in power, and they have no excuse for not taking advantage of that to implement the campaign commitments they made.
4) In your book, Dismantling Canada: Stephen Harper’s New Conservative Agenda, you discuss the systematic way the Harper government has changed Canada by moving away from traditional liberal values towards a stricter, right-wing agenda. Ultimately, you conclude that the “damage” can be undone. How can the new Liberal government work to roll back these changes? What should be the priority of this new government?
As I said earlier, they cannot let the “damage” distract them from their own proactive agenda. They will need to assign specific tasks to a team that works on restoring the criminal justice system, or environmental regulations, or international commitments, while the rest of them move on with the positive commitments they have made. The real problem is not in reversing legislation or regulations, but in restoring faith in parliamentary democracy, the public service and the courts — which requires attitudinal change on the part of the executive, and which they can demonstrate every day in their words and deeds. I think this is actually similar to the challenge faced by Jean Chretien after a decade of Brian Mulroney’s toxic approach to the bureaucracy and to federal-provincial relations, and it was amazing how quickly Chretien’s positive attitude infected virtually all elements of the political system as well as the general public. I’m quite optimistic about this on the whole, although it is also true that some damage cannot be repaired, as for example in the case of any environmental problems that may have already developed. Lastly, it will be largely attitudinal change that reasserts Canada’s positive role on the international scene, and again I think this can be achieved quite quickly with respect to the United Nations, foreign aid and so on. Already I hear that European counterparts are sending congratulations on Canada’s return to “normalcy”, which I think is symptomatic of how bad things were under the Conservatives.
Dismantling Canada: Stephen Harper’s New Conservative Agenda explores Stephen Harper’s success and failures, and evaluates the likely outcome of his long-term agenda to change Canada into a country most Canadians would not recognize.
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