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Jun 29, 2004

O, Canada




One day after the most exciting Canadian election in more than a decade, Bloomberg News typifies the US response to the contest, which saw Liberal Paul Martin return as head of a minority government.

Why should Americans be concerned with the result? Two reasons stand out. First, the separatist Bloc Québécois scored its most impressive performance ever, reviving talk of a referendum for separatism--with all of the economic uncertainty such an initiative would produce.

Second, the outcome of the vote in British Columbia might represent a foreshadowing of the fall election here, regarding the role of the Nader vote and the Greens in some statewide or House contests. Conservatives captured 22 ridings (districts) to 8 for the Liberals and 5 for the leftist New Democrats. Yet the majority of Conservative victories came with a plurality of the vote, and in five ridings, the Conservative candidate prevailed by less than 2,000 votes, with the left-of-center vote divided between the Liberals and the NDP (and, occasionally, the Canadian Greens, who received more than 2% of the vote and thus are eligible for government financing the next time around).



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Hugo Schwyzer - 6/30/2004

I don't think Canadians are as bitterly divided as we are, however. The Liberals were the party in power, and the real left had tired of the soft centrism of Chretien and Martin. The antipathy of the American left for Bush is a very different beast. If Nader clears 1% nationwide in the fall, I'll be surprised and disappointed.