If you want Google Maps directions from Whapmagoostui, Quebec to Parliament Hill, Ottawa, our trusted search engine doesn’t know what to do with itself. That wasn’t the case for six Cree First Nation youths, who arrived at the capital on Monday. They trekked the 1,600km distance with the help of a guide to show their support of the Idle No More movement.

The Whapmagoostui community resides at the shore of Hudson Bay, Quebec. Led by David Kawapit, who turned 18 on the journey, the crew left home on snowshoes in mid January. The forecast was -58 on their first night. Along the way, close to 400 others from First Nation communities joined the walk, and the cause.

The journey parallels Chief Theresa Spence’s hunger strike in an attempt to meet with Stephen Harper. Spence survived on a liquids-only diet on Turtle Island for six weeks before Harper agreed to chat. The Cree walkers travelled for 10 weeks. Only this time, Harper never showed.

Green Party leader Elizabeth May was there, and said, “It says a lot that Stephen Harper isn’t here … It says a lot that we need to move heaven and earth to meet First Nations on a nation-to-nation basis with respect.”

Granted, our conservative Prime Minister is busy, and just because we fall under his regime doesn’t mean we dictate his itinerary. But when his government stubbornly and consistently ignores the rights of First Nations’, they have every right to demand his attention.

Harper is taking heat for being absent, welcoming the Toronto Zoo’s new batch of Chinese pandas who arrived via FedEx, the day that the walkers arrived. Sure, this trade may strengthen our relationship with communist China. But it was at the cost of showing the First Nations respect. Certainly Harper was aware that they were scheduled to arrive then, as thousands of others awaited their arrival atop Parliament Hill. It prompted this petition, requesting that Harper refrain from further pointless photo ops.

This matters because aboriginal injustice and the environment matter. The Idle No More movement can easily be described as a quest for equal rights and respect. The ending to this historical pilgrimage takes place at a peak of tension. Increased funding for First Nations has been budgeted for, but not delivered.

The Cree youths met with Aboriginal Affairs Minister Bernard Valcourt, who now says he plans on visiting in the summer. They left for home yesterday. For this trip, they took a well-deserved plane ride.

Stopping in various cities and towns on their way to Parliament Hill in Ottawa, the women spent their evenings hearing the stories of other women so they could share them with the government. The women’s efforts helped inspire others across our country, establishing solidarity in the pro-choice movement.

This event has been deemed as one of the most under-appreciated rebellions in our country’s history. It helped pave the way for the 1988 Supreme Court decision to rid to country of all existing abortion laws. The Supreme Court’s ruling of Regina v. Morgentaler, found the Criminal Code of Canada was unconstitutional, because it violated women’s rights under section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The debate today is vastly different than that of 1988.

On May 29^th, the New Abortion Caravan set out on their very own—very different—cross country tour. A group from the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform, consisting almost entirely of individuals under the age of 30, has a contradicting message to the initial Abortion Caravan of 1970.

According to their website:

Over 3 million Canadian children have been brutally dismembered, decapitated, and disembowelled through abortion. Our taxes pay for this grotesque human rights violation. In fact, the Canadian government has gone so far as to pay for Canadian women to go to the United States to have late term abortions. The “pro-choice” movement has prevailed in every area imaginable.

In 1970, the Abortion Caravan heralded the arrival of a great injustice.  But in 2012, the New Abortion Caravan will make the victims of Canada’s abortion holocaust visible to the entire country. The New Abortion Caravan will signal the beginning of the end of Canada’s greatest human rights violation: The wholesale, state-funded slaughter of the youngest members of our society.

The anti-abortion campaign has taken up a new approach through the use of social media and extreme graphic imagery which has grabbed the attention of a number of youth across the country. A movement typically involving more religious overtones and compiled of an older generation, the new face of the anti-abortion debate is younger than ever.

The little coverage the New Abortion Caravan has garnered thus far has not been about the message, but rather the medium in which they have chosen to spread it. The group has been questioned about their tactics: using large cube vans plastered with horrific images of aborted fetuses.

