As the results of the 13th ballot of the Conservative Party of Canada’s leadership race were read on May 27, 2017, Maxime Bernier faced the podium stoically, waiting to hear his name called. The Quebec MP was a longtime frontrunner in the race, and as ballots rolled in that afternoon, his chances of becoming the Leader of the Opposition were high. His opponent, Andrew Scheer, sat across the aisle. Then, the announcer began: “And the next leader, of the Conservative Party of Canada, with 51 percent of the vote…” There was a dramatic pause. Scheer responded with a pursed oooh, looking toward his wife. Bernier continued to stare forward, blinking, his face resolute.

The second announcer continued. “Le prochain chef, Andrew Scheer.” A smiling Scheer embraced his wife. Bernier smiled. He had found himself the Hillary Clinton of the CPC—losing to the young upstart. At 38, Scheer was named the new leader of the Conservative Party of Canada—a job previously filled for more than a decade by the impervious Stephen Harper.

But when the results came in that evening, I thought to myself: Who the f&%$ is Andrew Scheer?

I’m not the only one asking this question. As a host of Canadaland’s politics podcast “Commons,” I stood with a recorder and camera alongside my producer in Toronto’s Eaton Centre just two weeks earlier in an attempt to ask questions about the upcoming leadership race. Those who stopped were largely unaware of who the candidates were, let alone what they stood for. Not a single person who stopped mentioned Scheer when asked to name potential candidates.

Scheer was the dark horse, or rather, chubby-cheeked dappled pony who rose out of the ashes of Kevin O’Leary’s withdrawal to win the derby. Midway through the race, Scheer was so far off the radar that This’s own December 2016 roundup of frontrunners failed to include him.

There were signs of change in the spring, by which Scheer had asserted a spot as a third-place option behind O’Leary and Bernier, albeit a more distant one. Polls repeatedly put Scheer in this position, with a March 8 Mainstreet poll slotting O’Leary and Bernier in the lead and Scheer trailing by more than 10 percent. A week later, The Hill Times, an independent politics and government newsweekly, listed Bernier, O’Leary, and Scheer as the top contenders, noting them as the first and second choices of several conservative insiders. Scheer, it appeared, was the “next best option” for many. In April 2017, the Winnipeg Free Press noted that Scheer had the support of several MPs but was lagging support from where it counted: from the party members who would be voting. But by the vote in May, Scheer had a clear path to victory. In the first round, the smiling candidate had 21.82 percent support on the first ballot—just seven points away from Bernier. Scheer edged past him on the 13th round by a mere 1.9 percent—despite being the first choice of fewer people in the ranked ballot system.

The youngest of the leadership candidates, Scheer and his ascension to the position of CPC top dog seems rather unremarkable when compared to the path of his predecessor. Like Harper, Scheer held no cabinet positions prior to his election as party leader (though he served much longer than Harper did before he became party leader). But while Harper had been lauded as a prominent player during his time as part of the Reform Party, Scheer has remained under the radar as Speaker of the House of Commons. It’s a role he has held since 2011, focusing on presiding over debates rather than participating in them, unable to vote unless there was a tie that needed breaking.

By all accounts, Scheer is the quintessential aw-shucks white guy—a church-going family man well-liked by the members of his party. He smiles all the time. He’s a safe choice for the Conservatives; he’s not going to post red pill memes on Twitter, like Bernier, or take selfies with joggers, like Justin Trudeau. Instead, he’s going to show up in a blue plaid shirt and a cowboy hat at the Harvest Hills Alliance Church pancake breakfast. His working-class, son-of-a-deacon background will surely be used as a foil to Trudeau’s perfectly coifed, Vogue magazine-appearing, son-of-a-prime-minister elitism.

Going into the race, the CPC wanted to be armed and ready for a fight. But it’s not clear what kind of a fighter the Conservatives have served up in the blue-eyed boy from Regina. Certainly, he doesn’t appear to possess any new weaponry, nothing we haven’t seen before in a more strident form in Harper—the same man who was voted out of power on the promise of the cleansing tide of Trudeau’s sunny ways and change. Scheer seems like weaker sauce, a mild-flavoured alfredo holding the pale noodles of the various CPC factions together. And it’s not clear that this sauce—this “Harper with a smile”—is the right choice for what lies ahead.

