Federal Election Results

CLA: 2008 October 27

The ballots from the 40^th general election are in and Canadian voters have elected a minority Conservative government. This is Canada’s third consecutive minority government. The breakdown of the seats won by party is as follows:

Conservative: 143
Liberal: 76
Bloc Québécois: 50
NDP: 37
Independent: 2
Total: 308

This minority government will affect CLA in a number of ways as the House of Commons continues to be a place of negotiations where the role of individual Members of Parliament (MP) is strengthened. A continuous strong grassroots lobby effort and close ties to your local MP can affect change at the highest levels.

With the Conservatives in a minority government situation once again, they will not be able to implement significant elements of the party’s policy platform without support from other parties.

A noteworthy element of the Conservative’s agenda related to the library community is as follows:

• Reintroduce federal copyright legislation that strikes the appropriate balance among the rights of musicians, artists, programmers and other creators and brings Canada's intellectual property protection in line with that of other industrialized countries, but also protects consumers who want to access copyright works for their personal use.

CLA is well positioned to move forward to work with the Conservative government. Over the years, the association has implemented a non-partisan approach in order to ensure excellent relations with a number of key MPs from all parties.

In particular, several Conservative MPs with whom CLA has developed relationships with have been re-elected. Among these are Merv Tweed, Leon Benoit, Colin Carrie, Jim Abbott, and Lynne Yelich.

CLA remains committed to working with the Conservative Government in order to highlight our key issues of concern, such as fair copyright legislation for Canadians and our over 21 million library users, the Library Book Rate, and the Community Access Program, among others.

Moving forward, we will continue our efforts to ensure the library community’s issues are brought to the forefront of the government’s agenda. As the new Cabinet team is sworn in over the coming weeks, members will be updated on significant postings related to the library community.

For more information on the impact of the federal election, please feel free to contact Alana Fontaine at 613-233-8906 or alana@impactcanada.com.