I'm glad Stephen Harper is history.
But i was hoping for a minority coalition between the NDP and Liberals... so they could keep each other in check.
The Liberals got their majority by following the old party tried and true strategy of placing themselves in the centre of the politcal stream and letting voters define them. The problem with that is it produces a political vehicle that drifts with the current.. without any sense of propulsion that a political philosophy can provide. That means they'll be unable to steer to avoid the whirlpools and waterfalls that lie in its path.
Justin Trudeau himself cobbled together the party by overturning some cherished Liberal traditions.. including scrapping its freedom of conscience provision for moral questions. You were either pro abortion, pro euthenasia, pro homosexual marriage.. or Justin wouldn't sign your nomination papers. Far from imposing a more cohesive party.. this has robbed the party of its integrity as a centrist construct.. and left deep tensions in the caucus.
Trudeau is a much different leader than Pierre Eliot. First of all PET was an introvert, and drew his energy from internal resources. Justin is an extrovert and draws his energy from those around him and from the zeitgeist of the times. He is no visionary.. he reacts.. or responds. He's not for anything and he's not against anything either. He lacks his father's intellectual heft, his political skills and his ruthlessness. Which he's going to need to keep this very disparate party together.
I expect the honeymoon will last 6 to 9 months..and then cracks leading to deep fissures will appear. He faces imminent crises.. economic, cultural, social which he's ill equipped to handle.
Notably he'll capitulate to the TPP like Chretien did to NAFTA. There is no national vision in the Liberal platform, that defines a national integrated industrial policy.. there's just the 'drift' with Free Trade cult. The same with the fraud of AGW. Justin doesn't have a clue. Other people have told him its something he has to worry about and he doesn't have the independence of reason to see that its nonsense.. and dangerous.
The Liberal investment in infrastructure is one of its good ideas. But it's total lack of a comprehensive integrated national vision means everything it done will be slapdash and uncoordinated and unlikely to create any economic synergy.
Unfortunately we have a real light weight for PM. I'm willing to be convinced otherwise by his actions.. but i'd be shocked if that happened.