***

Originally from Ottawa, Scheer was first elected to public office as an MP in the riding of Regina-Qu’Appelle, Sask., in 2004. He was just 25, having moved there only two years before. He narrowly defeated longstanding NDP MP Lorne Nystrom in an election that saw the NDP routed, winning 19 seats nationally but losing all seats in Saskatchewan. Scheer was not well known, though he was involved in politics as a teenager volunteering for the Reform party. In 2006, Scheer was appointed one of three Deputy Speakers. Five years later, he won the election for Speaker of the House of Commons; he was the youngest person to ever hold the position. By 2015, he was appointed Opposition House Leader, a role he held until he threw his hat into the Conservative leadership race.

Throughout his campaign, Scheer positioned himself as a consensus candidate focused on the issues uniting conservatives. But his policies were curt and underdeveloped: The plan for ISIS was to “ensure we are doing all we can,” and the budget would be balanced by “reduc[ing] spending across government and focus[ing] on making sure money is spent more efficiently.” Still, the tagline on his site read, “Andrew will unify Conservatives to defeat Trudeau in 2019.”

And Scheer has plenty of people to unite. There are the populist Kellie Leitch fans, a small but loud and grumbling far-right faction. The social conservatives, such as Brad Trost and Pierre Lemieux, want to push religious right social policies. The libertarians, and the centrist Red Tories, are still kicking. But for all his talk about unifying, it’s unclear what Scheer will choose to unify his party around. He has yet to define “conservative values.” When he speaks of bringing all conservatives under a “big party tent,” what will that tent hold?

Right now, it is even hard for the average Canadian to know what Scheer stands for. At the time of publication, his website is completely devoid of any content other than a “thank-you” and a link to the CPC fundraising page, his 26 policy positions previously outlined wiped. Of those positions, he seems only to parrot the anti-Trudeau sentiment of former interim leader Rona Ambrose and the ideas of his mentor: a focus on taxation and savings, like home energy; an emphasis on forestry, gas, and oil; scrapping the Carbon Tax; a balanced budget in two years; and some focus on the family views of the future. Conservatives are generally united on these basic fiscal and economic policies, and Scheer’s rallying call around these “consensus ideas” is a safe bet as new leader.

It seems clear that Scheer will stay far away from hot-button social conservative topics, despite his clear social conservative voting record. A practising Roman Catholic and son of a deacon, he voted and spoke out against same-sex marriage and personally opposes abortion in 2005. Later, in 2016, he voted against adding gender identity and gender expression to the Human Rights Act and Criminal Code. But Scheer manages to do an awkward jig around these topics. Shortly after announcing his leadership campaign, he appeared on CBC’s Power & Politics; when asked whether he would promote and defend same-sex marriage, Scheer danced around the question like the artful dodger, responding that it was “the law of the land.” When asked directly if he supported it, Scheer stuttered and stammered some nonsensical words before admitting that he had his own personal beliefs and faith background. He reluctantly added that to build a national, viable coalition, he wouldn’t revisit the debate.

Fiscal policies, meanwhile, weren’t enough for Harper to win another majority and weather crises related to social issues. Harper’s fight against the wearing of niqab to citizenship ceremonies, for instance, backfired in his 2015 campaign. And it’s hard to think that Scheer can or will avoid social issues and debates of morality when many of the candidates for the Conservative leadership made it a race about these very issues. His closeness with far-right publication the Rebel, Ezra Levant’s merry band of bandits—a site that Scheer has granted several interviews to—is troubling. His comments on withholding funding from universities that don’t foster a climate of “free speech,” a hot button social issue, directly contradicts that principle.

Instead of dwelling on these social positions, Scheer has tried focusing on positivity. “I’ve always thought that it’s much more effective for all kinds of Conservatives—but especially social conservatives—to talk about the things that we’re for in a much more positive way,” he told Christian outlet Lighthouse News in May. But if party unity is channelled into a single-minded focus on defeating and attacking Trudeau, this positivity may go out the window.

