Canada's vote against change

last updated 8 January 2015

Here's a bit of good news for conservatives this election season, said Ed Morrissey in Hot Air. Canadian voters gave Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative Party "a much stronger minority government" in Tuesday's elections. The result will bolster one of the "most stalwart members of the NATO coalition" in Afghanistan, and show Canada's neighbors to the south whether a tax-cutting agenda can ease the financial crisis.

Harper won't have long to make the win count, said The Economist. He'll face a new U.S. Congress and president, and if Barack Obama wins there will probably be a review of the North American Free Trade Agreement, "on which Canada depends." No wonder "some pundits are predicting that the new government will not last long."

This vote was probably the "high-water mark" for Harper's Conservatives, said BJ Bjornson in Newshoggers. And since he didn't manage to capture a majority in Parliament, this was as much a loss for him as it was for Stéphane Dion's Liberals. But the Canadian public is probably the "biggest loser"—after all the time and money spent, we're "not very far from where we started."