Talk Elections

This is the way things are normally done, so post results here. I can't lock the other thread, of course; just don't post there.

As I said, some birds told me LIB 4 NDP 2 CON 1 in NL.

Australian on Twitter is tweeting emails from Canadians. If it's accurate, NL results:

Liberals: four seats
NDP: two seats
Conservatives: one seat

I am assuming the NDP is leading in St. John's South-Mount Pearl and Tories in Avalon.  Don't know this but based on polling and past election results that would be my guess.  I am I correct?

Liberal incumbents apparently held Bonavista-Gander-Grand Falls-Windsor and Humber-St. Barbe-Baie Verte.

Has anyone found another internet stream? The Global News one went off until 10 P.M. Eastern.

Wayne Easter (Malpeque) leading Conservative opponent.

This was the only potential seat change in PEI. Don't think it's happening.

NDP leading in Mount Pearl and St. John's East. Conservatives leading in Avalon, yes.

So NDP on Teddy' schedule. Libs actually doing better.

Let me know when they call any seat changes differently than last time around.

Libs holding Random - Burin - St. George's according to that? Interesting.

http://twitter.com/#!/BernardKeane
http://twitter.com/#!/navdhanda

These tweeters are posting the bulk of the illicit info I've found.

These are all super-safe Liberal seats being discussed anyway.

Not sure why people are so angry at Elections Canada on Twitter. The law is stupid but they didn't write it.

A new cumulative total: 5 Liberal, 3 NDP, 1 Conservative.

I doubt it, it's probably coming from NS or NB.

Looks like Peter MacKay may be in trouble. Excellent.

NDP lead over MacKay, dixit Twitter!!!

How many polls in so far?  I know in past election he has started out trailing yet won.  Still a bit early now.

Well that's good enough for me to call it.

New Liberal Majority for Canada. Congrats Iggy. :D

Election chat!

http://mibbit.com/

Channel: #atlasforum

Don't get too excited yet, it looks like it's only a single precinct in from Central Nova (MacKay's riding)... latest results I've seen are 72 NDP votes to 11 Conservative votes.

whysofar Amanda
If 2X=6, then Lib=X+2, NDP=X-1, Con=X-2. Solve for X! #elxn41 #tweettheresults

Liberal 8, NDP 3, Conservative 3

I can confirm that it's just one precinct in Central Nova, but still,...;)

Also, Mibbit!

Ridings to watch:

St. John's South - Mount Pearl, where the Liberals are defending against repeat NDP candidate Ryan Cleary, apparently only deciding to run again because of Layton. His gamble seems to have paid off.

Dartmouth - Cole Harbour, where the race between Liberal Mike Savage and "former NDP provincial leader" Robert Chisholm have baffled predictors.

Central Nova, where Defence Minister Peter McKay's 2008 victory against Elizabeth May could mean nothing if defeated by NDP challenger David Parker, teacher.

Madawaska - Restigouche, where Liberal J.C. D'Amours could end up in third place, lending to a Conservative-NDP fight in this Acadian Francophone constituency.

New results: LIB 10, Con 5, NDP 3.


NDP still leading in Central Nova.

Some of this stuff can't be true. He's reporting Karlo Vukobratovic as winning St. John's South... who isn't even a candidate there.

Atlantic Canada: LIB 10 NDP 5 CON 3

I imagine the results that are start to pick up in Atlantic Canada, any updates here.

NDP winning St. Johns South-Mt. Pearl

Shuldn't be a surprise, really.

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/argosy---41st-general-election

Live stream from Nova Scotia university discussion

Atlantic: Lib 10 NDP 8 Cons 7

Peter Mackay still trailing. Even if he wins there could be a bad night for the CPC.

Lol yeah, saw that. He also didn't realize at first that there were Atlantic provinces besides Newfoundland and Labrador.

25k fine!

Whoever's feeding Bernard Keane the results at least knows how to make them look plausible. Liberal 10, Conservative 5 and NDP 3 is the best guess.

It's all a crapshoot if there aren't good Nova Scotia/New Brunswick results. If NDP defeats McKay, however, that shows enough of a swing for 9-10 seats at the end.

I'll pay in Zimbabwe Dollars.

I'm seeing both 10, 8, 7 and 10, 9, 5. Not sure which is true (if either, lol).

MacKay still trailing in Nova.

Can Americans get any coverage minus the live stream on cbc or cspan beggining at 930et?

Beginning at 10pm Eastern. CBC streaming plus I think CSPAN.

BernardKeane Bernard Keane
Cons up 9% in votes in NS. Greens severely down. New total Cons 12 Lib 10 NDP 9 #elxn41 #tweettheresults

Peter McKay leading again in Central Nova. New totals Lib 11 Con 9 NDP 8

What seats are the NDP picking up now?  If MacKay is ahead I presume it is Dartmouth-Cole Harbour, Halifax West, and South Shore-St. Margaret's.

From CBC: Atlantic Canada results (not final). Lib 10, NDP 8, CON 7

NDP's Chisholm leading Liberal Savage in Dartmouth

Far more nerve-racking than our election nights....lol.

NDP is supposedly leading in Dartmouth-Cole Harbour, per Twitter twatter.  Avalon may be the only Newfoundland riding not called.

Found tweets specifically saying NDP is ahead in Dartmouth and South Shore.

edit- halifax west, too.

Thanks for updates everyone. :) Hope NDP comes up ahead in Central Nova! But seems less and less likely.

ndp +4 seats in atlantic, lib -5, cons +1

edit: Red 12 Blue 13 Orange 7

Interesting comparing this to my projections

NFLD - Liberal: 4 (Foote, Simms, Byrne, Russell) - NDP: 2 (Harris, Cleary)

Conservatives pulling ahead of the NDP in Central Nova and South Shore.

Con 12, Liberal 12, NDP 8

Twitterverse claims Mackay won Central Nova (CON hold).

Confirmed: Peter Mackay wins Central Nova. Total Con 13, Lib 12, NDP

:(

Conservatives winning in South Shore - St. Margaret's? (http://twitter.com/#!/navdhanda/status/65206592857047040)

Guy has 13 CON, 12 LIB, 7 NDP

No real surprise here.  He got 46% last time around and the Tories have the best voter retention so even though I suspect much of the Liberal and Green support went to the Tories, that still wouldn't be enough.  What new seats are the Tories picking up?

Possible.  This is a very rural riding and it really depends on location.  Gerald Keddy also tends to win big in the small communities while Gordon Earle I think won most of the large communities last time around.