Scheer’s social issues polka will present a major challenge in his search for unity—and for a long-term vision for the party. As our populace ages, the “old-stock Canadians” who vote Tory are being replaced with a younger, more diverse, left-leaning populace who care about these issues. To have any sense of longevity, the Conservative party must grow to come up with fresh ideas that appeal to a range of Canadians, and in particular, younger demographics. Because the youth are coming: While voters in the 65-74 age bracket had the highest participation rate in the 2015 election, voter turnout in the 18-24 age bracket increased by 18.3 percentage points, and those 25-34 increased by 12.3 percent. These Canadians and newcomers to our country face a set of different problems from the bread and butter of the old Conservative base. The election of the Liberal party in 2015 showed that the Harper ways couldn’t stand up to Trudeau’s promise of change. It is the Conservatives, not the Liberals, who are painted as out of touch, despite what the CPC press releases may say.

In choosing Scheer, a renewal seems difficult. A social conservative policy focus would be a bad strategy, out of touch with most Canadians. The people—at the very least, the young people poised to inherit the nation—want change. The Conservatives had an ever-so-slight glimmer of hope during this year’s leadership race, in the fresher ideas of a Bernier or Michael Chong; ideas that sounded different from the party of old and might have appealed to a broader swath of Canadians with a move toward a fiscally conservative, socially liberal small-c conservatism. But with Scheer, staying the Harper course does not look like the reinvigoration that they desperately need.

What we have, largely, is a budget based in politics, not policy—more a campaign advertisement than an economic document. Thanks to a consistent and persistent PR campaign over the past decade, the government needed an operating surplus to uphold its claim of competent fiscal management—a necessity it deliberately created. Harper works tirelessly to convince Canadians the economy is simple. That spending is bad, taxes are bad, a balanced budget is good, and that no party understands that but his. If there’s any indication of Harper’s widereaching political success, it’s that today every party agrees a balanced budget is necessary; they only disagree on when they’ll get there.

Unfortunately, when a budget becomes a political answer, rather than an economic one, many Canadians lose. Let’s look at the document itself. It was never really balanced. With slumping oil prices and slow growth, a surplus wouldn’t come without consequences. The feds delayed the release of the budget by weeks so they could sell off $2.1 billion of its General Motors shares—a move Stanford, known for his past work with the Canadian Auto Worker’s Union, says will hurt future investment from GM. Then, it dipped into the Employment Insurance operating surplus for a cool $3.4 billion. (Meanwhile nearly 60 percent of unemployed Canadians are ineligible for EI.) Finally, the feds took $2 billion from the emergency contingency fund. And yet, we get headlines that boldly declare “balanced.”

In reality, the budget “bakes in growing income inequality” warns Armine Yalnizyan, a leading economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. It’s low on meaningful investment. It barely nods to public transportation or infrastructure spending. There is nothing for Canada’s youth. What it does promise is a familiar pattern: tax breaks that disproportionately favour the wealthy, and new ways to reduce the abilities of government. And so we get a government that consistently seeks ways to reduce revenue streams, increasing dependence on a select few, such as Canada’s oil economy. “[The Conservatives] have no plan other than $100 a barrel oil,” says Yalnizyan. “That’s their economic action plan.”

In a way, it’s nothing new. Under Harper’s leadership, the Conservatives have been remarkably consistent in their messaging since the party’s victorious 2006 campaign. That platform declared “Canadians deserve to keep more of their own money,” which acted as a (often mis-) guiding principle for the government. Under Harper, the government slashed corporate tax rates, rolled back the (since renamed) goods and services tax, and introduced other boutique tax cuts. In doing so, the government deprived the treasury of over $300 billion, limiting the country’s resources during a tough economic recession.

An economy, however, needs an engine, argues Stanford—when the public isn’t spending money, it falls to the government to open its wallet. Instead, it cut off its source of revenue. When asked for the government’s guiding economic principle then and now, Yalnizyan answers quickly: “To write themselves out of a job description.”

Which brings us to today. In place of a truly thriving economy, we get policy made for politics. Canada’s economy is fragile. The oil slump is real, and the country’s dependence on the energy sector has been exposed. People aren’t spending money. Economists say the economy shrunk in the first quarter of 2015, and that will likely continue. We have a budget that isn’t made to govern and an economy that isn’t made for the majority of Canadians. For Stanford, an evaluation of this government is easy. “The economy,” he says, “has performed worse under the Harper Conservatives than any other government in Canada’s post-war history.” Well, in every way but politics, that is.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer, meanwhile, announced that the government’s operative budget will— based on overly-optimistic projections—actually sit in deficit at the end of this year. But that never really mattered to the Conservatives. It was the headlines they were after.

