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[1]This is the PoD. Hope you enjoy this collaborative Tl between Sanderford and I, thank you Sanderford for making the offer of making this TL.
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The Day The Sky Turned Orange: A Collaborative TL by Sanderford and Pericles
- Thread starter Pericles
- Start date
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[1]This is the PoD. Hope you enjoy this collaborative Tl between Sanderford and I, thank you Sanderford for making the offer of making this TL.
"You have completely become disconnected with the reality that people are facing right across this country."
~ Justin Trudeau addressing Stephen Harper, August 6, 2015.
~ Justin Trudeau addressing Stephen Harper, August 6, 2015.
The first debate of the election campaign was scheduled to take place on the 6th of August between party leaders Stephen Harper, Thomas Muclair, Justin Trudeau, and Elizabeth May, despite some people expressing sentiment that May had no business being present, being head of a party with only two seats. Still others complained that the Bloc had apparently been snubbed. Gilles Duceppe was not present.
Harper had sought to make the election conversation primarily one about the economy. Given the recession occurring due to rapidly lowering oil prices, this was perhaps a mistake.
Mulcair and Trudeau seemed to be competing to see which of them could most ruthlessly attack Harper's economic policies while in office. His party's lowering of corporate taxes, their policies on building oil pipelines with the United States, healthcare funding and infrastructure policy, all of it was fair game.
Here in some ways, Mulcair and the NDP came across as the centrist option, often promising to reverse policies implemented by the Conservatives, but at the same time not promising to spend quite as much as the Liberals.
Environment was another issue raised in the debate. Mulcair viciously attacked Harper's decision to end his backing of a proposed North American cap-and-trade arrangement. This was echoed by May as well, with the added complaint that under Harper, Canada would almost certainly fail to meet their emissions reduction targets for 2020, set by their accession to Copenhagen.
Harper defended his policies and his actions vigorously, but when the debate was ended and the pundits began to talk about it, it became clear very quickly that in the eyes of most Canadian voters, Mulcair had won.
As the days wore on, and the NDP numbers stayed strong, Harper was beginning to sweat.
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Stephen Harper just couldn't get any luck. A week after the debate the Duffy trial came up again. Harper's former Chief of Staff Nigel Wright testified in court on the trial of Senator Mike Duffy, telling the court he informed Harper that Duffy agreed to repay his impugned expense claims, but he did not disclose there was a plan afoot for the party to foot the bill. With the Duffy courtroom drama playing out in Ottawa, Harper faced hard questions about his current chief of staff, Ray Novak, after it emerged he was included on the email chain about Wright's plan to repay the senator's expenses. The scandal opened Harper up to charges that he was corrupt, or at the very least tarred with corruption and sleaze. Harper's record, as good or bad as it may have been in other areas, did not come off as 'clean' to most Canadians. Mulcair attacked Harper, saying "Mr Harper has not been truthful with Canadians. That has become abundantly clear from the emails that have been released and Canadians deserve better."
On August 17 a poll by Nanos Research was released. The Bloc Quebecois got 3%, the Greens got 6%, the Liberals got 25%, the Conservatives were at 29% and the NDP at 36%. The NDP had a lead in most polls and the Conservatives seemed to be falling. An NDP victory was so close to reality, only a few more weeks were left. The Liberals weren't about to let their future as a party slip away, and Harper wasn't going to let his conservatism go lightly. On August 23, Trudeau announced a new campaign promise. He would run deficits of up to $10 billion until 2019, and invest in Canadian infrastructure. Mulcair wasn't going to take such a risky position, unlike Trudeau he wasn't desperate, he had a lead he couldn't afford to recklessly throw away. Days later Mulcair declared “We’re of course going to finish the fiscal year on Mr. Harper’s watch – 2015-16 is his budget, but our first budget will be a balanced budget,” Harper too, opposed Trudeau's plan, saying " I guess it turns out the budget doesn'the balance itself after all, but he'll run, he says, a modest deficit-a tiny deficit, so small you can hardly see the deficit-that's what he said." Perhaps in hindsight it wasn't such a smart move to mock and deride the guy who was the only hope of splitting the opposition vote and getting you elected.
