The election victory won by Canada’s Conservative Party is a remarkable success story and provides one political lesson above all others: Never write off a political party. That is what the pundits did to the Canadian Conservatives 13 years ago. Back in the 1993 general election, the party that had been in and out of government for over 120 years was all but wiped out; from a majority of 169 MPs in the 1988 election, it won just two. It was finished, people said. Canadians had matured politically and had no time for politics of the right, the pundits said.
They were so very wrong. In this election, the defeated Liberals, along with the other two large parties, the left-wing New Democratic Party and the separatist Bloc Quebecois, tried to paint the Conservatives as reactionary extremists. It did not work — not because the Conservatives’ policies are middle of the road; on the contrary, they are very much on the right. Clearly the Canadian public liked the simple, clear message from the man who will now be prime minister, Stephen Harper — less taxes, a clampdown on crime and political reform.
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