First up: when he questioned whether a video about homosexuality should receive city grant money: “I have no problem giving money out to physically or mentally handicapped children or seniors, but spending $5,000 on this video is disgusting, it is absolutely disgusting to spend this amount of money on this, whatever it was called, video.”

Then, in 2006 at a Leafs game he asked a man if he wanted his “little wife” to be raped and shot in Iran.  The year before, he spoke out at a council meeting while discussing grants for transgender individuals: “I don’t understand. No. 1, I don’t understand a transgender, I don’t understand, is it a guy dressed up like a girl or a girl dressed up like a guy? And we’re funding this for, I don’t know, what does it say here? We’re giving them $3,210?”

Since 2008 calls have been made to the police by Ford’s wife, Renata, as well as her mother, reporting the mayor’s alleged abuse. (The charges were later dropped.)

He’s called fellow female politicians a waste of skin and allegedly groped mayoral race rival Sarah  Thompson.

Oh, and, he’s also said many things like this: “If you’re not doing needles and you’re not gay, you won’t get AIDS, probably.”

Drug addiction and alcoholism—for anybody—is an illness; sexism, homophobia and abuse are not. If we’re going to scrutinize Ford, let’s take the time to examine his entire terrible track record. Certainly, we’d like an apology for his sense of entitlement, which seems to make him believe it is OK to tell women to get raped or deny opportunities to others according to their sexual orientation.

Hillary Di Menna is a former This Magazine intern. Check out her new blog Gender Block every Monday at this.org

I didn’t find anything Mr. Mulroney had to say particularly compelling—he comments on the charter of values in Quebec, Thomas Mulcair’s NDP leadership and Justin Trudeau’s stance on legalizing marijuana—but I did find myself not hating him as much as I once would. Putting aside the fact that watching two extremely rich white guys discuss how to run the country makes me gag reflexively, Mulroney is almost a refreshing Conservative, free from the mechanical robot speak of the Harper party liners. Then, I started wondering if we were entering an era of lionizing Brian Mulroney.

There’s a homogenous candour about him now that allows him to speak freely about policy, and the failure of the new conservatives in Canada, without becoming too transparent (he’s still a politician after all). Like Nixon post Watergate I think there is still a belief within Brian that the country needs him and a comeback would never be out of the question(Aw). Politicians, like boxers, can never truly rule out getting back in the ring so their guard has to always be at least half up. It would also be creepy, though, if he became too open—sort of like if your parents opened up to you about their sex lives. He’s in the box I want him in, the sweet spot where I can still dislike most of what he stands for while somehow daydreaming of days when Conservatives were more thoughtful, less ideologically stunted and perfectly cozy hanging out just right of centre.

(I suppose the worst thing you can say about Brian Mulroney now is that he gave Canadian media Ben Mulroney.)

Offspring aside, Mulroney, really, is a reminder that Conservatism used to be a far less pernicious force in Canadian politics. We can quibble over his tenure’s failures, and his tendency toward corruption (also one time this happened), but he never did as much to divide the country as Stephen Harper is doing now. He never touted the values of smaller government while consolidating all federal power within his office. Mulroney never politicized governmental scientific research and he didn’t turn our prison system into a draconian throwback to medieval Europe. We’re now seeing the dangers of a populist conservative movement in the United States, ideological ignorance combined with an unwillingness to compromise, and, as it turns out, the archetype of Conservative as lawyer-come-political operative is not the worst thing in the world.

Apo-TriAvir, the generic HIV/AIDS drug. A Canadian law making its export easier is likely finished in parliament. Image courtesy Apotex.

In March, Canada came improbably close to establishing a system to deliver drugs cheaply and quickly to poorer countries. In a vote of 172 to 111, the House of Commons passed Bill C-393, which would have streamlined Canada’s Access to Medicine Regime, a program to provide low-cost generic drugs to the global south. It wasn’t to be: the senate stalled, waiting for the vote of non-confidence that precipitated a spring election. That vote came four days later, effectively trashing the bill.

CAMR allows generic drugmakers to export cheaper versions of brand-name drugs to developing countries, without needing the permission of the patent-holders. “We have tremendous capacity to help address a particular need,” says Richard Elliott, executive director at the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network. But CAMR’s cumbersome red tape kept manufacturers away. Says Elliott: “To leave in place a regime that is not working would be harming millions of people who need access to medicines.”

