About two weeks ago the Canadian Liberals pulled off what they thought was a very clever move. They wrangled together enough votes in Parliament to pass a no confidence motion, which forced Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper to call for new elections.
The theory behind the strategy was that new elections would help the Liberals pick up more seats in Parliament:
Oops. Reuters reports that the move may backfire:
The Conservatives widened its lead against the opposition Liberals in an opinion poll released on Monday.
The Nanos Research tracking poll of results over three days of surveys put support for the Conservatives at 42.3 percent, up from 40.7 percent in Sunday’s survey. Support for the Liberals slipped to 28.4 percent from 29.4 percent.
Under Canada’s electoral system, a party needs around 40 percent of the vote to win a majority of the 308 seats in the House of Commons in the May 2 federal election.
Let’s get into neither Canadian math, in which 40% equals a majority, nor Reuters English, in which “The Conservatives widened its lead” is proper grammar.
But let’s do get into the fact that Canada’s Liberals forced the nation’s Conservative Prime Minister to call an election in which they will lose seats.
Oh, how we wish American liberals would follow the example set by their Canadian cousins and spend more of their time mastering the art of deficit elections rather than art of deficit spending.
Source: Reuters