On September 1 the economic results officialy came out. Canada had negative growth. It was now in a recession. While a minor one, it came at a pretty bad time for Harper. Only two weeks before the election, the centerpiece of his campaign, his economic record, had a big hole in it. On September 2, the economic debate was held. "The other parties are trying to tell us they will deal with the challenges of our economy, of our labour market, of international markets, by raising taxes and running deficits to finance vastly increased amounts of spending," Harper said. Mulcair attacked Harper, saying “Mr Harper put all his eggs into one basket and then he dropped the basket,” Mulcair said. Trudeau attacked Mulcair's plan, saying "Mr Mulcair wants to follow through with a policy of austerity I want to-" "No I don't' Mulcair interjected. 'You said it, you said it Mr Mulcair" trudeau replied "No, I want a responsible economic policy, I don't want to take irrational risks with our economy, Mr Trudeau" 'I believe that investing in our economy, investing in our infrastructure, investing in our future, that is not irrational and irresponsible, not doing that is." "Your plan is not the right plan, Mr Trudeau, I think a responsible government, left or right, will get our finances in order, manage our economy in a fair and responsible way and not jeopardise our children's future." That exchange was considered a tie between Mulcair and Trudeau.
On September 7 the French-language debate was held. Soon after the economic debate the controversy of Syrian refugees engulfed the election. On 2 September, 2015, the image of 3-year old Alan kurdi, a Syrian refugee child, lying lifeless on a beach circulated the globe. It came out that Kurdi's family had applied for refugee status in Canada, but been rejected. Harper claimed the solution was to militarily defeat ISIS in Syria and Iraq to stop the flow of refugees. Mulcair disagreed, calling for a withdrawal from the fight against ISIS, and saying "no amount of military action would have saved that child on that beach" Harper played on the refugee issue to allege Mulcair and the NDP were soft on terrorism and could let terrorists slip into Canada.
In the final days Harper turned full bore of his attacks on the NDP, finaly realising they, not the Liberals, were the threat. Conservatives attacked Mulcair as a career politician, which some claimed was like the kettle calling the pot black. The refugee/terrorism issue took center stage, Mulcair called Harper "heartless" and Harper called Mulcair "naive, soft on terrorism". The media finally began to realize it was either Mulcair or Harper, and Trudeau began to fade into the background. The polls were close in the final days, as the NDP lost part of its lead and the Liberals made a slight surge. The idea of deficit spending seemed to be attracting valuable voters to the Liberals and could endanger the NDP's chances. Harper got good news on the final day when a surplus was announced. It seemed clear a minority government would be the result, but who won the minority government was the question. It was up in the air, but the NDP seemed to have a slight edge. The final poll on September 13, by Nanos Research, showed NDP 32.1%, Conservative 31.0% and Liberals 28.7%.
In the final days Harper turned full bore of his attacks on the NDP, finaly realising they, not the Liberals, were the threat. Conservatives attacked Mulcair as a career politician, which some claimed was like the kettle calling the pot black. The refugee/terrorism issue took center stage, Mulcair called Harper "heartless" and Harper called Mulcair "naive, soft on terrorism". The media finally began to realize it was either Mulcair or Harper, and Trudeau began to fade into the background. The polls were close in the final days, as the NDP lost part of its lead and the Liberals made a slight surge. The idea of deficit spending seemed to be attracting valuable voters to the Liberals and could endanger the NDP's chances. Harper got good news on the final day when a surplus was announced. It seemed clear a minority government would be the result, but who won the minority government was the question. It was up in the air, but the NDP seemed to have a slight edge. The final poll on September 13, by Nanos Research, showed NDP 32.1%, Conservative 31.0% and Liberals 28.7%.