9.8% swing to the NDP in NB.

cons +2 seat in atlantic, but down in % popular of vote #elxn41 #tweettheresults
47 seconds ago

I think that guy is possibly a hack....

Sad.

South Shore swung heavily to the NDP in the provincial election, but they're swinging away now. They're upset about the prov govt's cancellation of the Yarmouth Ferry among other things.

Do you mean, the Canadian emailing him is a hack? :P

From the Usenet rumor mill (http://groups.google.com/group/can.general/browse_thread/thread/474a5cb418323e18#):
Cops seek suspect after alleged theft of ballot box in Nova Scotia

megan leslie elected in hfx

Andrews (Lib) up by ~ 250. Avalon. #elxn41
1 minute ago

Considering the Daxter government's economic shock therapy, I should have known Nova Soctia wouldn't lean so heavily NDP this time.

He just tweeted that he's received further confirmation of this result.

Is there any chance of a Tory majority still?

Depends on how many seats they pick up in Ontario and if they can keep their losses to a minimum in Quebec and British Columbia.  Also if they come within a few seats, they can probably bribe a few opposition members to cross the floor

These results are looking good for the Tories...

"OurVoteCanada projects NDP minority government"....

Update: 12 con 12 lib 7 ndp in atlantic. #tweettheresults

Some outfit called "OurVote Canada" is projecting an NDP minority government based on results that are out so far...

edit- beaten to it!

Not really.  When you consider the Liberal collapse, it would make sense they would pick up ridings they came in second even if their vote didn't increase.  Could be vote splitting, which would be good news for them in Ontario, not so much BC.

In Halifax West, NDP candidate Gregor Ash leading LIB Geoff Regan "by 600"

Who is OurVoteCanada?

Yeah, Dexter's not as popular as he used to be. That's why I predicted no NDP gains there.

If Atlantic Canada was its own country, we would have a minority government.  Otherwise either Tory or Liberal, but a Liberal+NDP coalition would work.  Off course Atlantic Canada is the least Tory friendly area of English Canada, so maybe a good sign.  We shall see.

reminder of my projection:
()

http://groups.google.com/group/can.general/topics

From Usenet, again:

Confirmed: Peter Mackay wins Central Nova.

Total Con 13, Lib 12, NDP 7

From CBC:

Atlantic Canada results (not final). Lib 10, NDP 8, CON 7

NFLD
- Liberal: 4 (Foote, Simms, Byrne, Russell)
- NDP: 2 (Harris, Cleary)

Atlantic Vote Change: Liberal & Greens down ~ 4 pts each. Cons & NDP up ~4 pts. #elxn41 #tweettheresults

LIB Scott Andrews's lead in Avalon is widening?

Dartmouth-Cole Harbour has been called for the NDP (http://twitter.com/#!/navdhanda/status/65211318394826753)

woohoo!

http://twitter.com/#!/navdhanda

This guy has just reposted all the elected candidates so far; still 13 C, 12 L, 7 N. Look if you're interested in specific seats.

:D

:)

How much did the Conservatives go up in Newfoundland & Labrador?  Or was this throughout Atlantic Canada?

Also, net change so far.

+2 Con, +3 NDP, -5 Lib

Nova Scotia popular vote so far: Con 37 NDP 31.1 Lib 27.1

I am guessing the provincial NDP's unpopularity is hurting them here.  Also rural results tend to come in faster than urban so those numbers may tighten up.  Certainly if this swing occurred nationally, we would have a Tory majority.

Can someone give a list of the known seat flips?

Tracking seat changes so far. Certain projections are bolded:

St. John's South – Mount Pearl: LIB -> NDP
Dartmouth – Cole Harbour: LIB -> NDP
Halifax West: LIB -> NDP

Think the two CON gains are in New Brunswick, but unconfirmed.

Voter turn out up 34% compared to 2008; normally bad news for incumbent #elxn41

Not always as maybe people are tired of minority governments.

What's it at now?

Avalon apparently reelects the Liberals. Bad news for CPC IF true.

In Kings - Hantis, PC-turned-Liberal Scott Brison is leading "by 300 votes"

Quoting from the Pundit's Guide:

Halifax West before South Shore? Wow.

When black-out is lifted we will learn that the Liberals in fact sweeped Atlantic Canada :P

Vote share in AC: Con 36 - NDP 30 - L 30 - G 3 #elxn41 #tweettheresults

If the NDP and Tories are rising but the Liberals sinking that would make sense as the Blue Liberals would go Tory and Progressive Liberals go NDP.  Also the NDP has a better GOTV in Halifax than Rural Nova Scotia.

First shocker? (http://groups.google.com/group/can.general/browse_thread/thread/470b829fc9435bbc)

Joke post. Polls not closed.

Could happen.  Of the four leaders, he is the most likely to lose his own seat, but Ignatieff could also lose his own.

The polls aren't closed in Quebec; disregard Twitter frauds.

But that must mean Duceppe was beaten so badly we can predict it now!

It's spreading along the twitterverse, so might as well get it done with.

Since they picked up nothing in Newfoundland & Labrador.  What are the other two seats elsewhere in Atlantic Canada they are ahead in?  It would have to be in PEI or New Brunswick.

Polls close in Ontario/Quebec in 15 minutes.

Most likely New Brunswick.

Close at 9:30

Madawaska-Restigouche in NB is one.


TWITTER Y U LIE

"Supposedly Duceppe loses to NPD in Laurier-Ste Marie."

Could be PEI.  It would probably be Madawaska-Restigouche, Moncton-Riverview-Dieppe, or Malpeque.  It would be all three if the Tories are trailing in South Shore-St. Margaret's which I believe they are not.

See?

"Andrews [LIB] confirmed in Avalon, thus finishing off Newfoundland." (http://groups.google.com/group/can.general/browse_thread/thread/864c98e039fa8eee#)

CON 14 LIB 12 NDP 7


Already confirmed as fraud on the last page.

They could be closed on the Isles du Madeleine - but I've heard no early results from there.

That would be NDP or Bloc Quebecois.

I don't get it. I can get any pay-per-view for free on the internet but finding Canadian election results is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. ???

Is there anywhere that has a map of the results?

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canadavotes2011/

Yeah... that one wasn't working so I was looking for another, but I got it up now.

