They Had an Election in the Great White North

And it was a doozy:

The Conservatives now have an outright majority in Parliament, posting a 24 seat gain to end up with 167 seats, which was not a big surprise, but the rest of the results were a shocker.

The left leaning New Democratic Party (NDP) picked up 66 seats, and now has 102, making it the official opposition for the first time ……… ever, while the Liberals, who have run Canada for most of the past 100 years, lost 43 seats, dropping to 34, and their party leader, the contemptible Iraq war cheerleader Michael Ignatieff, lost his seat.

Even more surprising is that the secessionist Bloc Québécois also lost 43 seats, dropping to just 4 seat, which means that they lost official party status,and their party leader lost his reelection bid too.

Hopefully, this means that the BQ will have to take their time away from genteel ethnic cleansing^* to rebuild their party.

Both Lib Leader Michael Ignatieff and BQ Leader Gilles Duceppe resigned their party positions as well.

The Tories did not get anywhere near a majority of the vote, they got less than 40%, but they got them in the right places, and with the NDP surging, largely because the Liberals had been folding like a bunch of broccoli ever since Ignatieff took control, and people choose something, particularly a something which gave them their world class healthcare system, over nothing, they went to the NDP.

The downside is that Conservative leader Stephen Harper, after 2 terms running a minority government, probably feels entitled to do what he really wants, which is tax cuts for the wealthy, cuts in social services, and more prisons and fighter jets.

I fully expect a stealth assault on socialized medicine.

On the bright side (if you are an optimist):

• The BQ and their nativist bigoted platform were beaten down.
  
• The Libs deserved to go down, and the only thing keeping them afloat over the past few years was "the conservatives are scary," don't split the vote, but now the NDP can make this argument.
  
• Harper is a real honest to God Neocon, and the only thing that has made him look moderate is the fact that he has had minority governments, so hopefully, when the mask is removed, Canadians will recoil from him, and make Mulroney's drubbing look like a walk in the park.
  
• Perhaps the Liberals will learn that folding like overcooked cabbage because an insane right winger said bad things about them.
  
• Perhaps the Liberals will learn that appointing an Iraq War supporting moron (Michael Ignatieff) is stupid.
  
• Michael Ignatieff is done.
  
• Michael Ignatieff is done.
  
• Michael Ignatieff is done.
  

Then again, I am a bit of an optimist.

^*It's why the largest Jewish community in Canada is now in Toronto.