Post-election letter ‘nailed’ reason for Stephen Harper’s loss

Incoming Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will consult U.S. President Barack Obama before restarting a process to replace Canada’s aging fleet of combat jets, in a bid to head off damage to relations between the two countries, according to an official familiar with the plans.

Along from pledging allegiance to Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel, Stephen Harper, during his only Majority Government, also managed to bomb three separate Muslim countries (Libya, Iraq and Syria).

Let’s hope the titillation surrounding our new prime minister quickly dissipates, however, because Mr. Trudeau will invariably pack on the pounds and begin to experience hair loss as he tackles the stressful life of a national leader. Prime Minister-designate Justin Trudeau has promised that this would be the last election under the archaic first-past-the-post electoral system. Nor should a party have to settle for one seat after accruing 5%.

Harper and the Tories were so obsessed with their private agenda they misread the country’s mood on those issues and also in handling the Syrian refugee crisis, which exposed the Government’s hypocrisy. “Prime Minister Harper together with his team served Canada with distinction and remains a strong and vocal supporter of Ukraine”, the UCC commented.

Trudeau, whose party defeated the ruling Conservatives by winning 184 out of 338 seats in the newly expanded Canadian House of Commons, will unveil his new cabinet on Wednesday morning. Conservative writer David Frum agrees it’s a big shift, saying it’s “another indicator of how Bill Clinton/Tony Blair-style liberalism is veering sharply to the left across the English-speaking world”. He has been noncommittal on the new trade deal, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, placing himself to the right of Hillary Clinton. Other than the legalization of marijuana, they had for the most part kept the entire platform under wraps.

When governments change in Canada, the transition is less noticeable than it is in Washington.

While the Liberals were positive and focused, Harper’s negative campaign littered with misinformation and scare mongering made him one of the country’s most despised leaders. Trudeau condemned “small-business owners as tax cheats and [told] Canadian business leaders that if they didn’t accept higher taxation now, they’d face even more radical claims in the future”. During the campaign, Trudeau promised to end airstrikes and limit Canada’s involvement to training and humanitarian aid. He has pledged to invest $3 billion in home care services. He opposed the Harper government’s legislation targeting human smuggling, saying it would penalize the victims of smuggling.

“The address is more important than the physical material”, he said. Native people seeking to change the political map of this country shared political information consistently on social media sites.

Clearly the emergence of the niqab as a campaign issue was the most decisive and damaging development for the NDP and, for them, created a flawless storm. Or criminal justice where the Harper administration’s “tough on crime” policies – mirroring Republican policies in the USA, gradually being abandoned – have rendered that system less just and less protective of the citizenry, yet also more expensive and risky. But his politics are much closer to Bernie Sanders than Trump. This election was a referendum on the last false-majority government. This is why Trump is doing so well.

Voters and candidates have endured a long political season. There already is one: it’s called the Liberal party.