How about just list the seats that have flipped.  That would make it easy.  I know the NDP picked up St. John's South-Mount Pearl and Dartmouth-Cole Harbour and are leading in Halifax West.  The Tories are leading in Madawaska-Restigouche and one other riding they didn't win last time around.

http://www.ridingbyriding.ca/ everyone must listen it's just that awesome.

New Seat Total: Con 13, Lib 12, NDP 7, BQ 1 (Quebec has one riding in AST) #elxn41 #tweettheresults

Ridings to watch in Quebec:

All of them.


Ridings to watch in Ontario:

Kenora, where if the orange wave strikes can end the Conservative pursuit for a majority.

Simcoe-Grey for the duel between local MP Helena Guergis, cast out of Harper's caucus, and the Tories' own candidate.

The Brampton trio (West, Springdale, Bramalea-Gore-Malton) to witness Harper's success at gaining the ethnic vote (Indians in particular)

Trinity-Spadina, Parkdale-High Park and Beaches-East York, where the NDP or the Liberals can gain it all in Toronto's left coast.

Essex, Brant, and Kitchener-Centre, where the strength of the NDP candidates may let them beat the odds.

Oshawa is a good possibility.  Essex a long shot but possible.  Not Brant as they have the formal Liberal candidate and I suspect the Tories will hold the 43% they got last time around.  Essex and Oshawa only if hte Liberal vote collapses which seems more likely in Oshawa than Essex

Scott Brison re-elected. May be true, who knows.

So the last ridings close 4:30 CET?

How much tactical voting do you guys think there will be in the GTA?

Nfld is an unique case since their time zone is half an hour ahead.

Pacific ridings close at 7 = 4:00 CET.

Hard for me to do the math.  10 Eastern, which is 3 London Time and 4 Central European Time, I think.

Where are you getting these results from?  Are you on location?

Inks stop posting for a while, no, we can't see any real results. Yes, it's stupid. Wait

LOL, apparently the CBC just accidentally broadcast Atlantic results in Toronto for several minutes.

edit- it was CBC Newsworld, and not just Toronto but all of Canada, for six minutes.

Better question... rather than specific time zones, in how many minutes/hours will we start to see confirmed results?

On that same newsgroup another poster is claiming Break The Ban is a fraud.

49 minutes.

Cheers mate!

Several tweeters who saw this confirmed that the seat count was indeed 13 Conservative, 12 Liberal, 7 NDP, and 1 Bloc.

Can you confirm which ridings have been called and which flipped

Conservative gains are Madawaska-Restigouche and one of the PEI seats (don't know which one).

It would probably be Malpeque.  Did the Liberals hold Moncton-Riverview-Dieppe

"Jfd888" on Twitter said that "Exit polls show NDP gains in the Toronto suburbs failed to materialize. Big CON Margins."

Saw it on CBC. The account is now terminated.

Uh... were big CON margins in the Toronto suburbs ever in doubt?

PEI stands at Liberal 3, Conservative 1 and New Brunswick Liberal 1, Conservative 9 #tweettheresults

Do we even have exit polls?

I don't think so.  We did during the Quebec referendum, the last time around.

Very suspicious claim - pretty sure exit polls are illegal in Canada.

Bloc apparently is trailing in their Atlantic zone riding.

So Liberals held Malpeque? Or did they gain Egmont and lose Malpeque? And did Yvon Godin seriously lose? This looks dubious.

Nevermind about the PEI. Saw "3 LIB 1 CON" and forgot the Conservatives already had a seat there. So no change on PEI.

total results so far:

Newfoundland: Liberal 5, NDP 2
Nova Scotia: Liberal 3, Conservatives 3, NDP 4 (unconfirmed, working from numbers they put up on the screen very briefly)
PEI: Liberal 3, Conservative 1
NB: Liberal 1, Conservative 9, NDP 0

Status quo on PEI.  Tories held Egmont.  Liberals won the other 3 ridings.

Didn't the NDP have a seat in NB?

Godin is losing? WHAT?

Yeah, I have a hard time believing that. NDP won Acadie in NB with nearly 60% last time.

Acadie—Bathurst.  Would be a shock if NDP were losing there.

Godin WTF??

There is no way he will lose.  Probably a typo.  I am guessing Beausejour, Dominic Leblanc was the only Liberal in New Brunswick?

CBC coverage should begin momentarily: http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/

Since the results will be available.  I will sign off now.

They can't put anything online until 10:00 EST because of BC

Will it? I thought it was 30 more minutes.

Results won't be shown, but talking heads will talk.

CBC is showing results.  14 Con, 11 Lib, 8 NDP

He's from Ontario. He can see the results on local tv since the polls are closed there.

Er, okay, now apparently the website isn't streaming until 10pm. Liars.

Ah no rite >:(

It briefly showed 9:30 for me as well. So you're not imagining things. :P

Vote percentage update: CON 37.5% NDP 29.9% LIB 29.3% GRN 2.9%
via Twitter

You might be able to get CBC on TV... I'm not sure if you've got it in cable at MSU that carries CBC, but we do in Mt. Pleasant.

Inks, can you confirm Godin is indeed safe?

What are the eight seats? The two St Johns ridings, Dartmouth, the two Halifax ridings, Sackville, Acadie-Bathurst, presuming the world hasn't been turned upside down. What's the eighth riding?

NDP is leading in Gaspésie--Îles-de-la-Madeleine.

By 455 votes.

Eh, I don't have a TV set up in my room.  Lemme check if there's one in the common room that's open.

The Atlantic Quebec one?

Somewhere Duceppe is crying.

Blue +3
Orange +3
Red -6

It's very close, though, a 455 vote lead.  And I think the part of the riding on the Gaspe peninsula closed at 9:30 - but I'm not certain about that.

65/235 is in, assuming my non-existent French is correct.

On the West Coast, getting CBC's results.

CON 18, LIB 12, NDP 9

Confirmed seats:
Valcourt (CON)
Gordon (Con)
Williamson (Con)
Weston (Con)
Allen (Con)

The NDP polled 7% there in 2008,...

lol, if the BQ is losing that seat...

CBC now listing the total at 21 CON, 17 LIB, 10 NDP

Where are you finding the listing? Whenever I go to their website, the results map is on zero still.

He's watching it on cable TV.

NEW BRUNSWICK POPULAR VOTE: 43.9 CON, 30.5 NDP, 21.8 LIB.

This is CBC TV.  The joys of living in a border state! ;D

Does this mean there is no NDP wave (in Ontario ;)) or are these just seats that weren't going to change hands any time soon?