The program had only been used once since it was introduced in 2005. In 2007, Apotex, the largest Canadian-owned generic drug company, shipped enough HIV medication, Apo-TriAvir, to treat 21,000 patients in Rwanda [PDF]. Apotex says the final shipment went out in 2008. “We’re not likely to repeat the process under the current regime,” says Bruce Clark, Apotex’s senior vice-president of scientific and regulatory affairs. “It’s not just our decision, it’s a practical reality that no second country has made a request under the regime because it’s so complicated.” Bill C-393 would have simplified that process, but its future looks doubtful.

When C-393 passed in the House of Commons, it was supported by 26 Conservative MPs; 25 of those were re-elected, but the bill’s prospects in the new Conservative-dominated parliament look dim. “We saw what Harper did in the senate with the bill,” Elliott says.

On May 5, Elliott discussed CAMR’s future with other major advocacy groups. They’ve decided it’s not time to give up, but it will take time to re-assess the political climate before drafting some next steps. “The legal landscape is more challenging now than before,” he says. “But it’s worth trying to gather some intelligence and make a more informed assessment as to what the prospects might be before moving forward.”

Even with such slight optimism, Elliott expects the earliest the bill could be re-introduced—if at all—would be this fall.

Wildrose Alliance leader Danielle Smith stumping during her summer tour of Alberta. The far-right party has weakened the right flank of the Progressive Conservatives. Image courtesy Wildrose Alliance.

At Marv’s Classic Soda Shop, Marvin Garriott, known for his oiled handlebar moustache, is often asked to speak of politics. He’s the local prophet on the subject; all small towns have one. A two-term councillor sitting for the 1,900-person Southern Alberta town of Black Diamond, Garriott poses for tourists and reporters, mugging in a bowling-alley inspired uniform matching the laminate, post-war decor of his pop shop. He knew the federal Conservatives would sweep to a majority, predicted the fall of the Liberals and even says he foresaw the Orange Crush (and the demise of the Bloc).

Ask Garriott to predict the outcome of the upcoming provincial leadership race and his vision goes dark. “It’s going to be an interesting one,” he says, passing judgment on the provincial Progressive Conservative party with a wince and a so-so motion of his left hand. “They weren’t listening to us. And the whole health-care issue has been a fiasco, and it still is.” Albertans face a leadership contest and probable election come fall, and are calling for change. Considering Black Diamond is in the dark blue heart of Tory country, Garriott’s verdict is a surprising vote of non-confidence.

For 40 years, the Conservatives, under the auspices of King Ralph Klein and lately “Steady Eddie” Stelmach have boasted vote margins envied by now-deposed Middle Eastern despots. At least, until Stelmach’s bumbling leadership style cost him the support of party insiders. Facing declining oil royalties, ongoing economic sluggishness and a rogue MLA forcing the party’s failing health-care policies into an unflattering news spiral, the Conservative caucus is “dissolving,” according to David Taras, a media studies professor at Mount Royal University. “People elected [Stelmach] thinking he was experienced, but it turned out there was nothing steady about Eddie,” Taras says. “When 45 percent of your budget goes into health-care, that’s the gold standard. That’s the standard by which you will be judged.”

Following in the out-sized footsteps of the iconic Klein, Stelmach’s path was bound to be bumpy. But his political missteps have been scrutinized more severely by the formation of two new parties: the centrist Alberta Party and far-right Wildrose Alliance. The latter, led by charismatic former journalist Danielle Smith, has quickly leeched the support of the populist-minded and arch-conservative alike (though the pendulum may be swinging back lately).

Stelmach’s fading fortifications were dealt a fatal coup de main during budget talks in January. His finance minister, Ted Morton, reportedly threatened to resign rather than deliver a financial plan easy on cuts and leaning heavily on the province’s reserve savings. Stelmach beat Morton to the podium. The premier resigned during a hasty news conference. He took no questions. Two days later, Morton announced himself a leadership contender. The Conservatives are now staging a six-way race to elect a leader in a five-party province.

The turmoil may even lead to an actual contest come election day—a rarity in a region where there’s more competition within parties than between them. The root of Alberta’s electoral intractability lies in its history, according to Taras. Early American immigration, strong religious communities and the hangover of the Trudeau-Era National Energy Program mean it may be decades before the province sees any real political movement—the election of superstar Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi being the exception. Up to a quarter of Alberta’s budget relies on oil royalties, and the rest of the country is growing increasingly hostile to oil sands development.

