By Lincoln Depradine

Canada held national elections on May 2 and the results have transformed that country’s political landscape for its 30 million citizens, many of them originally from Grenada and other Caribbean nations. There has been little or no local media coverage of the poll – an historic election in many ways – and its likely implications and lessons for the people of Grenada and the rest of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).

In two general elections prior to May 2, 2011, Canadians couldn’t decide which of the federal parties – Conservatives, Liberals or New Democrats – they liked best. There was a fourth party, the Bloc Quebecois, which only fielded candidates in the predominantly French-speaking province of Quebec. The immediate objective of the Bloc Quebecois is to defend Quebec’s interest in the federal parliament and, ultimately, to seek Quebec’s separation and full independence as a French-speaking state from the rest of Canada. 

In each of the two previous elections – 2006 and 2008 – Stephen Harper’s Conservatives would win the most seats; but not enough to form a majority government. The Conservatives’ ability to run the country, especially to pass legislation on crucial matters of finance, would require the support of opposition parties. But all that changed on May 2. Harper and the Conservatives won a clear majority; 167 of the 308 seats in the House of Commons.

“Canadians wondering what Stephen Harper will do with a majority government are about to get their answer — namely, just about anything he wants,’’ writes CBC News analyst Greg Weston.

The Conservatives, Weston says, “will now have the ability to pass whatever legislation they want — their comfortable majority win gives them complete control over the Commons, and they already dominate the Senate. Parliamentary committees trying to pry into government spending, secrecy and ethical lapses likely won’t get very far – the Conservatives now have majority control of those, too.’’

The victory of the Conservatives has left many people soul-searching and speculating on the meaning of not only the Harper win, but also of the surge of the New Democratic Party (NDP) to the position of the Official Opposition in the Lower House; and of the crushing defeat of Liberal Party and the Bloc Quebecois.

The left-of-centre NDP, headed by Jack Layton, moved from fourth party status to second with 102 seats. Most of their gains were in Quebec at the expense of the Bloc Quebecois, which picked up just four seats, with even the party’s leader going down to defeat.

To the surprise and dismay of millions, the Liberals were badly beaten, winning only 34 seats. The party’s leader, Michael Ignatieff, was among its casualties. He was unable to hold on to his seat in Etobicoke-Lakeshore. He was first elected to the riding after Grenada-born Jean Augustine, who was the Liberal MP for the area, decided to quit politics.

Ignatieff wasted no time in announcing that he was stepping aside as Liberal leader. “The only thing Canadians like less than a loser is a sore loser,” he said. “I go out of Canadian politics with my head held high.”

He offered no suggestion on a successor as Liberal leader, but said he hoped it would be a young woman.

Incidentally, 76 women were elected MPs on May 2, up from 69 in 2008. The NDP elected the most women – 40 of them. The New Democrats also have among its 102 parliamentarians, nine university students and recent graduates, and two black Canadians.

The nine include Pierre-Luc Dusseault who made history by becoming the youngest member elected to parliament in Canadian history. The 19-year-old applied politics student at the University of Sherbrooke ran an active Twitter campaign. He has also just finished his first year of university and will turn 20 at the end of the month.

Prior to Mr. Dusseault’s win, the youngest MP was Claude-Andre Lachance, who was 20 when elected in 1974 as part of a Liberal Party team of former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau.

Green Party leader, Elizabeth May, also scored a first in the election. She won her party’s first ever seat in the House of Commons. She will be the only female federal leader in the House.

Having 25 percent of all MPs being female “signifies that Canada is moving forward,’’ said Donna Dasko, chairperson of Equal Voice. It’s an organization dedicated to electing more women to political office in Canada.

Dasko said Canada now ranks in the top 40 countries for its female representation in parliament.

Many concerns are being raised about the potential impact of the Conservatives’ majority victory on ethnic communities, such as those comprising Canadians of African and Caribbean heritage.

Arnold A. Auguste, Publisher and Editor of Share, says Canadians have four to five years to find out whether Prime Minister Harper could be “trusted with the power and authority of a majority government.’’ Share, a weekly, is largely aimed at the black citizens and Caribbean nationals living in Toronto.

Auguste points to recent Conservative Party wrongdoings, including “their disrespect for parliamentary process,’’ which “led to this being the first government in the history of this country to be found in contempt of parliament.’’

“Then there were the misrepresentations – the fudging of the facts, if you may – on so many levels, not least of which were the mis-characterizations of Liberal leader, Michael Ignatieff. Most of the time he must have felt he was back in the U.S. and under attack by the Republicans,’’ Auguste writes.

A larger issue for Auguste was the lack of political involvement by black Canadians.

“We don’t hold political rallies to engage the community or, when we do, they are so underwhelming in their promotion and execution that they do not register,’’ Auguste laments. “We seem more content to just cruise along while other newer communities are getting noticed and are being respected as major participants in the country’s political process.’’

Journalism instructor Jules Elder, himself a former Managing Editor of Share, argues that part of the responsibility for the Liberals’ defeat, and the Conservatives’ win, rests with the peddling of negative propaganda that many were prepared to believe.

 “The Conservative openly lied about Ignatieff’s past in their TV commercials and even when some of the media pointed that out, the voters still used that information against the Liberal leader and the party,’’ Elder says.

Moreover, in the view of Elder, “Harper’s majority is a clear sign that the majority of white Canadians, many of them right-wing, even though they will not openly admit to that, feel threatened by the growth of the ‘ethnic’ or ‘visible minority’ communities.’’

Under the Harper administration, Elder doesn’t foresee much serious attention being paid to the black and Caribbean communities of Canada. The prospects, he thinks, are no brighter for Canada-CARICOM relations.

“I do not believe the Conservative government under Harper recognizes the importance of the Caribbean, other than being a vacation destination. There seems to be silence about CARICOM-Canadian relations,’’ says Elder.

Both Elder and Auguste are expectant of a rejuvenated Liberal Party of Canada.

“The Liberal Party will rebuild and eventually form the government,’’ Elder predicts.

Auguste has called for political engagement from the “dynamic, young professionals’’ of the black and Caribbean communities, saying that “just as the Liberal Party now needs to rebuild – and they will, of that I have no doubt – we need to regain that spark we used to have which earned the respect of the politicians, brought them out into our community and gained their support when it was needed.’’

Millions are closely monitoring the Liberal Party, pondering on the future look of the party. Some have suggested that the Liberals should merge with the social democratic NDP to form a united left-of-centre party.

But the idea does not sit well with Ignafieff, the 64-year-old Harvard intellectual who served as Liberal leader from 2009 until his May 2 election thumping. He says the Liberals and New Democrats “have different traditions and I think we have to respect that.’’

For Ignatieff, “the surest guarantee of the survival of the Liberal Party will be four years of Conservative right-wing government and four years of NDP left-wing opposition. I think after that experience, Canadians will then discover why you have the Liberal Party in the centre.’’

Reproduced from page 7 of the May 13 edition of the weekly Grenada Advocate newspaper