Way too early to tell.  Polls just closed in Ontario 14 minutes ago.  Some polls haven't even started counting.

And CBC has just cut off. Local news channels list the end of polling in 15 minutes.

Godspeed, you Easterners!

Twitter tells me:

Tories: 26
Liberals: 20
NDP: 16
Bloc: 2

CBC reporting the Liberals took a big hit in Atlantic, but they've stopped broadcasting results from there and are reporting results from Quebec as they come in.

Twitter tells me that CTV says the Conservatives will win the election.  

Whether that means majority or minority - I don't know, nor does CTV, apparently.

CON 37
NDP 21
LIB 20
BQ 3

CON 49
NDP 25
LIB 24
BQ 3

The Quebec wave may be larger than we have all predicted. Have you seen any LIB -> CON gains yet?

I don't trust CTV, by the way - thinks it's a Conservative shill.

CTV calls the official opposition for the NDP

CTV supposedly says NDP poised to be official opposition, per Twitter.

:D

So last minute swing to the Tories?

Nine more minutes!

This is CBC, not CTV.

CON 70
NDP 29
LIB 26
BQ 4

If the NDP and the Liberals form a coalition, does that mean that the title 'official Opposition' goes to the Conservatives, or does it paradoxically remain with the NDP?

Via Twitter:

CTV projecting 130-157 seats for Cons, 69-97 NDP, 47-69 Lib #tweettheresults #elxn41

Conservatives on track for a majority ? :(

Projecting first and second place I can understand, but I wish at least that we had networks that vaguely understood the parliamentary system.

These Tories seat counts are getting scary. Especially because the Prairies are still out...

Judging from the Atlantic results I saw, current popular vote %s are similar to the last Nanos poll:

37.1 CON, 31.6 NDP, 20.5 LIB, 5.7 BQ, 3.8 GRN

I'd assume that would go to the Conservatives.

If the NDP makes enough gains from BQ, I could see it happening, but if BQ maintains enough seats, I don't think they'd go along with a coaltion, and we'll see a minority government with the Conservatives again.

Of course, there's the 3rd option of the NDP and the Libs cancelling each other out too much and the Conservatives gaining a majority.

Not necessarily.  The Prairies closed at the same time as most of Ontario and Quebec.  Only BC and Yukon are still open (and perhaps part of a riding in Alberta).

Canada owes the world another minority (preferrably followed by an NDP minority). What should we do for fun if the Tories win this election outright?

Also, 5 more minutes!

BQ just dropped to 2... I'm not sure what CBC is counting.  I assumed these were seats that were called, not as they go.

BQ back up to 3...now 4.  Perhaps it was a typo?  Does anybody know how CBC does this?

Hopefully at least it looks like the Bloc will be wiped out

Via Twitter:

CTV is declaring a Conservative win 44-23-21-3

Vote percentages, I assume?

Perhaps they have a computer that counts all ridings where a party leads as "going" to that party?

Con 95 Lib 31 NDP 44 BQ 4

Conservative numbers getting scary high :(

That'd be nasty.

Reported leads in ridings - even if only one poll is reporting.

If the Bloc is wiped out and they don't get a majority, that'll most likely mean a coalition for the Libs and NDP.

Conservative majority, ~170 seats.

That would mean the most accurate pollster was COMPAS?

CBC go!!!

CBC is saying Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine looks like it could go to the NDP and they have a lot of polls reporting from the riding so far.

CBC website is up!

The NDP surge looks like it gave Ontario to the Conservatives..

Ugh.

This is looking like a Conservative Majority. Gross.

No feed though?

Elections Canada's website, Elections.ca is up, too... and very sloooooow.

Uh, it looks like most ridings have one or two precincts (or whatever wacky name the Canadians call them) in so far. Might want to let some more votes get counted before you panic.

This may be a stupid question and I may be really dumb... does the CBC website show what party the incumbent is in each riding?  I don't see it.

No way Iggie survives this to stay on as leader.

BQ wipeout

CBC TV went back up.

Currently CON 38.9, NDP 29.8, LIB 27.8, GRN and others insignificant.


He may not even try. Etobicoke-Lakeshore has a Conservative leading.

Gaspésie--Îles-de-la-Madeleine is 34.4%-31.3% NDP over Bloc, with 125/235 reporting.

Conservatives are +22 so far.  If this holds up, they'll have a majority by far.

They don't show it. Rather annoying.

At this point, he could lose his seat.

Labrador???

Early days yet, but Ignatieff leads by one vote.

That was always a given

CBC QUEBEC POPULAR VOTE RESULTS:

NDP 38.0, BQ 24.1, CON 20.3, LIB ~13?

MANITOBA:

CON 51.3, NDP 29 LIB 15.2

NDP at 46 seats in Quebec

Well then, for anybody who might need assistance (I'll admit that's me too), this is a site that might be easy to use: http://predictor.hillandknowlton.ca/predictor/

or Wikipedia.

LOL the lady who went on Vacation and cant speak French is winning.

CBC says Joe Volpe's in trouble.

The extra Atlantic CON seat is Labrador!

Ignatieff is now trailing, although there are only 10/279 polls in.

CBC saying Conservative majority is likely...

So far, all cabinet ministers with declared victories in their ridings have been elected.  Although there are some who are trailing.

Dion vs Iggie, worse leader?

Tough.

CTV DECLARES NDP OFFICIAL OPPOSITION

BQ is dead.

CBC now says the same thing.

This is insanity.

CBC is claiming NDP will be the Official Opposition behind the Conservatives.  I guess that means basically that they're assuming a Conservative majority with no chance of a coalition.

NDP ahead in 2 Scarborough seats

NDP supporters cheering... until a Tory majority is called in an hour or two. :(

Duceppe is losing his seat BADLY

Trudeau in third place in Papineau.

Early days in a highly polarised seat... won't comment again on that seat until eventually called.

It won't be two hours till the Conservative Majority is called :(

With that said, now that NDP is official opposition they can blame the Liberals.

Still think the Liberals will be torn apart after the election.

Tory majority imminent. :(

The swing to the Conservatives in Labrador is pretty crazy.  That's one that can't even really be blamed on the NDP.

CBC results for actual elected seats:
CON 66
NDP 17
LIB 12

CTV - Harper won his riding, Calgary Southeast.  Duh.

Just 35ish Liberal MPs? 'Natural Party of Government',..

Look at CBC's GTA map!