Some of the women connected to the original Abortion Caravan are disgusted with the ploy to mimic their original movement. Margo Dunn who took part in the 1970s said in an interview with the CBC: “They can do what they want. What I don’t like is the connection to something that I think is considered one of the major actions that cause progressive social change in Canada.”

Stephanie Gray, the executive director of the Canadian Centre for Bio-ethical Reform also sat down with the CBC. She said the reasons for using such graphic imagery is to make it visible and to make the topic intolerable.

The images being used are truly intolerable and visible—to everyone whether they like it or not—but at what cost?  It’s rather difficult to justify the use of such images, to exploit a dead fetus to simply add shock value to a message.

Certainly, people have the right to freedom of speech. Yet, abortion itself is a very private matter. The action cannot be looked at in the broadest sense of the word—most abortions do not yield from the same circumstances, every case is different in its own right. An individual can make their own decision. It is a health and medical issue, in which a woman has the right to make her own decision about her own body.

Whether for good or ill, however, the abortion debate in Canada is not ending any time soon. If we are to have a debate, we should strive to make both sides of the debate  respectful. There needs to be some kind of line drawn; without it there is no telling how far shock value may go. Children do not need to see dead fetuses as they walk downtown with their parents; they do not understand or even need to understand at such a young age. Most children don’t know about the birds and the bees. What is the purpose of bombarding them with this?

When the New Abortion Campaign comes to any town, the CCBR will have achieved part of its goal: residents will be hard-pressed to avoid the massive billboard campaigns. But images like these distract. People are not taking about pro-life and pro-choice, and all the nuances of the debate. They are talking about images. Whatever could be gained from the re-opened abortion discussion is lost behind the graphic nature of the billboards. What we are lacking is what we need most: a civilized debate, absent of disturbing language and imagery, where the public can clearly understand both sides—and make informed opinions.

Woodworth, a Conservative backbencher, recently proposed a private members motion to reopen the conversation on Section 223(1) of the Criminal Code, which states a child does not become a human being until it has “completely proceeded” from the mother’s body. The motion was quickly denounced by the opposition as well as the Prime Minister.

Stephen Harper said in a recent question period that he does not want the abortion debate reopened and he would vote against any move to do so. Many of Harper’s supporters at the rally were frustrated with his recent remarks and disappointed that a Conservative PM supposedly has no intention of supporting a bill that would restrict abortions.

Any time the word abortion enters into conversation in the media, or really anywhere, very strong public opinions—both for and against—come along with it.

I am not pro-abortion, but I am pro-choice. The anti-abortion rhetoric, to me, is a violation against women’s rights. If this country were ever to allow restrictions to be implemented on a women’s choice over her own body, we would be taking one giant leap backwards.

However, debate today is greatly different than in 1988, when the Supreme Court ruled to not put any legal restrictions on abortions. At that time, the Supreme Court’s ruling of Regina v. Morgentaler, found the Criminal Code of Canada was unconstitutional, because it violated women’s rights under section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. With advancements in medical screenings the debate is no longer just a yay or nay discussion; it has become much more complex.

Major advances in science and maternal healthcare means genetic counselling is now a growing medical field. Through screening and family history, doctors are more capable than ever when it comes to determining if a child may be born with Down syndrome or have a predisposition to a variety of illnesses. What happens when we reach the point when we can find out with certainty that a child will grow up to have Parkinson, ALS or Alzheimer’s? Is it humane to let the fetus survive only to live a life of unspeakable pain and suffering? Female feticide is a regular occurrence in  China and India where boys are the preferred sex—and is now occurring in North America. Should parents be allowed to choose the sex of their child?

I don’t know the answer to any of these questions. Nobody does. But based on our advances in science and technology the abortion debate will only become more difficult as we move forward—new science-made options in family planning have generated a whole new avenue for heated argument.

The ongoing debate around not having the abortion debate within the House of Commons only confuses matters. The conversation needs to be reborn. We currently have no laws around abortions and it’s about time we enacted policy to officially protect women’s rights.

As Andrew Coyne wrote in his April 27th column for the National Post: “Possibly, after a full and open debate, we might decide we wished to continue to have no abortion law—by policy, rather than by default. That is how a democracy decides such questions. It does not leave them to a tie vote of the Senate.”

