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WORLD> America
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Canada's Conservatives win stronger minority
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-10-15 13:13 OTTAWA -- Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the first Western leader to face the electorate since the financial meltdown, won a strengthened second minority government mandate on Tuesday, provisional results showed.
The Conservatives, who convinced voters they were the best choice to steer Canada through the economic turmoil, will still need opposition support to govern. The result was Canada's third minority government in four years. Harper's Conservatives defeated a Liberal minority government in the January 2006 election. With five of Parliament's 308 seats yet to be counted, initial television projections put the Conservatives at 142 seats, up from the 127 they held before the election. The opposition Liberals were at 78, down from 95. The separatist Bloc Quebecois were down one to 47 seats, the leftist New Democrats were up three to 33 seats. Independents took three seats and the Greens had none. That would mark the worst showing in at least 20 years for the Liberals, who have historically governed Canada for longer than any other party. "We were expecting a minority government. It looks like it will be a strengthened one. We're going to get right back to work, that's what people expect us to do," Health Minister Tony Clement told Global Television. The Conservative leader ran on a modest platform of keeping taxes and spending under control. The Liberals proposed introducing a carbon tax while cutting income taxes and boosting social spending, and Harper said the Liberal plan would throw Canada into recession. Liberal leader Stephane Dion, a bookish francophone who sometimes makes mistakes in English, found it difficult at a time of relatively high energy prices to pitch his carbon tax plan. "It's a hard sell," Liberal strategist David Smith conceded to CTV. Dion started to cut into Harper's lead during the campaign as he charged the prime minister, a former economist who is also fairly wooden, was not doing enough to prevent financial contagion from spreading into Canada. But the Conservative lead over the Liberals widened again in parallel with specific action taken to improve Canadian bank liquidity. Harper had the added benefit that markets and the Canadian dollar rebounded on Election Day. |
