Conservatives In Canada

Who knew?

Okay, I'm kidding. But for the first time in 13 years, the Conservative Party has won a national election.

The Conservatives' winning margin was too narrow to rule with a majority, a situation that will make it hard for them to get legislation through the divided House of Commons.

Monday's vote showed that Canadians are weary of the Liberal Party's broken promises and corruption scandals. They were willing to give Harper a chance to govern despite concerns that some of his social views are extreme.

"Tonight friends, our great country has voted for change, and Canadians have asked our party to take the lead in delivering that change," Harper told 2,000 cheering supporters at his campaign headquarters in Calgary.

He said his new government — not likely to be sworn in for several weeks — would immediately move to cut the unpopular national sales tax from 7 percent to 6 percent, "reform the justice system to fight against crime and gangs," and begin to allocate $1,042 to Canadian families for each child they have needing daycare.

He also wants to introduce a federal accountability act that will monitor government spending in an effort to avoid the corruption scandals that have plagued the Liberals.

"We will do this because shuffling the deck in Ottawa is not good enough," he said. "We need to do this to make the system more accountable to you, the Canadian taxpayers."

Cutting taxes and bolstering security are good moves, but Stephen Harper won't be the Canadian Reagan, even if he wanted to be. Harper favors socialized day care and will probably be forced to govern from the center. One thing I'm interested in finding out is whether a more conservative leadership will challenge the existing socialist health care system that has infected the country for so many years.

Ed Morrissey:

Stephen Harper should be sworn into office within the next two weeks, and the new era of Tory leadership will begin. Canadian voters have given Harper a rather limited mandate, a test period where they expect the Conservatives to prove that they can lead from the center-right, maintaining the economic success of the last few years while cleaning up and streamlining the excesses of the Liberal government. If successful, the voters might reward Harper and his party with a majority government down the road -- but until then, Harper will have to keep his diplomatic skills trained on the Commons.

This is a start.