The Toronto Globe and Mail tells the Liberals that they’d like to try dating other people for a while:

Three Reasons Why It’s Time for Change

Canada has been well served by 12-plus years of Liberal rule. Despite what the opposition parties would have us believe, it has not been all scandal and nest-feathering.

Ask yourself a simple multiple of Ronald Reagan’s famous electoral question: Are you better off today than you were 12 years ago? Unemployment then stood at 11.2 per cent. Today, it is 6.5 per cent. An average mortgage rate was 8.78 per cent. Now it is 5.99 per cent, making home ownership affordable for hundreds of thousands more Canadians. The national debt has fallen from 66.5 per cent of gross domestic product to 38.7 per cent. Taxes are down; our standard of living is up.

On a more qualitative level, while much of the world has struggled with intolerance, Canada has emerged as a beacon of diversity — home to newcomers from around the world and confident enough of managing differences to become one of the early adopters of same-sex marriage.

The Liberal years certainly have not been without their failings, from the gun registry to the sponsorship scandal to the fumbling of the income-trust issue. But there is no denying we are better off than when Jean Chrétien first came to power with Paul Martin at his side.

Nonetheless, we have concluded that the time has arrived for a change of government in Canada. Three reasons stand out above all.

1. While the past 12 years have been relatively good ones, the law of diminishing returns has been eroding Liberal effectiveness since at least the 2000 election. A change of leadership in 2003 has failed to reverse the process….

Moreover, Liberal verities hinder rather than assist the finding of answers to such challenges as increasing productivity, fixing an unwieldy and politicized immigration system, steadying relations with the United States and confronting the real ills of the health-care system….

2. Then there is this matter of the culture of entitlement that has taken deep root within the Liberal Party….

Mr. Martin, a modest and honourable man personally, has done little to challenge this culture, despite so promising during the leadership race….

3. Change is essential in a democracy. A perpetual lease on 24 Sussex Drive fuels the sense of entitlement that blurs the line between private gain and public good. Just as bad, a perpetual lease on Stornoway discourages the discipline and moderation required of an alternative government. Without a vibrant, continuing competition for power, a democracy runs the risk of degenerating into hegemony on the governing side and unreality on the opposition side. Both parties need to believe they can win elections — and lose them…

The argument against change essentially amounts to this: better the devil you know than the new devil. After all, the devil you know has been mediocre, not disastrous, and lies closer to that ephemeral Canadian consensus sometimes called values. Many on the centre-left of the political spectrum remain not unreasonably suspicious of Mr. Harper’s election-hour shift to the political centre. They continue to think the erstwhile neoconservative harbours a hidden agenda….

There is greater reason to feel comfortable with Mr. Harper today. He has shown himself to be an intelligent man and one, in this campaign at least, who has learned to master his emotions. He has gained control of a party inclined to fly off in all directions, moved it to the centre and proposed a reasonable if imperfect governing platform. His targeted tax measures are measured, his defence policies are sound, and his approach to waiting times is worth experimenting with.

His pledge not to use the notwithstanding clause on same-sex marriage provides some comfort, as does his promise not to reopen the abortion debate. In both cases, he has demonstrated a deft political touch, giving something to his base but leaving himself ample political room to steer clear of unnecessarily divisive issues…

It is hard to endorse him and his party unreservedly. We worry about his seeming indifference to the need for a strong central government in a country so replete with runaway centrifugal forces. We worry about him teaming up with the Bloc Québécois to weaken the federal government’s tax-raising capacity and its advocacy of national programs. We worry that he might have to strike retrograde compromises with social conservatives in the party’s midst.

We worry that he may prove heavy-handed in wielding the considerable powers of a prime minister.

But we also know that public opinion in an information-enriched society provides a natural check on immoderate policies and behaviour. Political parties are in the business of currying public favour; a governing party, even an unnatural one, will not stray too far, too frequently, from the social consensus. The dynamic of democratic change keeps competitors for power within reasonable bounds. So it will be for Mr. Harper and his Conservatives.

Needless to say, any number of US papers said pretty much the same pollyannish thing in 2000 about Smirk, and we all know how that “natural check” turned out. One key difference is an “information-enriched society” vs. a propaganda-drenched one. There is nothing approaching the levels of dishonesty in Canadian discourse that yield voter illiteracy like that found in the United States; that is to say, there is no FOX News. I seriously doubt that a majority of Canadian voters think that Harper opposes Star Wars, for example, or supports Kyoto.

At any rate, it looks like we’re going to find out.