Michael Ignatieff’s new low

To follow up a little bit on my esteemed colleague’s post below, I thought that I would present to you something that Kelly McParland wrote for the National Post’s Full Comment section:

How many bad days can Michael Ignatieff have in a row?

The votes are in and the conclusion is that the four federal byelections held Monday are definitely …. over.

Phew. So much punditry devoted to so little. Other than polls taken when no election is in sight, byelections may be the most over-analyzed events in federal politics.

Reuters opens its coverage of the results with this:

Canada’s ruling Conservative strengthened their grip on power on Monday when they unexpectedly won two extra seats in Parliament in special elections, making it even less likely they will be brought down any time soon.

Hmm, what exactly does that mean, “strengthened their grip on power”? Before the byelections, the Tories had a minority government. Now … they have a minority government! They have two more seats than before, but can still be defeated by the combined forces of the opposition. So, how is that stronger?

It must be true, though, because Bloomberg takes a similar line:

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party moved closer to a majority in the country’s national legislature with two victories in local by- elections.

“Closer to a majority”. That’s like, when I wander down to the National Post cafeteria, I’m closer to Australia than I used to be. Before the byelections, the government was 12 seats short of a majority. Now, excitingly, they’re 10 seats short. Wow, that means… they’re still … short of a majority. And unless there’s another general election, it will stay that way. So nothing has changed. Wow!

The Globe and Mail, not surprisingly, doesn’t buy this thesis. Everything that happens in Ottawa is significant, if you’re the Globe and Mail. Daniel Leblanc writes that the government’s pick-up of a Quebec seat from the Bloc was a “shocker”.

While a by-election is just that, the upset suggests Quebec will be the scene of interesting races in the next general election, and that even the safest Bloc seat can be in play. For Gilles Duceppe, the result provides the biggest challenge since he briefly quit as Bloc Leader to run for the leadership of the Parti Québécois in 2007.

That’s a good theory, except that Tory fortunes in Quebec tend to bounce around like a kid on a pogo stick — up, down, up, down, and no one ever seems to know where they’ll head next. They were fine until the middle of the last election, when an ill-advised Harper remark on culture sent them plunging. Then the coalition came along and Harper’s attack on the Bloc was seen as self-immolation, ending any hope of a comeback. Yet now the government steals a seat from Gilles Duceppe, and suddenly nothing’s safe.

CBC’s Kady O’Malley as usual manages to be entertaining without having to decide who won, grading each race on a smugness scale:

The Conservatives are allowed to be entirely smug over Montmagny–L’Islet–Kamouraska–Rivière-du-Loup. As to the riding of Cumberland-Colchester-Musquodoboit Valley, they are granted a limited licence to gloat quietly, at least in public, since really, it would have been a very bad sign if they hadn’t managed to win that seat back. Port Coquitlam is, however, declared a smugness-free zone, since they got smoked by the NDP by any metric one cares to employ.

As with most commentators, she concludes that Michael Ignatieff clearly had the worst day, since “the Liberals have failed to meet the minimum qualifications for any smugness licence.”

Mr. Ignatieff seemed just as confused about the importance of the results as anyone. “The by-election results last night show that we have a lot of work ahead of us,” he eventually said in a statement. “Canadians want an alternative to the Harper Conservatives. Our job in the months ahead is to earn the confidence and support of Canadians.”

Canadians “want an alternative to the Harper Conservatives”? So they show it by electing more Conservatives? Odd people, these Canadians.

Kelly McParland
National Post

Read it here.