We live in a democratic society where issues are openly discussed and voted on by the individuals we have elected into power. Would it be wrong or dangerous to reopen the discussion? I strongly doubt it.  It would be wrong and dangerous not to reopen the debate in a democratic nation. By not allowing this to be discussed within the House of Commons, it would sent a precedent that could prevent other major issues from seeing the floor. We live in a progressive country, a country where church and state are separated, and I think there are enough sound minded individuals who can make the right decision.

Parliament's back in session, and seriously lacking some new material. Creative Commons photo by Flickr user Noema Pérez

When the last parliament dissolved for the 2011 Federal Election, we profiled five bills that died when the writ was dropped. Four of those — cheaper HIV drugs for the developing world, protecting trans rights, improving water for First Nations, and improving decorum in the House — were real losses (the last, a painfully flawed copyright bill, we were not sorry to see go).

With parliament returning today, we were curious to see what’s coming back, and the answer is disappointing. Here are two bad bills that just won’t stay dead. Both are scheduled for passage this fall:

Bill C-4, formerly Bill C-49 “The Human Smuggling Bill”

Check out Jason Kenney’s point of view on this returning bill. Reintroduction of The Human Smuggling Bill has intense opposition from groups such as the Canadian Council for Refugees and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association.

Bill C-32 “The Copyright Bill”

Heritage Minister James Moore laments the multiple attempts at passing the Copyright Modernization Act in this article. He hopes to see amendments to the bill completed by Christmas. Sponsored in partnership with Tony Clement, Moore’s Copyright Bill is also cloaked in controversy as educators fear the loss of their rights to use copyrighted materials in their classrooms.

It’s not all bad news. Showing unexpected endurance is Bill C-389, which would include gender identity and gender expression in the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code. The NDP hopes to reintroduce the bill, which passed its third reading during the last parliament, in which six Conservatives voted in favour. It’s faint hope at best, however: its previous demise in a senate chock-full of Conservatives gives it little chance of survival in a Tory-majority parliament.

Canada’s public life has been diminished today by the death of Jack Layton, leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition and of the New Democratic Party. Known to millions of Canadians simply as “Jack,” Layton embodied the kind of decent, energetic, principled, and optimistic political leadership that so many of us wish to see more of on Parliament Hill. Though he was a visionary party leader and skilled at pulling the levers of power on the Hill, his achievements, in many ways, transcend partisanship. He was a champion of causes and people even when—perhaps especially when—there was no electoral advantage in being so. That commitment to his principles—that everyone deserves opportunity, that our affluent society has a duty to share its wealth equitably, that every voice has something to contribute—endeared him to people across the political spectrum (and made him a scourge to a deserving few). His family, his party, and his country are sharing a tremendous loss today.

The press and the web are buzzing with tributes to Jack Layton now, and memories of the effects he had, large and small, on our civic lives. We’re not going to repeat them here; everyone has their own thoughts and can share them as they like—or contemplate them in silence, as we’re choosing to do today. Please feel free to leave your thoughts below, but perhaps the best thing all of us can do now is to think about what the life and career of Jack Layton means to each of us—and how to preserve that spirit in struggles yet to come.

Update: Jack Layton’s parting letter to Canadians was just released, and it is a stirring read.

That was on July 21, 2011. And the irony was likely lost on De Young and his executioners that, only days before this execution was filmed in the interest of scrutinizing lethal injections, Canada was entering its thirty-fifth year without the death penalty.

On July 14, 1976, the House of Commons voted to strike capital punishment from the Canadian Criminal Code. The road to abolition had been a long one. The first time an MP had introduced an anti-capital punishment bill was 1914, and several more such bills would be shot down over the following decades. After 120 years, and 710 executions, Canada’s capital punishment laws were pretty well-ingrained into judicial society.

It wasn’t until 1956 that Parliament even considered removing the death penalty as a punishment for youth offenders. But by the end of that decade, politicians and the public alike had begun to question the humanity of capital punishment and its effectiveness as a deterrent. Anti-death penalty protesters had started picketing executions, serving as foils to the rabid crowds who had once gleefully swarmed public hangings.

