Though Stephen Harper won a total of 143 seats, he was again rebuffed in his bid to achieve a majority government. As importantly the election results showed that despite the global financial crisis whose gale winds are blowing across Canada too, voters failed to throw the ruling rascals out. By winning the largest share of the vote, at 38 percent the Conservatives can rightly claim that they represent stability, lower taxes, and responsible Canadian engagement abroad. The left-leaning Liberals whose new Green platform wanted to slap a highly unpopular “carbon-tax” on practically everything, saw their electoral fortunes sink to the lowest levels since 1867! Liberal attacks on Canada’s troop commitment in Afghanistan fell on fallow ground.

Canada was the first of the industrialized (G-7) countries to hold an election after the September financial meltdown. Indeed, Canada’s parliamentary election campaign was only five weeks long as compared to the nearly two-year marathon in the United States.

Campaigning went on during the September financial storm and could have dealt a disastrous backlash for an incumbent government. There was 59 percent voter turnout.

Naturally a parliamentary system is fundamentally different in structure to the American federal republic; for example after losing the Republican majority in the U.S. Congress in 2006, President George W. Bush would have been forced from office. The same was true in 1994, when Bill Clinton, only two years into his presidency, lost the Congressional Democrat majority. He too would have been ousted.

Afghanistan has become a defining point for Canadian policy. As part of Ottawa’s commitment to NATO, Canadian combat forces serve in one of the toughest-Taliban infested regions and have taken disproportionably high causalities. But contrary to the cut-and-run policy advocated by many politicos, Stephen Harper has held firm. Thus besides Canada’s traditionally impressive role in helping with UN peacekeeping missions, in Afghanistan the troops serve, as during the 1950-53 Korean conflict, in a combat capacity. It’s no small measure that Harper has had the political grit to stay tough. Moreover his overall policies have clearly tilted Canada towards closer ties with the United States, its neighbor and biggest trading partner.

Speaking recently before the United Nations General Assembly, Canada’s Deputy Foreign Minister Leonard Edwards stated, “Today Canada is contributing to peace and security, and making sacrifices, in places as diverse as Afghanistan, Haiti and Sudan… Canada’s largest and most important overseas engagement is in Afghanistan where we have more than 2,500 Canadians on the ground .” Ottawa’s humanitarian aid for Afghanistan is $600 million which brings its overall aid total to $1.9 billion over the period 2001-2011. He added, “Humanitarianism and compassion are hallmarks of the Canadian identity.”

Toronto’s National Post newspaper advised editorially, “it must be said that Mr. Harper has governed the country well overall. He has stuck by Canada’s mission in Afghanistan, provided sound stewardship for the economy (notwithstanding the inevitable buffeting we are now taking thanks to Wall Street’s meltdown), managed the Quebec file well, returned Canada-U.S. relations to their normal level of amity, lowered taxes.”

Naturally Canada faces concerns south of its border. The thriving energy interdependence isn’t expected to change. But business slow-downs and financial jolts in the USA, Canada’s largest trading partner, will naturally have a negative knock-on effect. So too will brooding economic protectionism inside the American Democratic party impact the NAFTA trade agreement. And what of the new Administration in Washington’s policies on Afghanistan and the wider war on terror?

Of the G-7 industrial states, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan all have conservative governments. In Britain the ruling New Labor party may soon be replaced by the conservatives. But most importantly, the next moves will come in the USA on November 4th.