{"id":5480,"date":"2013-10-08T20:28:41","date_gmt":"2013-10-09T00:28:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=5480"},"modified":"2013-10-08T20:28:41","modified_gmt":"2013-10-09T00:28:41","slug":"the-red-wave","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=5480","title":{"rendered":"The Red Wave"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"*Spoiler<\/a>
*Spoiler Alert* In a surprise twist, the Liberal Party isn’t dead after all.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For a while, it seemed like PEI would be the last bastion of Liberalism in Canada. Nearly 10% of the Liberal Party’s parliamentary caucus hailed from the island, and with long-standing Liberal governments in Ontario, Quebec, and BC teetering on the brink of defeat, it looked like Robert Ghiz might be the last grit standing. A spec of red engulfed in a blue-orange mosaic.<\/p>\n

At one point this year, there were 7 Liberal leadership races going on. This presented an opportunity for renewal, but could also be viewed as an uncertain party in a period of extended turbulence. <\/p>\n

Now, Christy Clark has a fresh mandate, Kathleen Wynne <\/a>tops the polls, and Philippe Couillard<\/a> has given the PLQ new life. The youthful leadership of Brian Gallant<\/a> has staked the New Brunswick Liberals to a 23-point lead, and the Newfoundland Liberal Party<\/a> has gone from third to first in the polls. Even the long moribund Manitoba Liberals are showing signs of life<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And, oh yeah, there’s that whole Trudeaumania thing. <\/p>\n

The latest good news from Liberal land comes from Nova Scotia, where voters tuned into another <\/em>Dexter finale tonight, tossing their NDP Premier overboard after a single term in office (the first Nova Scotia party to suffer this fate since 1882). To replace him, they turned not to the PCs, but to a Liberal Party which has not formed government this century. McNeil didn’t just win, he dominated<\/a>, taking two-thirds of the seats, while the NDP tumbled to third.<\/p>\n

Politics are insanely complicated, so it’s best not to grasp for common threads between elections which have little in common. The BC Liberals are a very different party from the Nova Scotia Liberals, and Christy Clark was in a very different situation from Stephen McNeil. We all loved to talk about the winning streak incumbent governments were on in Canada…until Jean Charest (and now Dexter) lost. There’s likely not a lot linking this string of good news for Liberal Parties across Canada, other than natural voting cycles.<\/p>\n

Still, the results in Nova Scotia provide us with more evidence that the reports of the Liberal Party’s death <\/a>have been greatly exaggerated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For a while, it seemed like PEI would be the last bastion of Liberalism in Canada. Nearly 10% of the Liberal Party’s parliamentary caucus hailed from the island, and with long-standing Liberal governments in Ontario, Quebec, and BC teetering on the brink of defeat, it looked like Robert Ghiz might be the last grit standing. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[1185],"tags":[1352,1326],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5480"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5480"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5480\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5489,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5480\/revisions\/5489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}