after the fact, where next?

I suppose it's fair to say I'm extremely disappointed by last night's election results. Not all of the results, by any means, but certainly by the fact that fewer than 40% of voters were able to achieve a majority Conservative government. Harpocrism rules, apparently.

It was less of a shock, in fact somewhat of a pleasant surprise, that the NDP are now the official opposition, and that both the Liberals and BQ crashed and burned. Also that Elizabeth May of the Green Party finally won a seat. A few rays of sunshine in an otherwise gloomy evening. (Even the weather is depressed.)

While it seems obvious to many that the remnant Liberals need to meld with the emergent NDP, so that next time the neo-Cons can't swan up the middle of a split vote (like the Liberals used to do when the old PC and Reform party split the vote on the right), it will probably take a lot of hammering to get this notion through the thick political skulls of the Liberals, a force for so long but an outmoded one. For politics in this country is changing, just as it is around the world. We saw it in the late-breaking NDP surge, founded largely through social media and engaging many new young voters.

Harper Government 3 would have Canada move in the direction that the USA has already gone (and regretted) -- more prisons (while our crime rate declines), more religion in politics (where we've NEVER had it before), more military spending (without accountability), fewer rights for the middle class, stifling public services, less access to assistance for students & women & families, privatization of just about everything. And, worst of all, making us wary of an incipient fascist dictatorship (he'd really like to be a president), Harper will continue his policy of silence, muzzling his caucus and public servants to keep the truth of what their supposedly representative government is actually doing, and for whom (multinational corporations & the oil patch, predominantly). Look for more US-style and US-compliant legislation on copyright and access to cultural institutions and communications technology, for example. We're already laughable on the world stage as an economic satellite of the USA. How far down that road can we go and maintain our sovereignty?

My poor country...what on earth are we going to look like after the next 4 years?