Canada: Where the 4th Best Election Outcome is Kind of OK

Possible 2015 Canadian Election Results, Ranked

1. NDP Majority
2. NDP Minority, propped up by liberals
3. Liberal Minority, propped up by NDP
4. Liberal Majority
5. Liberal Minority, propped up by conservatives.
6. Conservative minority, propped up by liberals.
7. Conservative Majority.

By my count, a liberal majority was the fourth best outcome I could have hoped for from last night’s election.  As Trudeau’s speech last night signifies, we will get our nice, friendly-sounding Canada back.  Whether we will get back all those social programs, funding for the CBC, the census, or many of the other things Harper cut, remains to be seen.  Whether we will see the end of C-51 (probably not) or Canada’s new muscular and imperial foreign policy (one can hope), we don’t know. And if those things are fixed, whether they will be properly fixed is also an open question. For instance, I learned (at a NDP fundraiser a couple weeks ago) that even waiting awhile on restoring the census will do incalculable damage to our abilities to know things about the country, since there will be a 10-year gap in our national statistics. I am sure there are similar issues with every single one of the programs cut by the Harper administration.

The Liberal platform had lots of good promises, but this is a party with a reputation for run-to-the-left, govern to the right.  So we will have to see where this all goes.