Conservatives — the ‘blue’ party — maintain control in Canada

Add comment October 14th, 2008

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who bet the farm on calling an early election to try to win a majority government, is going to keep his title, but he didn’t  win an outright majority.

The Tories won 143 seats; better than their 127 seat victory in 2006. The  Liberals got 76 seats, down from 95 in 2006.

The  separatist Bloc Quebecois got 50 seats, the leftwing NDP got 37, and 2 for other.

Needed for a majority: 155 seats.

Without a majority the Conservatives will still have a difficult time enacting their pro-business agenda.

In Canada and the UK,  the Conservatives are the “blue” party, the Liberals in Canada and Labour  in the UK are the “red” party. The U.S. does it backwards — conservatives are red , liberals are blue.

Don’t be tempted to draw too many parallels between the Canadian and U.S. elections. The issues are different; indeed, the conservative  Harper has been drawing distinctions between his country and the U.S.; he’s boasted that unlike the U.S., Canada’s banks are strong and that his country’s economy is in much better shape than the U.S.