Results from North of Sixty for the federal election were bad, then good, then bad again.

Looking at the big media election maps, the North was coloured blue, orange and then blue as one scrolled across the continent.

Hence the bad/good/bad reference.

Two incumbents held onto their seats — the Conservatives’ Aglukkaq in Nunavut and NDP’s Bevington in the Northwest Territories.

Aglukkaq was a cabinet minister in the previous Harper government, and if she gets the nod again the North will be at the cabinet table.

Even if it is a Conservative cabinet table, it is still probably a good idea to have some representation there.

The NDP win in the Northwest Territories was not totally unexpected, even it was considered a swing riding and was graced by visits from Harper, Ignatieff and Layton.

As an aside it is worth noting that both Layton and Bevington have mustaches.

To misquote Lenin: “Sometimes — history needs a moustache.”

And Bevington and his moustache will no doubt ensure Northern issues will continue to be an integral part of NDP policy.

In the Yukon, incumbent Liberal Bagnell lost to the Conservative challenger Leef.

Leef’s win in the Yukon was a shocker.

Almost no one saw this coming, as Bagnell was ahead by 20 percentage points in a poll taken near the start of the election.

Leef got 5,422 votes, Bagnell got 5,290.

Which does give rise to the vote splitting debate.

The Green candidate, Streicker, came in third with 3,037 votes, and the NDP candidate, Barr, got 2,308 votes.

In other words, only 132 votes separated the fact the Yukon could have gone Liberal, instead of Conservative.

And 5,345 votes combined went to the Greens and the NDP.

Now I personally believe individuals should vote for what they believe in, and not strategically.

Otherwise we’re on a very quick path to a two-party system such as the United States labours under.

But no doubt there are a few Orange and Greenies pondering the wisdom of those that do advocate strategic voting.

One important result of the federal election results in the Yukon, apart from the embarrassment that a former cage-fighter now represents the territory, is the impact it could have on this fall’s upcoming Yukon territorial election.

Yukon political junkies of all stripes are trying to interpret the federal voting numbers to see what the numbers mean.

Looking further down the road one does ponder what a federal Conservative majority government does mean for the North.

Despite the draconian fiscal cuts that will be coming Canada wide to health-care, housing and education the North can probably expect millions, if not billions, in infrastructure dollars.

Deep sea northern arctic ports, roads to resources, hydro dams, runways, pipelines and perhaps even a railway or two will be considered.

Arctic sovereignty is, for some reason, one of the Conservative issues.

Yes folks, the Russians really are coming, at least in the mind of certain right-wing politicians.

The way to keep them out, of course, is to industrialize the North.

This doesn’t really make sense, but repeat the lie often enough and a government will be able to get away with it.

Following this logic this means that if the land can be bashed, bulldozed and built upon it will probably happen, especially in the Territories.

One gets the impression that the Conservative government is, when one comes to construction projects, very much like boys and their toys in a sandbox.

Bigger is better, both in equipment and in application.

Now this is not necessarily a good thing.

The environmental implications alone are horrifying.

These projects tend to be nothing more than taxpayer-funded subsidies for mineral resource extraction companies.

After all, why should a mining company spend their own precious dollars on infrastructure that is required to make a mine operation viable when the Canadian taxpayer will pick up the tab instead.

Without the subsidized infrastructure, the project probably wouldn’t go ahead.

So the private companies get access to the minerals at no cost to themselves while the northern landscape gets savaged.

The social and economic impacts can also be pretty severe.

Million-dollar projects tend to fling a lot of money around.

Here’s hoping that some of that infrastructure money gets spent on items that Northerners need, such as better housing, improved access to medical care, greater educational opportunities and cheaper shipping rates for food from down South.

And here’s also hoping that very little of that money causes excessive consumer consumption and debt, substance abuse problems and cultural eradication.

There’s a saying in the north.

Before the mine (or pipeline or oil well or whatever big industrial project is the flavour of the month) came, the only vices this community could afford were booze and pot.

Now that the big money is here, the vices are booze and crack.

Lewis Rifkind

Lewis Rifkind

Lewis Rifkind is a Whitehorse based part-time environmentalist. His work centers around Yukon recycling, energy and mining issues. When he is not winter camping or summer hiking, he collects stamps...