Why a Conservative Minority Government Would Be Good For Canada

This may come as a shock to most people I know, but I think a Tory minority government would be good for Canada. For those of you who don't know me, I'm somewhat of a socialist. I'm a member of the NDP and have even run at the provincial level for them. So why would I be saying a Tory minority is good? Read on. First it would give the more centrist Liberal Party a chance to give themselves a re-make. They've been in power too long and I get the sense that they're like the provincial Conservative party in Alberta,having a sense of entitlement to be government. Being relegated to the opposition benches for a year or so will give them pause to think and do some soul-searching. It will also give them a chance to unify their party again, instead of it being a loose coalition of Martinites and Chretienites.

Second, as a minority government, the Tories will be forced to govern to the centre if they want to stay in power. Since they have no natural allies in the house, straying too far right will trigger an election.

Speaking of triggering an election, I come to my third point. If they do start to stray to the right from the centre, all the voters who fled the Liberals for the Conservatives, will flee back. In order to keep the Alberta voter happy, the CPC will be forced to lose the Ontario voter, who will be more than happy to elect Liberals next time around.

If they are able to hold on to power it will likely be because of an alliance with the Bloc. This will further alienate them with the more federalist minded voters outside of Quebec and Alberta (Albertans won't care who the Tories ally with, as long as the agenda of the so-called “Calgary School” is moved forward. Ok, probably not an alliance with the Liberals, but anyone else is ok...)

So a minority Conservative government wouldn't be so bad. It wouldn't likely last long and would likely scare most non-Albertan Canadians away from the party for years to come.