As resistance to capital punishment grew, the death penalty was removed from several crimes, including rape and some murder charges. By 1963, it had become de facto policy for the federal government to commute death sentences and, in 1967, a moratorium was placed on capital punishment for all crimes except the murder of on-duty police officers and prison guards. Nine years later, total abolition was made official. The vote on the hotly contested bill, which had prompted Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau himself to take the floor and make a plea for abolition, transcended partisan lines, and split Canada’s MPs 131 to 124.

Canada, post-death penalty

Thirty-five years on from that landmark legislation, and nearly 50 years after the last executions were carried out, debate over the death penalty in Canada still rages on. Public opinion has almost always favoured the death penalty in theory, if not in actual practice. A poll conducted by a private research firm this past January found that 66 percent of respondents support capital punishment in some cases, though only 41 percent of Canadians surveyed actually want to see the death penalty reinstated. Those figures are still astonishing considering how long Canada has been without capital punishment, and that the only attempt to reinstate it was defeated in 1987, 148 to 127, an even greater margin than the one in the original abolition vote.

Is there an empirical reason for the continued support of the death penalty, or the need for harsher sentences in Canada? The numbers would suggest not. Canadian murder rates have been on a steady decline since their peak in the mid-1970’s, the years leading up to abolition. As of 2009, the murder rate was at its lowest in 40 years. There has never been any conclusive evidence that abolishing the death penalty directly results in lower murder rates, but the trend debunks the theory that capital punishment is necessary to keeping murder rates low. What’s more, according to Amnesty International, the conviction rates for first-degree murder cases doubled, from 10 percent to 20 percent, within ten years of abolition, the implication being that the high stakes of capital punishment actually got in the way of justice.

And yet support for the death penalty remains. Amongst the cohort of Canadians who believe in capital punishment is Prime Minister Stephen Harper who, during an interview with CBC earlier this year, said he “think[s] there are times where capital punishment is appropriate.”

Although the PM also insisted he has no intentions of trying to reinstate capital punishment, his remarks sparked a minor furor during the recent election, as members of the opposition suggested that a Conservative majority would push the death penalty back into the lawbooks. But the most notable controversy surrounding the PM and his stance on capital punishment has been over the case of a Canadian fighting his own death sentence in the United States.

A Canadian on death row

In 1999, Alberta-born Stanley Faulder was put to death in Texas, becoming the first Canadian in almost 50 years to be executed south of the border. In the run-up to his death, the Jean Chrétien government tried to have Faulder’s sentence commuted, but the appeal was rejected by Texas’s then-governor, George W. Bush. Today, with another Canadian facing the death penalty in the States, the government is less interested in helping.

Ronald Allen Smith, of Red Deer, Alberta, has been on death row in Montana since 1983. His death sentence has been overturned three times and, each time, he has been resentenced with the same outcome: death by lethal injection. Just as they did in Stanely Faulder’s case, the Chrétien government went to bat for Smith. Throughout the early years of his appeals, Canadian officials had stayed in constant contact with Smith’s council, and made a formal request for clemency on his behalf in 1997.

Clemency requests for Canadians sentenced to death in foreign countries had been standard government policy at the time. But Harper’s Conservatives, who took power in 2006, changed that policy, announcing that they would not seek clemency for multiple murderers convicted in democratic states. They withdrew their support for Smith in late 2007, prompting Smith and his lawyers to appeal to the Canadian Federal Court. A judge there determined that the government had to follow the old policy until a suitable replacement was enacted, and Harper finally complied, and the Canadian government resumed its talks with Montana officials. Smith has currently been granted a stay of execution while he fights a civil court battle against lethal injections, which he argues are unconstitutional.

Looking ahead

Thirty-five years after it abolished capital punishment, Canada continues to soldier on without it, in spite of the opinions of 41 percent of its populace, and even the personal opinion of its prime minister. The U.S., meanwhile, continues to hand out death sentences in all but 14 states.

But American capital punishment laws are being challenged, as some people look to revive the brief ban on executions that existed between 1972 and 1976.

