As parliament nears its end for the current session, some reflection on the most recent sitting is in order. What better way to start than with the release of today’s EKOS Research poll where we find, yet again, stagnation in voting opinions across the country. The breakdown is as follows with the numbers in brackets indicating the percentage of support from the last federal election: Conservatives- 36.5% (37.65%), Liberals- 26.5% (26.6%), New Democratic Party- 16.7% (18.18%), The Bloc Quebecois (in Quebec only) – 39.8% (38.1%), The Green Party- 11.3% (6.78%) and undecided were in the 14.6% range. These figures show what many political analysts have known for some time, and that is that the electorate is not as volatile as it has been in the past. The biggest change is the rise in support for the Green Party, which jumped almost 6% from the time of the last election. It should be noted that the Green Party always tends to garner more support in a non-election year than it does during an election. The NDP’s numbers are down a bit too, but are actually trending upwards in recent months as a result of their stance on the Harmonized Sales Tax.  All the other numbers are relatively unchanged.  So what does this mean in real terms?

The electorate is happy with the current structure of parliament, and it’s not hard to see why. The Harper government has been functioning on relatively stable ground for the past three years despite a few bumps along the way (namely the Coalition Crisis of 2008). Should it be brought down at a time when our economy is starting to recover? In recent polls the economy has shown to be the top priority for Canadians, so is an election necessary? The electorate has an obvious distaste for spending another month and a half listening to radio, T.V. and reading newspaper ads that have one party body slamming another in an attempt to gain a couple percentage points of support. Most people are trying to get by in a time of huge economic uncertainty and they want their government, and the parties who oppose them, to try and work for the betterment of the populace and not for partisan gain. Things seem to be relatively peaceful in the House of Commons. There are some political squabbling here and there; questions of parliamentary privilege, the Afghan detainee issue, the HST bill that just passed in the house, to name a few. By and large, however, parliament seems to be working, so why stop it?

The Liberals will have you believe that the Conservatives are taking the country in the wrong direction. But how can they say this when the Liberals themselves voted in favor of the budget, despite saying they were putting the government “on probation”? The Liberals would say they have a more inclusive vision of Canada, but the party itself seems to be imploding more every day. How can Canadians trust a party whose internal destruction and struggles seem to be more important than working as an effective opposition in parliament? Here is where the NDP is well positioned. It had voted, as the party so proudly claimed, 79 times against the government. For some people this might be too much opposition, but I see it as a sign of complete disgust and dissatisfaction with the government’s direction. The NDP had the courage to stand against the Conservatives when they knew that doing so wouldn’t cause an election. Then, when the Liberals made the still baffling move to face down the Conservatives on every motion of confidence, Jack Layton stepped up and offered NDP support to hold up the government if it met some NDP demands in regards to pensions and employment insurance. Again, bold moves for the NDP. They are starting to look like an effective opposition and a far more united party than the Official Opposition. This might not translate into huge gains in the future, but the NDP has always been a party that was happy to sit back and help facilitate big changes without needing to hold the reins of power.

An election is not needed in the near future. What is needed, and what the electorate wants, is a government willing to work with the opposition parties. The electorate also wants opposition parties to be flexible and work in consort with the government to keep things working in Ottawa. To date, this seems to be happening. Let’s see where we end up in the new year.

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Tags: Bloc Quebecois, canadian politics, Conservative Party, Green Party, Liberal Party, NDP

This entry was posted on Friday, December 11th, 2009 at 9:08 pm and is filed under Federal Election, Federal Government. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.