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September 14, 2015
Dawn broke on a nation in confusion, the source of which was twofold. First, the overall result of the election had produced a hung Parliament, which is always disconcerting in a Westminster system of government. Second, the ranking of the specific parties within that hung Parliament was...shocking.
Each party, or certainly each Party Leader, had gone into the election with certain hopes, expectations and fears.
For the Conservatives and Stephen Harper, the hope was for a clean majority, and a return to government. The expectation was for a tight win, but a win, possibly for a minority government. The greatest fear in the hearts and minds of Tories nationwide was a Liberal victory that would put Justin Trudeau in office, and undo years of hard work at a stroke.
For the Liberals with Trudeau at the helm, the hoped-for, expected outcome was for a slim majority, or at least a plurality that would let them form a minority government. The fear, indeed the absolute nightmare, was coming in third, leaving them possibly knocked out of serious contention in future elections, as had happened to the British Liberals in the early 1900s.
Mulcair and his N.D.P. likely had the lowest expectations for the whole thing. Oh, sure, they wanted to win, but in the end most of them believed the best they could realistically expect in 2015 was to hold enough seats to remain the Official Opposition. They hoped against hope to avoid being knocked back into third place.
Now, however, the final numbers were tallied, and the results were plain for all to see.
Tom Mulcair-NDP: 132+37 34.81%
Stephen Harper-Conservative: 116-43 31.39%
Justin Trudeau-Liberal: 89+53 27.99%
Elizabeth May-Green: 1-1 3.45%
Gilles Duceppe-BQ: 0-2 2.46%
Harper and his fellow Tories were downcast. They had lost not only their majority, but any hope of commanding the House at all in the coming years. Brief talk of a Tory/Liberal Coalition was dismissed as fancy. Trudeau knew it would kill him in the political arena, and the two parties had too many differences.
Trudeau and the Liberals were facing the nightmare. They had gained seats, but not even enough to get into triple digits, and now were looking down the barrel of a possible future as the party of protest votes. Within hours of the announcements, there was hushed talk of resignation.
Mulcair and his colleagues were...cautiously optimistic. They did not have a majority, but the results were better than most had honestly been expecting to see, and they were looking at the very real prospect of NDP government in Canada, literally for the first time in history.
The next days would tell...
Dawn broke on a nation in confusion, the source of which was twofold. First, the overall result of the election had produced a hung Parliament, which is always disconcerting in a Westminster system of government. Second, the ranking of the specific parties within that hung Parliament was...shocking.
Each party, or certainly each Party Leader, had gone into the election with certain hopes, expectations and fears.
For the Conservatives and Stephen Harper, the hope was for a clean majority, and a return to government. The expectation was for a tight win, but a win, possibly for a minority government. The greatest fear in the hearts and minds of Tories nationwide was a Liberal victory that would put Justin Trudeau in office, and undo years of hard work at a stroke.
For the Liberals with Trudeau at the helm, the hoped-for, expected outcome was for a slim majority, or at least a plurality that would let them form a minority government. The fear, indeed the absolute nightmare, was coming in third, leaving them possibly knocked out of serious contention in future elections, as had happened to the British Liberals in the early 1900s.
Mulcair and his N.D.P. likely had the lowest expectations for the whole thing. Oh, sure, they wanted to win, but in the end most of them believed the best they could realistically expect in 2015 was to hold enough seats to remain the Official Opposition. They hoped against hope to avoid being knocked back into third place.
Now, however, the final numbers were tallied, and the results were plain for all to see.
Tom Mulcair-NDP: 132+37 34.81%
Stephen Harper-Conservative: 116-43 31.39%
Justin Trudeau-Liberal: 89+53 27.99%
Elizabeth May-Green: 1-1 3.45%
Gilles Duceppe-BQ: 0-2 2.46%
Harper and his fellow Tories were downcast. They had lost not only their majority, but any hope of commanding the House at all in the coming years. Brief talk of a Tory/Liberal Coalition was dismissed as fancy. Trudeau knew it would kill him in the political arena, and the two parties had too many differences.