The execution of Andrew Grant DeYoung, was filmed in order to determine the effectiveness of the drug pentobarbital in sedating condemned criminals during lethal injections. The video will be used in the appeal of another inmate on Georgia’s death row who, much like Ronald Allen Smith, is fighting his death sentence on the grounds that execution constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.

These men’s appeals will bring before American courts the same question that was put to Canada’s legislators 35 years ago. Is the death penalty fair and just in a liberal democratic country? At the end of that long debate, it was Pierre Trudeau who, as was so often the case, provided the most eloquent, definitive answer:

“I do not deny that society has the right to punish a criminal, and the right to make the punishment fit the crime, but to kill a man for punishment alone is an act of revenge. Nothing else. Some would prefer to call it retribution because that word has a nicer sound. But the meaning is the same. Are we, as a society, so lacking in respect for ourselves, so lacking in hope for human betterment, so socially bankrupt that we are ready to accept state violence as our penal philosophy? … My primary concern here is not compassion for the murderer. My concern is for the society which adopts vengeance as an acceptable motive for its collective behaviour. If we make that choice, we will snuff out some of the boundless hope and confidence in ourselves and other people, which has marked our maturing as a free people.”

Canada's House of Commons. Creative Commons photo by Flickr user scazon.

With the House of Commons set to start back up again on June 2, Canadians will get their fist glimpses of the 41st Parliament. Given that the tumultuous campaign period, dramatic results, and overload of post-poll dissection nearly a month behind us, it may seem as though all the excitement in Ottawa has died down. But fear not, diligent politicos, there is no shortage of gripping storylines to follow as MPs new and old take their seats. With that in mind, here are five new trends to watch for as Parliament returns.

1. New faces

The re-opening of Parliament will also mark the debut of 108 rookie MPs. While some of them have already received a glut of press, others will be looking to make a good first impression with their constituents. With some of the youngest candidates ever to have been elected, this edition of Parliament could have a very different atmosphere. While the class of first-timers may bring a fresh new face to governance, they will also carry the mistrust that stigmatizes youth and inexperience. Prepare for a generational gap in the house.

2. New power

For five years, Stephen Harper has had to walk a tightrope over legislation, always wary that his tenuous minority government might be brought down by a non-confidence vote. While this approach helped keep Harper in office, it frustrated many of the Conservatives’ old boys. But now that he’s got his long-desired majority, the PM will be safe to push the party agenda as never could in the past. How far will the Tories go in exploiting their majority? Hard to tell, though it’s a safe bet that Harper will be a lot more willing to let his Neo-Con roots show and play to his base now that he doesn’t have to placate opposition MPs or left-of-centre voters.

3. New Jack

On one hand, the NDP’s new status as Official Opposition gives leader Jack Layton some moral clout and a more prominent soapbox from which to speak. On the other hand, with a Conservative majority in place, Layton has less power on Parliament Hill than ever. Whereas under the Harper minority, he often served as lynchpin for the government, Layton no longer has any leverage over the Tories. Will success and Stornoway change Jack Layton? Perhaps. But the 30.6 per cent of voters who backed the NDP will be looking for the same old Jack to bring more of that old stubborn idealism to a new Parliament.

4. “New Look” Liberals

After enduring their worst-ever showing at the polls, the Liberals will return to the House in a much different state than the one in which they left. The Grits will be in major rebuilding mode but, with a decidedly short-term leader, and without old pillars like Gerard Kennedy and Ken Dryden, it remains to be seen how easily or quickly a rejuvenated Liberal party can be established. In the interim, their main challenge will be to stay organized and maintain a noticeable presence in Parliament as they adapt  to their new role as Canada’s third party. Watch for new chief Bob Rae to make a big splash as he takes advantage of his long-awaited leadership role, and tries to claw back some clout for his maligned Liberals. He will be eager to get the party back into the headlines for reasons other than their historic loss.

