Watch out.
If you believe Prime Minister Stephen Harper acted with the arrogance of someone who commanded as if he had a majority during his time as the head of back-to-back minority governments, the worst is yet to come.
While commentators held out the prospect that the incoming Conservative majority would propel the better angels of his nature, such hopes about Harper belong in the same realm as the belief in the existence of cherubs.
Harper finally received what he has always wanted — a stable majority, except for the fact that his new found majority hardly represents a ringing mandate.
Yes, he won a clear majority of seats. But the Conservative share of the popular vote rose by less than two per cent to just under 40 per cent.
This figure, coupled with the unfairness of an antiquated electoral system and the ineptitude of the Liberal party under its departed leader Michael Ignatieff, proved to be more than sufficient for Harper to claim his prize.
We predict Harper will continue his ideological crusade forged under the cross of economic libertarianism and social conservatism to remake Canada in the image of his intellectual influences.
While voters of Okanagan-Coquihalla might cheer such prospects, they might yet rue their support for an agenda that considers compromise a character flaw, confuses scientific insight with partisanship, and offers the clenched fist of vengeance instead of a charitable hand up.
Such are the ambitions of the Conservatives, ambitions which have found unlikely accomplices in the New Democrats. They served Canada nobly in wiping out the Bloc. They can claim to speak for the progressive Canada.
But their great tactical victory in 2011 might well led to a realignment that could produce Conservative majorities for generations.
— Summerland Review