Well, Canada gets it ....

Their economy has not cracked like ours. The Loonie continues to rise. There are reasons for this ... and the Canadians know it.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Conservatives won a majority last night, putting an end to almost seven years of minority rule in the country.

The Conservatives fought off a torrid challenge from Jack Layton and the New Democrats, who finished second in the polls and became the official opposition for the first time ever at the federal level. The Liberals finished a distant third.

“Suffice it to say, markets prefer majority to minority, and known to unknown,” said Douglas Porter, deputy chief economist at BMO Capital Markets. “All financial markets are likely to benefit, at least moderately.”

At the start of the campaign, investors contemplated one of two outcomes: a Conservative majority or a Conservative minority.

While in general markets like majority governments best, it was widely believed that a fourth consecutive Harper minority would be mostly positive for the loonie, stocks and other financial assets, particularly given how well Canada’s economy and financial markets have performed in the wake of the financial crisis.

Canada still needs to work on its freedom of speech, its quasi-Orwellian PC-codes, rebuild its military more as a % of GDP, and its health care system (talk to anyone in a a Tampa hospital what I am talking about) ... but ... our friends to the north are getting better and better, a nice self-correcting society.

Bully to you to the north.

A note to my countrymen. Early last decade, Harper and his "proto-Tea Party" Reform Party came out of the western provinces to much tut-tut'n about how radical they were. How dangerously right-wing they were, homeless on the street and old people dying in snow drifts etc. Sound familiar? Now look at what they have done for Canada.