Trudeau’s victory echoes Notley’s
Conservative defeat a powerful personal rejection of Stephen Harper
You could sense it coming like some rogue Atlantic wave that gathered power across the country and finally crashed into the Pacific.
And it washed away Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who quickly asked his party’s new caucus to appoint an interim leader and set in motion a leadership contest, according to a release from party president John Walsh.
Harper didn’t mention that vitally important fact to party loyalists during his concession speech after the Liberal victory. The reason for that, perhaps, is that he now considers the succession to be party business, not his.
Harper at least spared his party the Jim Prentice pain of quitting his riding cold. He gave no indication that he won’t stay on as MP for Calgary Heritage, the riding he won handily, at least for now.
It was an abrupt end to one of the most successful runs of any prime minister in a generation. If Harper’s habitual style is any guide, he’ll now give the voters what so many seemed to want, and quickly vanish from public view.
“We put it all on the line,” he told party loyalists. “We gave everything we had to give, and we have no regrets whatsoever ... The disappointment you feel is my responsibility and mine alone.”
His speech was gracious but hardly great, mostly a rehash of Conservative beliefs and achievements, with a full recognition that the voters wanted Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau to be prime minister.
The Conservative defeat was above all a powerful personal rejection of Harper, a surge of anger that probably reached its emotional apex at the very moment the polls opened Monday morning.
The federal vote, in fact, seemed very like the May 5 provincial election that swept Premier Rachel Notley to power on a torrent of resentment toward Prentice and the Progressive Conservatives.
These feelings can be ephemeral and short- lived, as the strong Conservative showing in Alberta showed on Monday night.
The Liberals broke through with at least two victories in Alberta, but hardly the radical shift that moved other provinces to the Liberal column.
In the rest of Canada, though, change was what most people surely wanted. They voted for the most dramatic upheaval since the Progressive Conservatives were reduced to two seats in 1993.
But Conservatives can be comforted that this loss, although a decisive thumping, was not catastrophic.
They won more than 100 ridings. They remain a significant political force that could easily revive with a popular new leader, one with some gift for human contact that Harper could never muster in public.
The wolves will soon be circling. Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, re- elected easily in Calgary Midnapore, almost immediately said the party needs a “sunnier” and more optimistic conservatism.
He’s got that right — Harper was falling into the same pit as the doomsayer American Republicans, who seem terrified of everything and see enemies everywhere.
Calgary Nose Hill MP Michelle Rempel could make a serious run for the leadership too. But she’d face the same problem as Kenney; Conservatives may have no appetite for another Calgary leader.
But still, you have to wonder what Prentice must be thinking.
If he hadn’t jumped back into Alberta, only to lead the provincial PCs to defeat, he would now be ideally positioned as a politician who stepped out of federal politics for the decline and collapse of the Harper government.
For this crushing victory to happen, Trudeau had to run a flawless campaign that captured the hearts of legions of young voters who could not identify with Harper, and came to dislike him intensely.
Trudeau succeeded, just as Notley did in April and May. And he will eventually find, exactly like her, that the tough job is the government part, and popularity is always temporary.
For Albertans, his victory means another upheaval — a second new government whose policies on energy, pipelines and other vital matters are not entirely clear.
But that should be it for change this year. Right?
Except for the NDP budget next week, and royalties, and climate change ...