Friday, May 27, 2011

In at #10, moving up to #9

There are still many people out there on the left or among the Liberals that seem to treat the idea of a Stephen Harper government as a passing fad, this is clearly not the case.

Stephen Harper passed RB Bennett about a month ago to break into the top ten longest serving Prime Ministers of Canada.  On December 18th,  just under seven months from now, Stephen Harper will pass John Diefenbaker in time in office as Prime Minister.   This will make Stephen Harper the ninth longest serving Prime Minister of Canada and the four longest serving Conservative Prime Minister.

Assuming Stephen Harper leads the Conservatives into the next election on Oct 19th 2015, even if he loses the election, he will have been Prime Minister for 9 years and roughly 9 months.  This would make him the sixth longest serving Prime Minister and the second longest serving Conservative Prime Minister, only John A MacDonald served longer.  Stephen Harper's term in office will mark the longest period the Liberals have not been the government of Canada since 1891.

At this point I can not see a realistic scenario in which the Conservatives will lose the next election.   the 2015 election will be between the NDP and Liberals as to who is the official opposition and between the NDP and the Bloc as to who speaks for Quebec.   The Conservatives will be able to sit back and relax, though not publicly. For the Conservatives to lose they will have to do something really stupid or be caught in corruption of a unprecedented scale.   The only other reason they would not win is if the Liberal party disbanded itself and recommended all their members become New Democrats.

This means Stephen Harper will likely be Prime Minister till 2019 when he may step down or try for a fifth mandate.  Stephen Harper will have been Prime Minister by that time for more than 13 years and I am sure that Canada will be a very different country, a watershed change like when Trudeau was in office.

1 comment:

Brian said...

Ducky.
You may be right, but...
Just fuckin' ducky.
I hope you enjoy the Canada of 2019; I'm sure someone will...