Trudeau and the Liberals were facing the nightmare. They had gained seats, but not even enough to get into triple digits, and now were looking down the barrel of a possible future as the party of protest votes. Within hours of the announcements, there was hushed talk of resignation.
Mulcair and his colleagues were...cautiously optimistic. They did not have a majority, but the results were better than most had honestly been expecting to see, and they were looking at the very real prospect of NDP government in Canada, literally for the first time in history.
The next days would tell...
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Please excuse the following as genuine inquiries for information from a Yank who's only conversant with traditional/classic (if you will) Liberal / Tory Canadian politics:
• I was under the impression that the NDP was mostly a creature of the prairie / western provinces and didn't have much traction in ON, QC, and the Maritimes. Correct?
• I was also under the impression that the NDP was / is to the left of the Liberals but not as much as the Social Credit crowd. Correct?
At least give me credit for a shred of knowledge from a guy from the land of Stars and Stripes...
• I was under the impression that the NDP was mostly a creature of the prairie / western provinces and didn't have much traction in ON, QC, and the Maritimes. Correct?
• I was also under the impression that the NDP was / is to the left of the Liberals but not as much as the Social Credit crowd. Correct?
At least give me credit for a shred of knowledge from a guy from the land of Stars and Stripes...
I'm not Canadian, but...
This was traditionally the case but they'd been able to gain some traction in the Maritimes in the 90s, and of course they famously swept Quebec in 2011.
The Socreds were traditionally right-wing. They had a populist wing but soon got rid of it and became fairly typical rural conservatives.
I guess the name "Social Credit" misled me. Thanks. Now, if a Canadian could help flesh this out with some inside information, so much the better.
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The OTL election was weird, with the poll numbers going up, down and sideways.
This, or something close, was what I hoped for, and had reasonable expectation of.
I wouldn't have minded the NDP in second as junior partner in a Liberal coalition, but the Liberals as junior partners in an NDP one I THINK I would have preferred.
OTL's results, I could hardly believe.
OTOH, I'm pretty impressed with Justin as he has turned out. I was so afraid he was going mostly on his physical appearance and his surname. (Given that I'm from SK, that surname is hardly a recommendation.)
Harper resigned on election night. He knew there was no way of forming a Conservative government of any kind. Brief fantasies of a Tory-Liberal coalition came to an end. Now, the focus was on what Justin Trudeau would do. Trudeau had lost the election, and the Liberals looked consigned to third-place. But he wasn't prepared to swap roles with the NDP. Trudeau ruled out a coalition with the NDP the day after the election, on September 15, saying "It wouldn't be tenable. There are a lot of differences between the two parties, and a lot of tension." So the question was how much he was prepared to support an NDP minority.
There were short negotiations between the two parties. However, to Mulcair's dismay, plans for a coalition fell through. The Liberals refused to become subservient to the NDP, and knew junior coalition partners usually got wiped out next election. They had made progress in 2015 in the seat count, if the NDp faltered they were in striking distance for the next election. On September 20, Trudeau announced he would give supply and confidence to an NDP minority government over the next parliament, but not form a coalition with them. "The Liberals recognize that we need a government that can function, and that the New Democrats to have a mandate. But we are an independent party, and we will do what is best for the people of Canada over the next parliament." Trudeau also refused to resign, citing the fact the Liberals had gained 53 seats under his leadership and saying "We have bridged the gap. Next election, we have the opportunity to win government. I am not going to let us fall backwards, I will lead this party forward."
Mulcair began to form his government. He now had the confidence of parliament, and he formed an NDP minority government. The cabinet was also appointed. Nathan Cullen became Finance Minister, Robert Chisholm took Trade, Don Davies took Industry, Paul Dewar took Foreign Affairs, Niki Ashton took Aboriginal Affairs and more. The Harper government was booted out the dor. The NDP, for the first time in history, was on top in Ottawa. A new era in Canadian politics had begun.