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Jack Layton’s New Democrats areabout to replace the Liberals as the No. 1 federalist party in Quebec.
Can the party of Pierre Trudeau can make a comeback in Ottawa?
The political upheaval is of major proportions. As when Joe Clark’s Progressive Conservative Party disappeared a generation ago.
People asked: “Will it ever come back?”
It never did.
And where does the Bloc go from here? Will it drop out of site and the indépendantistes confine themselves to winning the fight in Quebec City?
Will the Commons become Social Democrats versus Conservatives, or left versus right, as it is in all the other provinces?
How far across the country will Quebec’s orange phenomenon sweep? Will it catch on in other provinces?
Who will stop the “socialist hordes” Harper is always warning us about?
Layton destroyed Mr. Minority’s best-laid plans for a majority.
Harper was set to fight Michael Ignatieff and his Liberals and ignore Layton’s New Democrats. Boy was Harper ever wrong!
His backroom boys were a week late in figuring out that once Layton was finished with the Liberals, he’d be going after Harper’s Conservatives. Now they are scampering to stop Layton, if they can.
Cabinet Minister John Baird said last week that Layton may be a great guy to go have a beer with (as selected No. 1 in the polls) but not the sort of guy he would allow to run the country.
Trouble is it may not be Baird’s decision on May 3.
The Harper people want to scare voters into believing that Layton will cost too much, with all his spending on student loans, extra doctors and nurses across the country, more cash for old folks, lots of cheap housing for the homeless and all the other NDP social plans.
But all of Layton’s promises together don’t add up as much as Harper’s three big deficit spending programs -- $29 billion for attack planes (those that don’t have motors,) $10 billion for mega-prisons (with no prisoners for them,) and $6 billion in tax gifts for big banks and Alberta oil companies (that are making more money than ever this year.)
Right now, Layton appears to have sown up Quebec and cost Harper his majority. If the orange tide keeps up, it could cost Harper his government.
This election is certainly not turning out the way it began.