5. New allegiances

At times in the past few years there was a cooperative all-against-one atmosphere amongst Canada’s opposition parties. There was even talk, though not as much as the Conservatives would have voters believe, that the NDP, Bloc Quebecois, and Liberals might unite under a coalition banner to take down the Conservative minority. The Conservative majority means that a coalition would do little good now but, with the Liberals having been decimated, and the Bloc virtually out of politics, a party merger isn’t out of the question. It’s happened before, as Harper can attest to. Even without a merger, we may, at the very least, see some Liberal and Bloc MPs jumping ship to join the bigger parties. Though often scorned, crossing the floor has become a post-election tradition in Canada’s Parliament.

Results by Riding. Map by Skyscraper Forum user "Vid." Click to see more

It was only a few years ago that elections in Canada were mostly predictable. For a few solid years, we could bet on Liberals, and some NDP candidates, sweeping the country’s biggest cities. We knew the Conservatives would sweep Alberta, take most of Saskatchewan and dominate much of British Columbia. In Quebec, the Bloc Québécois seemed destined to win the lion’s share of ridings, including a healthy mix of urban and rural areas.

Elections were, for those few years, decided based on pockets of ridings across the country that swung back and forth between, for the most part, Liberals and Conservatives. So when the Liberals had a stranglehold on Ontario during the ‘90s, and benefited from that now defunct divided right, that meant they won government.

But then, slowly, the Conservatives screwed it all up for their rivals. They made those mystical “inroads” into various suburban communities, mid-sized cities and even parts of Quebec. All of a sudden, most of Ontario was voting Conservative, and the Liberals found themselves scrambling to maintain their big city leads. Stephen Harper’s team stopped growing in Quebec, but they managed to win more of the Atlantic, save for Newfoundland and Labrador, and even picked up a few more seats in B.C.

Then the writ dropped in late April of this year. That’s when all the traditional dichotomies fell apart. Suddenly, cities weren’t voting Liberal at all, with a very few exceptions. And Quebec wasn’t voting for the Bloc. High-profile MPs from across party lines—foreign affairs minister Lawrence Cannon, prominent Liberals Martha Hall-Findlay and Glen Pearson, and virtually every Bloc MP—fell by the wayside. Oh, as did Michael Ignatieff and Gilles Duceppe, both of whom were supposed to at least save their own bacon.

Indeed, the 41st parliament’s electoral map looks a little strange. The NDP’s roots were in rural Saskatchewan, and decades of elections helped carve out an urban base, but all of a sudden the party has an enormous, if unstable, Quebec wing. The Conservatives don’t remember what it’s like to have an MP in Toronto, but now they have several in the biggest city going. And the Liberals, who might have at least counted on popular MPs winning based on reputation, are now much lonelier in parliament.

What does all this mean? The next time the country heads to the federal polls, it means parties will have to fight campaigns in some hugely unfamiliar territory. Save for the Conservatives out west, parties can’t rely on many traditional strongholds. The urban vote is split, as is the rural vote. Barring an unprecedented resurrection, Quebec voters will have only federalists to elect.

And further, many popular incumbents aren’t safe. On May 2, 47 percent of MPs won a majority of votes in their riding. Traditionally, those might be considered safe seats. But as Alice Funke of punditsguide.ca points out, a large margin of victory in one election doesn’t guarantee any victory at all in the next election. Her stats suggest that 35 seats that weren’t very close in 2008—that is, where the winner had at least 20 percent on the second-place candidate—changed hands this time around.

As exciting and, eventually, unpredictable as this year’s election turned out to be, it really just laid the groundwork for the next trip to the polls. Whenever that happens, we’ll find out whether or not this redrawn electoral map is for real—or a historical footnote. The only thing that’s certain is that it would be silly to guess what will happen next.

At various times in the run-up to Canada’s 41st trip to the polls, the Conservative Party was the target of accusations—most of them confirmed—which should, in theory, have been sufficient to bring down any government. There was the scandal when Bev Oda directed the doctoring of ministry documents to deny funding to humanitarian group Kairos* and then misled parliament about the origins of that change. Then, there was the revelation that the Conservatives had, under the guise of preparing for the G8 conference in 2010, provided slush money to valued Conservative ridings like industry minister Tony Clement’s, some of which were not even affiliated with the conference. That scandal was followed shortly by an announcement from Auditor General Sheila Fraser saying that a Conservative report on the G8 and G20 summits had used a quote of hers out of context. Way out of context.

