Cana-dammerung: A belated final post on the Canadian Election

Cry the beloved country.

Cross-posted at Duck of Minerva

Well it’s been just over two weeks since the Canadian Election – and I am much overdue for the long promised third installment of the snoozefest series that I started. In some ways I’m glad I waited to write my reply: first, because I was contemplating throwing myself off of Tower Bridge. In a moment of panic on the morning after the election I formed the Government of Canada in Exile (please join!) but I think I have calmed down now and have a new appreciation for the UK visa renewal process. Second, because I wanted to actually spend some time thinking about the implication of Canada’s first majority government since 2006.

So, what did I think?

Basically nothing. I actively ignored it. I’ve been bogged down with exams, international affairs (that OBL thing) and not quite willing to face up to the fact that Canada just handed this guy a majority mandate.

So, what am I making up off of the top of my head?

Lots!

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2011 Canadian Election Results explained

The best explanation of the Canadian election so far - via Saideman's Semi-Spew

I, for one, am happy to come from Scared White People Land.

Seeing the Smartphone for the Electorate: The Mace on CPC Strategy

The Mace has an interesting post on why the Conservatives have campaigned rather poorly - despite having more money and resources than any other party. I'll quote at length because it's pretty sharp and very good:

Conservative strategists are utter imbeciles when it comes to opening their war chest to the cheapest and most effective counterbalance to the danger of an ignited 34-44 demographic, the second largest growing social media participant group. That counterbalance is targeted online advertising.

The Conservative advertising strategy throughout the campaign has been a heavy emphasis on massive blanket TV spots. Fine. Television is the heart, the intestine, the lungs of campaign advertising. We have already talked about how their production machine has shifted mid-stride to confront the recent NDP surge. But social media is the new nervous system, the thyroid, and the pancreas. The Conservatives have demonstrated an inability to ascertain and respond to the strength of the NDP momentum, the new manifold on which people make decisions. Their response could have been swiftly accomplished through a noise campaign of massive facebook and YouTube blanket ads for pennies a glass. Their not doing so betrays their internally antiquated groupthink and focus on highly personal and creative attacks rather than a wide ranging public engagement strategy. When even the Chosen One is saying that the revival preacher is failing to connect to Canadians, the Conservatives could at least follow through on their cynicism backed by treasure and sprint back on a road of bones. NDP strategists should be congratulated for using their resources so effectively, especially given the obvious window by their generous counterparts.

By showing that they had no endgame strategy in the event their character assassination of Michael Ignatieff backfired by re-igniting complacent left wing voters, the Conservatives have exposed a conceit all their own. The blind trust they placed in their hatchet men has proven to be their undoing. The closed rallies, the barbs of the lurker scandal, all of this pales to an oversight that will have them kicking themselves in the months to come. With just under $20M probably spent so far in this campaign, an extra half million on an avalanche of impressions,5 second YouTube spots, and Google ads might have been the counterpunch they needed. Every time I see Conservative staffers on TV, they’re always huddled intensely, rattling away on their BlackBerries and their iPhones. It stuns me that so cunning and well resourced an organization cannot see the smart phone for the electorate. In this, the NDP has played the player, not the game.

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The 2011 Canadian Election: Lessons Learned and Mindless Amateur Speculation

Canadian democracy rests in this man's hands.

Cross-posted at Duck of Minerva. Because I like bothering the 95.6% non-Canadians on that site. 

Yesterday I provided a fully superficial background and survey of developments regarding the 2011 Canadian Election. The short version is 1) We’ve had a series of minority governments. 2) Stephen Harper probably thought he could get a majority, and now that does not seem likely though it is still possible. 3) The NDP has ‘surged’, probably at the Liberal’s expense, but also very much at the expense of the Quebec nationalist/separatist Bloc Party and possibly even that of the Tories (who may have expected disappointed Liberals to flock right rather than left.)

In other words – no one has any idea what is going to happen. ThreeHundredandEight has a post on what would happen if the parties achieved their ‘vote ceiling’ ie) how many seats they would get if everyone who says they are going to vote for them actually does. So a majority government for the Tories is still possible (they have a pretty dedicated party followers. One might say rabid, but that is unkind. Just don’t date any...)

So, based on the fact that we are in electoral terra incognita if the polls are right, what can we possibly say we have learned from the election?

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Standing Up for Multiculturalism? or “Where I find myself agreeing with the Prime Minister of Canada and that the dirt won’t come off.” (Duck of Minerva)

I have a post up at the Duck of Minerva on multiculturalism, Canada and the UK. It was inspired by a column in the Toronto Star today on Steven Harper's surprisingly robust defence of multiculturalism (especially against Gilles Duceppe) in the Canadian electoral debates.

I'm not a huge Harper fan, but I think he spoke, well and forcefully for multiculturalism. Ignatieff is good on these issues and human rights (I've read enough of his stuff to know), but to his credit, I think that Harper may have done a slightly better job at keeping it "riz-eal" for the Canadian public.(So not necessarily a better argument, but perhaps phrased better.)

Finally, I'd not consider myself an expert on multiculturalism, but I so like to think that I have read a good chuck of liberal theory. And as a Canadian, I've been exposed to the idea for some time. I really do believe that UK PM Cameron has it wrong. Multiculturalism isn't some kind of ultra-pluralist relativism (and no one should be able to define it that way - advocates or detractors). Used as a facilitator of exhange and integration, I think it can be a good way of promoting integration and having a healthier and safer society.

Is an “Office of Religious Freedom” really a good idea?

Today Stephen Harper announced that his government would support an “Office of Religious Freedom” in DFAIT.

Perhaps the biggest foreign-policy promise is to track religious freedoms in other countries.
The Conservatives are promising to establish a $5-million office of religious freedom within the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade to monitor religious freedom around the world “as a key objective of Canadian foreign policy.”

I’ve mixed feelings about this. I believe that religious freedom is important as a fundamental human right. People should be allowed to express their faith (or non-faith). And supporting human rights is a good and traditional Canadian foreign policy,

However, I wonder if this is really a good idea or in Canada’s national interest?

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