The result is a hankering for a strong leader who can stand up to the environmentalists and robber barons of Eastern Canada: “The lesson is that we need majority governments that have to be strong vis-à-vis Ottawa, because if they’re not strong, bad things can happen,” Taras says. “People see environmental politics through the lens of ‘what’s Ottawa going to do to us now?’”

And here, it should be noted, Albertans have a point. Last year, the province’s taxpayers gave the federal government $7 billion more than they received in revenue and services—about the same as what Quebec received in equalization payments. The province also receives less than its fair share in health-care transfers.

Since the ’70s, Alberta’s politics have revolved more around the protection of regional interests than the promulgation of truly conservative social values. That leaves a cadre of leadership candidates that run the gamut from Red Tory to Stockwell Day—just as long as they support oil and gas, all seem to be welcome under the big blue tent. For decades, that made for a broad, stable conservative dynasty; now that base appears to be fracturing.

Gary Mar, a former MLA, recently quit his job as the Alberta representative in the Canadian embassy in Washington. He’s emerged as an early front-runner in the leadership race. High on his list of self-described credentials are his lobbying efforts for the Keystone XL pipeline—a tube that would carry crude oil to the U.S., angering environmental groups on both sides of the border.

At 48 years old, Mar is young and eloquent: traits he shares with fellow candidate Doug Griffiths, who holds the title of youngest MLA to serve the province at 29. Former energy minister Rick Orman and deputy premier Doug Horner both have strong resumes, but may be seen as too old-school to tap into the restless undercurrent.

Alison Redford rounds the centrist Tory position. Socially progressive, she supports boosting Calgary as a world energy capital. She’s also pulled some of the campaign brains behind Nenshi’s purple revolution, which saw the mayor sweep last year’s municipal elections. “We can’t continue to presume that an election takes place, we elect a certain set of officials and then those politicians go away to make decisions, and then ask people to vote for them again,” Redford says. “People are demanding a different conversation with their politicians.”

Then there’s Mr. Et-Tu? Morton, who stands for a more conventional, American-style conservatism that blends fiscal utilitarianism and hard-right values such as opposition to same-sex marriage. Whether he has a shot at the top seat in Alberta as the Wildrose splits the right remains to be seen. “The Wildrose has made a lot of inroads,” Garriott says. Stelmach, with his humble rise to the top, should be popular among the types of people who frequent Marv’s soda shop. He’s not. “For a country boy, [Stelmach] lost touch with reality.”

In Alberta, the reality these days seems to be: expect the unexpected.

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.

Pierre Trudeau. Bill C-150, passed by his government on May 15, 1969, ushered in a new era of human rights in Canada.

Tomorrow, let’s take a moment to reflect on the 42nd anniversary of the passing of Bill C-150, the omnibus bill that decriminalized abortion, contraception and homosexuality. The rights that Canadians have because of this historic bill are crucial to remember as those same rights come under attack elsewhere: on Wednesday, Indiana became the first state in the U.S. to cut public funding to Planned Parenthood. The same day in Uganda, gay people came close to facing the death penalty.

On May 14, 1969, The Criminal Law Amendment Act formed the legal foundations for the Canadian gay rights movement, and for Henry Morgentaler to perform abortions against — and eventually according to — the law. But it didn’t reduce discrimination, or grant women and members of the LGBTQ community full rights under the charter. Forty-two years later, how much has changed?

Abortion and contraception then:

In the 1950s, a family of five was considered small, explained former nurse Lucie Pepin in her speech commemorating the 30th anniversary of Bill C-150. Many women in rural communities gave birth to their children at home. When complications occurred during birth, the mother was rushed to hospital. If it was too late for a cesarian, her doctor had a decision to make:

“Which to save — the baby or the mother? The Church was clear: save the baby. The Church was clear on many points — women sinned if they refused sexual relations with their husbands or any other form of contraception. The State was also clear. Contraception was illegal and so was abortion.”

Women had no choice in the matter, and neither did their doctors. But Bill C-150 at least changed the latter. The legislation decreed abortion was permissible if a committee of three doctors felt the pregnancy endangered the mental, emotional or physical well-being of the mother. Regard was not given just yet to women’s charter rights to life, liberty and security of the person.