(Fraser had, in 2010, said that the Liberal party’s security expenditures in the wake of the 9/11 World Trade Centre attacks had been “spent as they were intended to be spent.” The Conservatives’ report, however, claimed that Fraser had made that statement in reference to their own party’s summit spending, supposedly absolving them of the slush fund allegations.)

On top of those scandals, of course, there was also the spectre of the Conservatives’ recent contempt of Parliament charge, which had been predicted to be a pall that would loom over the entire campaign.

And yet, just when it was beginning to look as though the Tories’ controversies would have a significant impact, they didn’t. Harper was re-elected, Clement was re-elected, Oda was re-elected, the Conservatives were handed a majority, and any scandals surrounding the party seemed to quickly dissipate, having had little to no effect on the election’s outcome.

So let’s take the long view: political scandals aren’t always as toxic as they may seem. But, with that being the case, it is absolutely worth questioning why Brosseau has undergone so much public scrutiny in the last few days.

Relative to allegations of partisan slush funds, lying about Auditor General reports, and directly disobeying parliamentary law, questions about the vacation plans and postsecondary achievements of opposition backbenchers seem less earth-shattering. And yet while Canada’s media outlets are abuzz with Brosseau updates, the scandals surrounding the Tories have not only gone away but, in retrospect, were scarcely this well-discussed even in the thick of the election run-up.

It is unfair to politicians and voters alike to suggest, as some commentators have, that Brosseau is facing this criticism simply because she is a woman, or young, or attractive. Yes, Brosseau is an outsider on Parliament Hill, but in the wake of a race which saw massive turnover in ridings all over the country, it is difficult to make the case that Canadians are opposed to seeing new faces in government.

Instead, it seems more likely that Brosseau is merely a hot story in the post-election news vacuum, a victim of circumstance rather than prejudice. She’s a convenient foil in a slow part of the news cycle.

During this comparatively inactive post-election period for domestic political news, the media and the public have the time to pick apart cases such as Brosseau’s. Harper and the Tories, meanwhile, had the benefit of having their scandals revealed during the campaign. Already flooded with elections coverage and mudslinging from all sides, Canadians found it harder to keep up with the scandal stories as they developed.

As bigger stories begin to float in again, Brosseau and her introductory mini-scandal will eventually be pushed out of the spotlight. What is required in the interim is a little perspective. Brosseau’s is not a major scandal—certainly not when compared to the recent scandals surrounding other politicians. If the Canadian public wants to examine political issues with such depth, and it should, the big issues, the ones that were largely glossed over during the campaign, ought to be first in line. In time, they will be.

*Disclosure: Kairos is an occasional advertiser in the print edition of This. – ed.

Last night’s election was extraordinary in more ways than we would have thought possible a few weeks ago. Canadian politics has been shaken up in a serious, permanent way, and this election will be studied for years to come. As we start to digest the result and its consequences, there are some clearly identifiable changes and trends at work:

1. A Majority Conservative Government

This is crashingly obvious, but the 166-seat showing for the Conservative Party last night was more decisive than anyone expected five weeks, or even 24 hours, in advance of the polls. A Harper majority represents a true departure from any Canadian politics of the past; we are in uncharted territory. The loss of the moderating influence of a majority opposition gives the Harper conservatives truly free rein for the first time, and given this government’s conduct as a minority, we should expect a swift and substantial turn to the right. Need an example? Last night, with results still trickling in, Heritage Minister James Moore told the CBC that the government would move right away to abolish public funding for political campaigns. The Conservatives now have both hands firmly on the levers of power, and they are going to move. Fast.

2. The NDP Ascendance

The pollsters predicted a good showing for the NDP, but again, the idea that the New Democrats could take more than 100 seats would have been laughable as recently as a week ago. Yet here we are, Jack Layton bound for Stornoway with 101 NDP MPs at his back. Layton will make a skilled and energetic opposition leader, and will undoubtedly use his bully pulpit to solidify the NDP’s newfound national base. The “Orange Wave” phenomenon is, for many progressives, a silver lining of this election, but the grim irony, as every pundit observed last night, is that Layton has less leverage now as leader of the opposition than he had as leader of the third party in a minority government. This election has to be counted the NDP’s greatest success to date — but still a qualified one.

