Harper shy a majority after vote in Canada

Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s gamble that forcing the country into its third election in four years would give him firm control over Parliament failed. While his Conservative Party improved its results over the last election, it still fell short of a majority in the House of Commons, according to unofficial tallies.

The Conservatives picked up 17 additional seats, giving them a total of 143. But that was still 12 shy of the majority Harper needed to pass legislation without the help of opposition parties.

Speaking to supporters early Wednesday morning in his hometown, Calgary, Alberta, even as numbers continued to shift slightly, he said, “The voters have entrusted us with a strengthened mandate to continue to lead the government and take Canada forward.” He continued, “We have shown that minority government can work, and at this time of global economic instability we owe it to all Canadians to show it again.”

A clear loser in the election was the opposition Liberal Party, whose membership in Parliament dropped to 76 seats from 103. Though he conceded defeat, the Liberals’ leader, Stephane Dion, gave no indication that he would step down.

After taking power in 2006, Harper set a fixed election date of October 2009, an idea introduced with much fanfare, but abandoned last month when he called this election. It appeared that he was relying on the strong economy, as well as disarray in the Liberal Party, to secure the parliamentary majority he was denied in the last election, in January 2006.

Harper was blindsided, however, by the recent turmoil in financial markets. Canada’s banks have avoided the troubles experienced in the United States and Europe, but the Toronto Stock Exchange has gyrated with its counterparts elsewhere.

If anything, Harper made an undesirable situation even worse for his party by projecting an attitude of nonchalance.

During a debate, he found himself on the defensive after saying, “What Canadians are worried about right now is not the job situation, not losing their home like in the U.S.” Their concerns, he said, were limited to their investments.

Later, in a television interview, he suggested that the world’s economic problems might not be all bad. “I think there are probably some gains to be made in the stock market,” Harper said.

Canadians do not vote directly for a political party or the prime minister, but elect a local member of the House of Commons, the lower house of Parliament.

For Harper to achieve a majority in Parliament, it was essential for him to expand from his base in Western Canada and substantially improve his party’s standing in Ontario and Quebec, which control 181 of the 308 seats.

The current economic uncertainty has been a particular concern in parts of Ontario where industries rely heavily on exports to the United States.

A rise in the value of the Canadian dollar over the last two years made many of those factories much less competitive. The economic slowdown in the United States has only aggravated the problem.

Peter Donolo, a former official in a Liberal government who now is an executive at the Strategic Counsel, a polling firm, said the perception of Harper in Quebec reversed during the campaign, from 60 percent approval to 60 percent disapproval.

“The support just evaporated,” Donolo said. “He chased away Quebec votes kind of off-handedly.”

French-speaking Quebecers reacted poorly to suggestions by Harper that artists were members of the elite who spent too much time at government-financed galas. A proposal to stiffen penalties for young people who commit crimes also found little following in the province.

The collapse of the Conservatives in Quebec helped the separatist Bloc Quebecois, which had been written off by some of its supporters as the election began, retain 50 of the 51 seats it won in 2006.

But the Liberal campaign had its share of problems. The party was led for the first time by Dion, a former academic. He has vigorously opposed Quebec separatism, which made him unpopular in many parts of his home province. His often peculiar English sometimes made him difficult to understand.

The Liberals’ biggest problem was the key element of their platform. Dion proposed controlling greenhouse gas emissions by introducing a carbon tax on all fossil fuels except gasoline.

Under Dion’s plan, the revenue would be used to reduce income taxes. The Conservatives relentlessly attacked the plan as a tax grab.

Adding to Dion’s woes was the resurgence of two other left-of-center parties. The New Democratic Party, supported by organized labor and led by Jack Layton, won 37 seats, up from 29.

And the Green Party had an unusually high profile during the campaign, winning 6.8 percent of the vote but no seats.