Conservative Canada?

Apparently, it’s not on oxymoron anymore. I haven’t been following the Canadian elections as closely as I probably should have, but Glenn Reynolds and Michelle Malkin are loaded with links, including to some who are live blogging the election returns tonight.

Meanwhile, Publius Pundit (found perchance via Pajamas, if you’ll pardon my persnickety alliteration), reviews the pros and cons of the results so far.

Update: In an essay uploaded shortly after midnight on election Monday, John Tabin of The American Spectator takes stock of Canadian anti-Americanism, and its new prime minister:

Canadian anti-Americanism may be broad — a 2003 SES Canada Research poll showed only 13% of Canadians wanting Canada to be more like the U.S.; a 2004 Ipsos-Reid poll found that 82% believe that President Bush is not a friend of Canada — but it isn’t deep. An SES/Buffalo University poll in 2005 showed that a majority of Canadians want closer relations with the U.S. on security, antiterrorism, and energy policy. Canadians don’t want to be Americans, but they do want to be American allies. The Grits have made this tough over the years, with periodic anti-Bush and anti-American outbursts from the back and front benches.

The Tories won’t have that problem. Though [Stephen Harper] has made pains to distance himself from the perception of excessive deference to Washington, even writing to the Washington Times to dispute an op-ed characterizing him as “Mr. Bush’s new best friend internationally,” the fact is that he’ll be the most pro-American Canadian Prime Minister in a long time. He may not send Canadian troops to Iraq, but he has praised the U.S. for pursuing democracy there and would stand with the U.S. (and Israel) in international disputes where his predecessors would stand against us. In a dangerous world, the good guys are about to gain another strong leader. And that’s bad news for the bad guys.

Sounds good to me.

Another Update: Channeling Doug and Bob McKenzie, VodkaPundit has mixed emotions about the election results (“Canada’s election was so screwed up, all I could think of was SCTV”), but National Review’s John O’Sullivan writes that tonight’s election may signify the beginnings of a longer-term trend in Canada:

A good but not great night in Canada. The Tories will form a minority government, but one with a more precarious plurality in parliament [What is it about Canada that brings out the alliteration?–Ed] than looked likely from the polls. The Liberals are beaten and out but not humiliated. The Quebec separatist party has done worse than expected but still dominates the province. And the leftist New Democrats improved their position but failed to break through dramatically. In Canada’s four-party system that gives the Tories the government for something less than a full term.

What’s going on? Well, if Canada were a single individual, we would say that he (or maybe she) wanted to commit to the Tories but had developed cold feet at the last minute. This is exactly what happened one year ago but this time there was slightly more willingness to move rightwards. On that basis, the Tories will probably win a majority in a couple of years as the nation gets used to seeing the untried Tories in the Cabinet–and the roof fails to fall in.