The Liberals have been devoured. There are ~7 Rob Ford ridings going to the Conservatives. The Coast is going to the NDP. The sheer abnormality of this would be why a Tory majority is too early.

Interesting polls coming in in Saskatoon—Wanuskewin now have the NDP leading by about a point.  I'm not sure if it'll keep up, but a decent swing from 2008.

The 2 ridings where BQ leads in Southern Quebec are seeing NDP numbers awfully close to the BQ numbers.  BQ may not even end the night with 4 MPs.

Big swing towards the Tories in Ontario. Two Ottawa ridings have switched. Guergis is decimated. GTA is in ruins. However, in the midst of all this, Kingston and the Islands has a narrow Liberal lead.

Ignatieff and Duceppe are falling too much behind.

It seems like it's 1993 in reverse for the Grits and the BQ.

NDP over 100!!!

BQ completely wiped in Montreal at the moment.

Bloc is leading in only 3 ridings, despite having 23.4% of the vote in Quebec... Gotta love FPTP.

NDP has now even taken over the lead in Richmond-Arthabaska.  Apparently I should've been more generous in how many seats BQ would lose.

Tories 3 seats from a majority...

Saskatchewan results are hidious.

One seat away.

Holy F**K,

What has just happened in Canada over the past couple of weeks in order to lead the historically dominant Liberal Party to this state.  mean many areas of Greater Toronto that were super strong Liberal seats in the last election appear to be falling to the Tories and the NDP has established a clean sweep in Quebec!

Someone will project a Tory majority in the next few minutes. I would wait until BC results are out, though.

That said, the Ontario sweep may be too hard to gain back. I hope the GTA is an anomaly.

Is there a movement to push for AV voting in Canada like the UK is trying (although it'll fail there)?

The Tories will hit 155 any second now.  They're at 154 now.  Now down to 152.  This is interesting, even though they'll probably end up with one sixty something seats.

Bob Rae win Toronto Centre - LIB hold.  Your next Liberal leader - perhaps.

Iggy is trailing in Etobicoke-Lakeshore, 39-35.

Looks like all our predictions are wrong.

The Liberals have collapsed in British Columbia...

The NDP is now leading in Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River with 50/150 polls reporting.

Edmonton is very sad as well.

Iggy's down to a 41-34 deficit. Duceppe is down by 14, but there's not many votes in yet.

Conservatives were briefly at 155 on the CTV tally.  Down to 154, now.

I debated giving the Conservatives a stronger lead, thinking the NDP might cancel out some liberal votes.  But I never thought BQ would take such a huge hit.

Cannon defeated in Pontiac (CON loss).

Most ridings in BC only have one poll released. The Ontario gains are dependent on a very low number of polls - 20 out of 200.

The Liberals have collapsed, but it's across the nation.

I had the NDP at 106. Screwed everything else up though.

The NDP should win most of the BC seats not yet reporting, no? Harper's majority might be thight.

Ajax-Pickering is a CON pickup.

Bloc lady on CBC.

Spin lady, spin!

She says they're not going anywhere... Haha

CON at 158 on CTV ticker.  NDP 106.  LIB 30.  BLOC 3.

I do feel sorry for Gilles Duceppe.  I've always liked him personally.

Worst case scenario for BQ now is... 2 seats. Wow.

So are these numbers with all the votes in for the riding or is it not official yet?

Dang... Elizabeth May is pissed as hell.

Tories above 160 now... so gross.

Early night I guess.

Ahuntsic seems like it's going to the NDP any moment.
All Independents are gone.
Elizabeth May looks determined, but she's going to get slaughtered.
Although the Tories are at 160+ now, this is predicate on the NDP not gaining in BC. If that surge happens you're going to see the Conservatives beneath 155.

Leading and elected.

Ken Dryden defeated - CON Pickup from LIB.

So what makes Kenora so different from all the rural NDP provinces surrounding it?

GLOBAL  TV - Tory Majority

Among the Conservative gains:

NDP -> CON in Sault Ste. Marie;
LIB -> CON in Winnipeg South Centre;
LIB -> CON Yukon!

()
I was closer than anyone

ME

I WAS!!!

words can not express how happy I am right now.

So now the Liberal Party is gone and Stephen Harper has a majority all because of a self-inflicted wound. Way to go Michael Ignatieff. You are the biggest loser in Canadian political history.

CTV - Tory Majority

CTV- Conservative Majority

Yeah, this one ended up being more boring than the British election.  I figured if anything, there might be more Liberal and NDP votes that could lead to a potential coalition if they eroded the Bloc.  This one was about as boring as the 2008 elections for the U.S.

At least with his seat lost he'll have no excuse not to move back to the United States ASAP.

What was yours?

Twenty seats lower for the Tories than actual results, like most.

At this point, we have no one to blame but Ontario. I'm this close to thinking that the rain in the GTA today led to a Conservative majority.

Elizabeth May at 50% with one poll in

May leading.

In other news, Elizabeth May is leading with the first poll reporting now.

CBC calls for majority.

Kill me, kill me

EDIT: Regarding the Tory majority, of course.

CBC - Majoirity Tory

Time to repeal gay marriage.

CBC now projecting Conservative majority!

GAME OVER

The Liberal collapse is so pitiful.

Vote percentages:
Con.  40.0%
N.D.P. 30.9%
Lib. 20.1%
B.Q. 4.9%
Other 4.1%
   

So, after Bloq Quebecois, whither Quebecan nationalism?

It could see a resurgence in 2015 (or later).

Three of the four ridings the Bloc is winning are within 1-2% now. They could end up with only one seat.

A majority would be made without anything from Quebec. I'm seeing a more SDP scenario in Quebec's future, starting with a PQ victory.

No, there is enough moderates in the party.

Earl, you should be happy, Ruth Ellen Brosseau won.

The Bloc collapse is even more spectacular.  (I wouldn't use the word pitiful to describe the fall of the separatists).

In other news, the Ottawa waitress who went to Vegas won her riding.

I feel sorry for Canada.

This next election is for October 2015.
At the same time provinical elections are slated for Manitoba, Ontario, Sask, PEI, Newfoundland, and Yukon (I believe)

As a leftist, the demise of the Liberals and Bloc should be good news.

Welcome to Harperland.

The only good thing that can come from this is a united left come 2015.

Sault Ste. Marie is still a dogfight.

Disgusting.

So why did the Liberals not get wiped out in the Maritimes?

In the long-run, hopefully. In the short-term, as a leftist, I'm worried about what unrestricted Tory government will do to the Canadian social safety net.