Enter Henry Morgentaler. In 1969, armed with decisive arguments in favour of a woman’s right to an abortion within the first three months of pregnancy, the doctor began performing the procedure illegally in his Montreal clinic. An exchange in 1970 between the adamant doctor and a furious caller on CBC Radio highlighted the fundamental disagreement between the doctor and his critics about when life begins.

Now:

The debate hasn’t progressed. It has degenerated into little more than a shouting match between so-called “pro-life” and “pro-choice” advocates who still can’t agree on when life begins, or whose rights win out: those of the mother or those of the unborn fetus. And recently the Canadian debate has shifted for the worse.

In Indiana, the governor was quite happy to openly chop away at Planned Parenthood’s $2 million in public funding. Meanwhile, in Canada, subtler shifts are taking place. During the election, Tory MP Brad Trost bragged that the Conservative government had successfully cut funding to Planned Parenthood. Stephen Harper quickly denied the comments, saying he would not re-open the abortion debate as long as he is Prime Minister. However, the International Planned Parenthood Federation has been waiting for 18 months to hear whether their funding from the Canadian government will be renewed. During the election, women’s rights groups foreshadowed the Conservatives’ indecision on the matter warning Canadians that Harper would be under pressure from his caucus to re-open the debate. With a Conservative majority now in government, that pressure is sure to grow.

Homosexuality then:

149 Members of Parliament agreed with Trudeau and 55 did not after he famously said “there is no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation.” According to his omnibus bill, acts of homosexual sex committed in private between consenting adults would no longer be prosecuted. But gay sex between people younger than 21 was still illegal.

A Gallup Poll at the time that asked Canadians whether they thought homosexual sex should be legal or illegal found 42 percent in favour of decriminalization and 41 percent against. Homosexuality was openly discussed as an “illness” that ought to be cured. Progressive Conservative Justice Critic Eldon Woolliams voted in favour of Trudeau’s bill so that gays could have the equal opportunity to receive treatment. On February 2, 1969, he said casually on CBC television:

“I don’t think (homosexuality) should ever be put in the criminal code. I think it should be taken out. It should be done in a medical way so that these people could be sent to centres if we feel as citizens who oppose the feeling of this illness and this homosexuality so they could be rehabilitated.”

Woolliams appeared to sincerely (and incorrectly) believe that gay sex was a mere tendency based on environmental factors, and that the “pressure” of these factors could be “relieved.”

Before Bill C-150 was passed, “incurable” homosexual George Klippert was convicted of “gross indecency.” He was sentenced to preventative detention. In 1967, the Supreme Court upheld the decision.

Now:

Today the Ugandaan Parliament debated a bill that aimed to punish “aggravated homosexuality” by increasing jail sentences from 14 years to life. Until yesterday, the bill also proposed the death penalty for gays. The main motivation behind the legislation was preventing the spread of HIV and AIDS.

We would like to think that Canada is 40 years ahead of Uganda, but we still impose discriminatory policies to prevent the spread of what used to be known as “the gay cancer” — HIV/AIDS.

The policy of the Canadian Blood Services is to ban any man who has had sex with another man since 1977 from giving blood for the rest of his life. The organization asserts that it is arms-length enough from the government to uphold the ban without fear of violating Charter rights. The CBS also discriminates based on action rather than sexuality — a gay man who hasn’t had sex is welcome to give blood. A third argument holds the least strength: though HIV/AIDS testing has advanced over the years, the possibility of a false negative still exists.

However, the policy is inherently discriminatory because it assumes any man who has sex with another man carries a high possibility of illness despite other factors such as relationship status, use of condoms, and differing risk factors based on oral versus anal sex. The CBS, which is regulated by Health Canada, maintains its policy based on outdated science. To their credit, the organization has offered a grant of $500,000 to any researcher(s) who can find a safe way to allow “MSM” men to safely give blood. No researchers have applied for the grant.

The lifetime ban is outdated, as is the recommended deferral period of 10 years, which the U.K. recently implemented. Australia, Sweden and Japan currently have deferral periods of one year. Researchers for the Canadian Medical Association Journal have recommended a one-year deferral policy for MSM donors in stable, monogamous relationships.

We’ve progressed, but we’re not perfect. And there’s a real risk of losing what we have. On May 14, let’s be grateful to the activists that pushed the LGBTQ and women’s rights movements forward.

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.