Good Morning Canada

A cleansing wind swept through Canada yesterday was Canadian voters ousted the corrupt, incumbent, deeply anti-American Liberal administration of Prime Minister Paul Martin and brought to power Stephen Harper and a newly invigorated Conservative Party which had only two seats in the 295 member government as recently as 1993.

Harper, with 36% of the vote, has 124-125 seats in the 308 seat Parliament and will become Prime Minister with a minority government.

Canadian elections draw little attention here rating a bare mention on the network news. Paul Martin from personal experience was a finance minister who had the singular talent of sinking the Canadian dollar every time he opened his mouth.

The race had gotten ugly in the closing weeks as NRO's Doug Gamble reports:

The Liberals, scandal-plagued and out of ideas, were ugly in their death throes. Most vile among a spate of attack ads released late in the campaign was one that said Harper would put armed troops on the streets of Canadian cities. The implication was that they would be employed as Conservative brown shirts to crush dissent in a coup against democracy.

In a party leaders' debate two weeks before the election, a desperate Martin, continuing to play the anti-American card so prominent throughout his campaign, tagged Harper as a "Republican." Translated into Canadian, it's a label that virtually equals "Nazi." Two Liberal TV ads that aired in the campaign's waning days said a victory for Harper would "bring a smile to George W. Bush's face" and tagged Harper as "pro-Iraq war, anti-Kyoto, Bush's best friend."

Would make Gerhard Schroeder proud.