As a voter from BC - where the NDP has only won government 3 times out of 22 elections - I am less cheery.

The Bloc has always been ancillary to the Quebec separatist movement. The PQ took power for the first time in Quebec well before the Bloc was a glimmer in anyone's eye. The Quebec nationalists will go back to focusing on provincial politics as they did the in the 1970s and 80s.

So does anyone expect the Liberals to fold into the NDP?

Bob Rae is now speaking.  He's leading, but it looks like he'll be one of the few Liberal MPs left in Ontario.

That vote of no confidence that brought down the government apparently backfired big-time.

Liberals below 20% now, while the NDP are inching up and the Tories are about to fall below 40%.

Two of the three Bloc seats have leads of 0.4% and 0.65%. It's possible that by the end of tonight the BQ could be tied with the Greens for number of seats held!

TRA-dition!

Vancouver Centre is the last riding to report.

The Atlantic provinces always seem to trail trends.  They were among last to have a semi-functioning Progressive Conservative party, too.

Both Jean-Pierre Blackburn and Lawrence Cannon lost their seats, so Harper's lost 2 cabinet members so far, with 3 more in trouble potentially.

Bloc leading only in two seats. Oh mon dieu!

Assuming all things hold equal in Ontario, the seat counts for that province are:

CON: 73 (+21)
NDP: 22 (+5)
LIB: 11 (-26)

Ahuntsic has went from Bloc to the NDP. The Bloc is shut out in Montreal.

And in one of those seats they're only 0.81% above the NDP with 150 out of 230 precincts left to report.

I just saw them lose their third.  I never expected such a hit for them.

The CBC's spin of the election is really annoying...

Looks like they could lose Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord as well, leaving them with one reasonably safe one.

This, actually, seems like an emergence of a two-party system :)) Bloc annihilated, Grits screwed, so, what's left is Con vs Lab :)))

The only consolation for "progressives" today is that the Tories' Atlantic and Ontario caucus certainly outnumbers those from the West. The centre of political gravity has shifted once again to the East.
Then again, this is the province that gave Mike Harris to the world...

Latest: Michael Ignatieff now speaking, congratulating Jack Layton and Stephen Harper.

And it's also the province that took Mike Harris away. A Conservative majority now is unlikely to be a Conservative government in 2015.

Iggy is on now.  Conceding and taking responsibility.  Will he be on the next plane to Boston?

Elizabeth May is up 49-34. Greens looking to be about as relevant as the Bloc in the next Parliament.

NDP is at 32% in Saskatchewan with 0 seats. Liberals are at 9% with 1 seat. FPTP is gross.

BQ is now leading again in Richmond-Arthabaska and Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord

And why would that be?

Gilles Duceppe has been defeated, per the Globe and Mail.

Hey, it'd be a gain of 1.

Ignatieff says that his party is "a descendent of a great Quebecois, Wilfrid Laurier"

It is so poignant, because there are no traces of Laurier left to be found. Almost no Quebec seats, no anti-war perspective, no Canadian autonomy...

Just realized-Liberals are still leading in Winnipeg North!

Guelph and Kingston stay red. That's a bit surprising.

Liberals may drop below 19%. Jeez.

Iggy just told the crowd to express their gratitude for his wife. Uh...

CBC is confirming Jean-Francois Fortin will be elected, giving the BQ their first solid win of the night.

Ignatieff is saying the party will continue "long after we're gone".

Oh my God he's staying on as leader. What a nutcase.

Conservative might picks two seats in Winnipeg.
Winnipeg South Centre and Elmwood

Hilarious, isn't it?

He's making a good case now for the need of a centre party.  He needed to be doing this better months ago, though.

Reading between the lines I think he's accepting that he will quit. After all he lost his seat!

I've been staring at the results on screen so stunned I forgot to say anything here.

I'd seen the polls indicating something like this, but I didn't believe them - I'd figured for the Tories staying at where they were, with the NDP getting no more than 50 (indeed, all three opposition parties splitting the rest fairly evenly). To be blunt, I was very wrong.

I had felt that the Liberals needed a pricking of their egos given their high-and-mighty attitude, and that the last two defeats had not given them that, but this is overdoing it a bit; I never thought I'd feel sorry for them, but I do now.

I'm a conservative (no capital), but I've been disappointed by the Tory government. This is probably the best result from my point of view, as there will be no constant electioneering whenever a contentious bill comes up, but it also means that an NDP government may not be far off. I'm unequivocally and unreservedly stunned tonight, but also a little uneasy. We finally appear to have headed off in the direction the British took ninety years ago, but hopefully we will not go through the kinds of Labour governments they have had.

As I have been so wrong about so many things in this election, I think I had better shut up for the rest of this discussion.

Okay Ignatieff. We get it. Shut up now.

If he spoke like this weeks ago this night would have gone very differently.

How in the world would he stay on as party leader despite not having a seat? Would he make speeches from his front porch or something?

Looking at the results (and knowing from the pre-election polling that Liberal voters prefer the NDP more than 5-1 over the Conservatives), the Conservatives would lose a fair number of seats once the Liberals are out of the picture, and their majority is not very big as-is. Plus, it's hard to see the Conservatives in a majority government being able to resist doing things that will make them deeply unpopular in places like the GTA.

If the party wants him gone, I think he'll leave.  And they should--clearly he wasn't doing things right.

So it looks to me, assuming the polls were correct, right-wing Liberals jumped ship at the last minute and voted Tory. Left-wing Liberals did not.

Typically they would make a junior member resign in a safe seat and have the leader win it in a by-election. Though given what just happened I'm not so sure if anyone will be willing to do that.

Also not so sure there are any safe Liberal seats now...

Going back to BC's ridings:

My riding has, as I predicted, gone massively for the Conservative incumbent. It is interesting that the NDP might claim second place in a city that has never gone to the left.

Vancouver Quadra will be kept by Joyce Murray (LIB). Vancouver South will finally turn blue. Surrey North is finally becoming more and more orange, and NDP is in the lead. Elizabeth May still leads, but with only 10 boxes polled.

Nanaimo-Alberni and Surrey North both seem to be NDP pickups.

In my eyes, the future of the NDP hangs on a knife edge. When I calm down more I'll write an essay about it.

I'm not so sure the Liberals would prefer the NDP to the Tories - in Nova Scotia, anyway, their votes have been sliding more to the Conservatives as all Tory MPs have increased their majorities and Peter Stoffer has had his cut by a rising Tory vote.