3. Twilight of the Liberals

There were plenty of factors that led to yesterday’s electoral result, but if you were looking for one doorstep to lay it at, the Liberal Party’s would be the one. Their unprecedentedly poor showing in the polls echoes, in sentiment if not in absolute numbers, the trouncing the Progressive Conservatives received in 1993; the added humiliation of Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff losing his own riding, and then failing to resign before resigning anyway, has shaken the party to its roots. Speculation about merging with the NDP is probably premature but no longer an outright joke. Rumours of the Liberal Party’s death are exaggerated; still, even contemplating such a thing would have been unthinkable a year ago. The Liberals pulled the trigger on this election — though, having found the government in contempt of parliament, it’s not clear they could have reasonably chosen otherwise — and their strategists must have felt there was a reason to do so. The fact that they were so terribly wrong is going to prompt plenty of Grit soul-searching.

4. The Smashing of the Bloc

The apocalyptic showing of the Bloc Québécois spells the end of the separatist movement at the federal level; it’s hard to see how it can be otherwise. Reduced from 47 to just four MPs, with their leader defeated in his own riding, and swamped by the NDP in Quebec, the Bloc is over as a parliamentary force. That’s important because the party since 1993 had been a spoiler, changing the electoral calculus necessary to take the House of Commons. That fourth party, wielding many more seats than its popular vote would indicate, had been a keystone of the minority government structure that has prevailed since 2004. Their decimation will change the math for every election to come. What this means for the sovereigntist movement in general is unclear, too — will it dampen the appetite for another referendum, or embolden the Parti Québécois provincially? Again, who knows? We’re off the map here.

5. The Greens Take the Field

As special-interest party the Bloc exits stage left, the election of Elizabeth May as the first Green Party MP ushers in a new parliamentary voice. This was an important symbolic win for May and for the Greens, and perhaps an important substantive win, too. Being the only Green in the house of commons will hardly make May a power broker, but it’s a foothold, and May is known for being an articulate rhetoritician; she’ll make hay from even the sliver of Question Period time this seat grants her. Whether that translates to growth for the Greens remains to be seen, but if that federal election campaign per-vote subsidy is taken away — now a near-certainty — the Greens stand to lose a big chunk of the funding that helped put May in her seat. Have they built a big enough party machine in the last few years (and can they continue to build it for the next four or five) to do it on their own?

6. The Pollsters Are Jokes

The 2008 election was bad enough for the pollsters, who saw their accuracy deteriorate markedly. This time around was even worse. While they all saw the Orange Wave coming, no major pollster predicted the Conservative majority; none grasped the extent of the Liberals’ crashing fortunes, and the utter collapse of the Bloc was barely on their radar. And the media, hungry for numbers, babbled every poll projection regardless. Susan Delacourt of the Toronto Star predicted that way back at the beginning of the campaign when she provided a lesson learned from previous campaigns: “All media will declare that they’re going to not report on polls in the same old way and will break that promise by Day 2.” Bingo.

7. Voters Still Aren’t Voting

Turnout increased a bit this election, bobbing back above 60 percent. But electoral participation remains at distressing lows. Some blame our antiquated first-past-the-post system; others disillusionment with partisan incivility; or perhaps it’s that Kids Today don’t vote in elections. Whatever the reason, it’s a discouraging trend, and more discouraging is that there is no indication that most of these factors will improve. Electoral reform is off the table; a Conservative government has no interest in proportional representation. The U.S.-style attack politics that has metastisized in Ottawa will continue; the Conservatives slathered it on thick and were rewarded with a majority, and that lesson will stick. Perhaps younger people can be enticed to the ballot box by a resurgent NDP, which has traditionally enjoyed their support. Yesterday’s slight uptick in turnout could be the start of an upward trend — or it could be a bump on the long slide downhill.

In any case, it looks like we have four to five years of a Conservative government during which we can contemplate all these questions — and many more besides.