New Canada PM faces uphill battle against parliament

THE winner of Canada’s election began facing the challenge yesterday of pushing his agenda of tax cuts and more defence spending through a parliament he does not control.

Conservative Stephen Harper, a 46-year-old economist who will be the country’s first right-wing prime minister in 12 years, won 124 of the 308 seats in Parliament in Monday’s election, relegating the scandal-plagued Liberals to the opposition benches.

Mr Harper, who also wants to calm fractious ties with Washington, has nowhere near the 155 seats he needs to control a 308-seat parliament where he has no natural allies.

He will grapple with the same problems as the man he ousted, 67-year-old Liberal prime minister Paul Martin, who also led a minority government and was forced from office.

The vote was as much a protest against a tired Liberal government as it was a vote for Mr Harper, whose opponents accuse him of wanting to impose a far-right social agenda on Canada.

“Canadians did not endorse neo-conservatism when they elected him last night,” the Globe and Mail said in an editorial.

“They voted against a Liberal Party that had become smug and arrogant.”

Mr Harper is the first prime minister from the powerful oil-rich province of Alberta in 25 years.

Minority governments in Canada rarely last more than 18 months and the gossamer-thin nature of Mr Harper’s administration means there is little chance he will bow to demands from some in his party to clamp down on gay marriage and abortion.

Conservative deputy leader Peter MacKay struck a conciliatory tone, telling CBC television that the party could co-operate with others on political reforms, child care, the environment and health care.

In recent months Mr Martin had adopted an increasingly aggressive tone with the White House, which quickly congratulated Harper on his win.

Mr Martin, who was brought down in November 2005 over a kickback scandal, said he would quit as Liberal Party leader before the next election.

The Canadian dollar barely reacted to the vote, reflecting investor confidence that both the Conservatives and Liberals had committed to keeping the budget in surplus.

“The election of another minority government really changes nothing, whereas a majority government would have had a slight potential to do something,” said David Powell, currency analyst at IDEAglobal.

Mr Harper owed his win to a breakthrough in French-speaking Quebec, where the party went from zero to 10 seats and dented the fortunes of the separatist Bloc Quebecois.

The Bloc initially predicted it would win most of the province’s 75 seats.

In the end it won 51, a loss of two seats.

The Conservatives won 36.3% of the popular vote and the Liberals won 30.2%, their second-worst showing since Canada gained independence in 1867. The left-leaning New Democrats won 29 seats.