At this point with 140/215 polls reporting, it looks like Bloc Québécois is safe in Haute-Gaspésie—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia.

Sure there are, there are a whole two of them in Newfoundland that voted majority-Liberal.

CBC has declared Gilles Duceppe has lost.  If there was any BQ MP I would've wanted to win, it'd have been him... he always seemed like a nice guy to me.

So, will Bob Rae be a potential replacement for Ignatieff is he does resign/gets kicked out?

Is this some sort of trend within the Anglosphere to put exactly one Green member in a legislative body?

Bob Rae is sounding open to an NDP-Liberal merger.

Very.

Duceppe is about to speak.

At this point, it'd be smart for them.  But if the Liberals want to be the "party of the centre" then that's a different story.

So....can Iggy hold on to his seat?

Duceppe is about to speak right now.

When your riding is surrounded by NDP elects, it's hard not to.

Montmorency-Charlevoix, by the way, has swung to the NDP. Bloc is rising in Richmond-Arthabaska.

Breaking News: Liberal Party will change its name to "Bloc Newfoundland".

j/k :)

He's down by 5.6% with 193/279 in, and he's been trailing all night. I'm going to say no.

Lamourex (Libertal) keeps WInnipeg North
9241 votes to 9124. (All polls reported)

It's already been projected - No.  But Stephane Dion and Justin Trudeau won.

The natural governing party of Canada has fallen below 19% of the popular vote.

Dang...CBC makes it seem like Stephen Harper hates Quebec.

CBC hates Stephen Harper, so.... 

Are the Liberals going to tear themselves apart? It looks like it from the pretty different tones of Bob Rae's interview and Ignatieff's speech.

The real problem with the Liberals is that they have no solid base. GTA is gone. Another Vancouver riding is gnawed away. New Brunswick has repudiated ex-Premier Graham's party.

All we have now is a party of individuals. Trudeau, Fry, Rae, McCallum, McGuinty... these powerful personalities will tear the party apart. And they have no affiliation to the party, but instead the party is affiliated to them. They can walk away if convenient.

The feudal nature of the Liberals is still evident. If that's not fixed by the year's end, the Liberals are gone.

You can tell how much harder the BQ was hit by how somber Duceppe sounds in his speech compared to Ignatieff.

Feeling slightly better, logged on. Harper majority is not great, but NDP managing second is. Some remarkable results in Quebec and Toronto. Shame about the Prairies; a paradoxical side-effect of NDP success their at a provincial level.

I suppose the obvious question is 'what now', isn't it?

"The liberals and conservatives who closed the door on Quebec a long time ago were also rejected by Quebecers"

The parade of egos left in the Liberal Party is sort of amusing.

Richmond-Arthabaska looks to be a Bloc hold. 34-33 lead with 230/251 in. So... they'll be getting at least 2 seats.

Duceppe has just resigned.

May is projected the winner in Saanich-Gulf Islands (Green).

He also said, "others will follow until Quebec becomes a country. ... Quebec needs to become a free country."

Planning for the PQ leadership still, I see. Should have taken it in 2007 when he could.

Look at those swings in the affluent Toronto suburbs...

Chantal Hébert says: "This is the worst result for the sovereigntists... there is no money, no official status for the party... Mr. Harper is unpopular, but over [Duceppe's leadership] sovereignity has never gone up."

The Bloc has outlived its purpose, even that of getting Quebec pork. Sovereignism as a federal movement is over.

Bloc has slipped into the lead in Bas-Richelieu with only a few polls left. Sloooooow counting in Quebec.

Liberals may have gone the way of Fianna Fail - two of the most powerful parties in history getting record-low results within nine weeks.

Heh, good for May.

Oh, Justin Trudeau is speaking. Hah.

Also Peter Mansbridge is my favorite journalist and he is a national treasure and you Canadians should never let him go.

Well, that's still a huge step down for him.

Leading a party that might actually be able to take power on the provincial level is certainly a step above leading a joke grouping of 2 or 3 people.

Surely one can complain about "infantile leftism" dominating this election...


As bad as this seems, it's not THAT bad. Fianna Foil in a FPTP system would have seats numbering in the single digits. The Liberals still have their personalities, and they have not gone past a point of no return. Their stabilization or their demise will just be quicker than most.

Well, I mean step down from where he was before tonight.  After tonight, at least until at least 2015, the BQ is essentially dead.

No, it's not. The PQ has always been more important than the BQ, and he would have the opportunity to form a government as PQ leader. Even before this defeat, I think being PQ leader was a bigger position than being BQ leader (but in 2007 Duceppe didn't want a slugfest with Marois that would have exposed the schisms between the social-democratic and conservative wings of the PQ). I think this defeat has tainted him too much, though.

(Curious what the NDP breakthrough will do for the QS's polling, if anything.)

Why is the Green doing so well in the Yukon?

Edit: Bloc takes Richmond-Arthabaska. Looks like they'll win Bas-Richelieu-etc. as well. Ahuntsic is the only other seat that they have a good shot at winning.

Elizabeth May now speaking.

"Today we proved that Canadians want change in politics."  Not really... you didn't.  The NDP did.

While they won their first seat in an election, they acutally lost 3% of the vote nationwide.  I'm sorry, but I don't see what the big deal is here.  Sure, you won a seat, but come on, it's only one seat.

Seems like she wrote her speech without consideration of a Conservative majority.
(If the Tories won, surely she would have lost?)

I was referring more to their share of the vote - below 20% for the first time. Liberals are more likely to recover but both are in trouble.

I'm not sure how you drew 'infantile leftism' from what I said, especially considering that I am not in any way a left-winger. Infantile, maybe . . .

You really think it was written?

One wonders whether anyone has thought of starting a serious provincial NDP. Surely Mulcair could beat the dismal pair of Charest and Marois...

The seat is symbolically important for the Greens. They've struggled to be recognized as a real party without a seat (the debates controversy in 2008, for example); May winning in Saanich will change that.

I doubt the Greens will gain more seats in 2015, except maybe Vancouver Centre if they're really lucky, and they might end up merged into the NDP before then, but it's still a significant moment for the Greens, just overshadowed by other significant moments.

The Conservatives are now 2 MPs away from having a solid win declared by the CBC.

Crap, sorry; that was not directed at you at all! I was making that reference with respect to May's victory and the NDP winning on a hope and a prayer.

Fianna Fail's percentage '11 is lower than Liberal '11, but Fianna Fail's drop was due to the collapse of an entire political order. I firmly believe the death of the Liberal party will not be decided by the electorate, but by themselves.

 
You think she's good enough an orator to make it up as she went?

May-bashing is the only way to express my anger, I suppose.

He would have a bit more credibility if he were a member of the NDP, wouldn't he?

CBC has now announced Ignatieff has lost.

The BQ is now up to 2 MPs with Haute-Gaspésie—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia and Richmond-Arthabaska being officially declared by the CBC.

I've often wished that we would announce our results in Canada the same way Britain does it - it would have been especially delicious tonight to see the first Quebec & Toronto results be read out. The color would have drained from Bloc & Liberal supporters' faces in about half a second.

As for the suggestion about re-starting a provincial NDP in Quebec, I think that would be a good idea (and a lot of people may now think so too): Quebeckers seem to embrace leftism more than separatism, but unfortunately they must vote for both at once in the form of the PQ. Providing just the socialism might be just the thing that they would go for. It's at least worth a shot - I live in Nova Scotia and imagining what might happen to the Maritimes if Quebec were to go horrifies me.

There already is a provincial NDP. The QS. (Well, sort of. The QS is actually descended from the old provincial NDP. The Quebec NDP disaffiliated with the federal NDP in the early 1990s because they wanted to be sovereigntist, then later merged with some other small lefty outfits to form the UFP, which then merged with Option Citoyenne in 2007 to create QS.)

Quebec provincial politics is too starkly split along separatist-unionist lines that I can't see the NDP wanting to wade into the mire. Maybe. No way Mulcair would lead it, though; he's now the heir apparent to Jack Layton and hence a contender for Prime Minister.

Jack Layton will be speaking soon.

There would be the old question of whether that party would be federalist or sovereigntist. Leave Quebec City to the Parti Québécois. The NDP can have Ottawa.

Ah, I see that the NDP gained (the successor to) David Lewis's old seat. :)

Crap, sorry; that was not directed at you at all! I was making that reference with respect to May's victory and the NDP winning on a hope and a prayer.

[/quote]

Of course you're right - I should have realized what you meant.

I agree, unbiased though I'm not: since the election of Bush, I've found the Canadian left to be off-puttingly strident and self-righteous. At the start of the 2004 campaign (before I was old enough to vote), I supported Martin & his Liberals; by the end of it, I was solidly Tory. The constant nattering about hidden agendas and the evil Americans soured me on them, and their even louder talk about such things since then has made the break complete.

Tories officially have 155 seats elected now.

Finally back in the fold after all these years. Wonderful.

CBC now has the Tories at 155 solid victories!

So, isn't it a bit odd that Layton and Chow are both MPs?  Clearly they can't have the same "home address" if they're both MPs.

And set to win 10 to 15 more.  

It's not obvious that this structure should be seen as more fixed than the Bloc was, given how the ADQ did and the unpopularity of the two leaders. But I realize it's not likely - just speculating here. And I agree that Mulcair will in fact stay federal.

As Layton makes his speech, Nipissing-Timiskaming switches, LIB -> CON.

Also, Layton says "Tonight Canadians voted for better healthcare", but quickly corrects himself: "Public healthcare!"

Canadians pronounce Ottawa weird. Aaw-tow-waah

Layton: "Tonight Canadians voted to improve healthcare--public healthcare. ... and to lift every senior out of poverty."

They live in Trinity-Spadina. And Ignatieff lives in Toronto Centre, and Rae lives in Parkdale-High Park. You don't even have to pretend to have an address in the riding in Toronto, no-one cares about this.

Canada doesn't require one to live in a seat to run for it. I'm not sure if they're even required to live in the province.

Layton: "You voted to end the same old debates and political games."

Ahh, I didn't realize that.  I'd still think it'd be hard to get elected if you don't live there.  Surely that must get brought up in the campaigns?

Some guy on Twitter made me laugh: "Happy Jack's speech reminds me of the first time I made it to third base. #elxn41 #cdnpoli"

Layton congratulated Harper for his victory, is booed.

He responds: "It's a significant victory."

Scarborough-Rouge River everyone. Scarborough-Rouge River.

NDP audience cheer Ignatieff, Duceppe and May (the loudest) and boo Harper.

http://threehundredeight.blogspot.com/

^^^ was off by more than 20 seats for every party

Stockwell Day notably represented a British Columbia riding.

I don't think anybody did well with their predictions.  I almost went heavy with the Conservative gains, but figured I'd just get mocked as a hack... should've done it! lol

Not very Rouge.  More like Orange.

I does in more provincial areas, but not usually in the cities, at least assuming that you live somewhere in the city. (All of the Toronto MPs who play musical chairs still live Toronto; someone could get elected for a seat anywhere in Montreal provided they live somewhere in Montreal, etc.)

"You can count on us to assure that Parliament is addressing the needs of new Canadians."

No, not a chance. If Layton decided to run in the Yukon it would be a different story, but within Toronto no-one cares about this.

The political culture about this issue is different in Canada - often parties will try to find a safe seat for "star" candidates even if they live elsewhere, and there's a tradition of the leader of a party running in a safe seat when they lose even if it's nowhere near their home. In addition to Day as Xahar mentioned, Tommy Douglas ran in a by-election in Burnaby BC immediately after losing in Regina.

When Jean Chrétien came back to lead the Liberals after some time in the private sector and his seat was taken, the Liberal member for Beauséjour NB resigned to let Chrétien in, and they elected him even though it was revealed that he had advised during the 1980 referendum that: "if Quebec separates, it will become an armpit, like New Brunswick". :P

Us left wingers are so out of touch with reality*!

Every election is a learning experience, though. Rooting for the NDP this time was certainly less misguided than supporting Obama and Clegg.

*I predicted 100 NDP seats, though. Do I get partial points?

Layton's got good appeal to the young Canadians.

Lawrence Joseph closed very strongly in the late polls in Desnethe, I notice. Not quite enough, but at the next election...

Wow. I said it before, and I'll say it again. I now hate Saskatchewan. It seems it was harder for the NDP to gain Tory seats than Liberal and BQ seats.

Mourani now in the lead in Ahuntsic again. Anyone have any theories as to why she was able to hold on to her vote when every other Bloquiste in Montreal saw their supporters abandon them in droves? Mourani always struck me as a weak candidate when she was campaigning against the Liberals in the past.

Jack Layton makes a gaffe as he incorrectly identifies Canada as the greatest country in the world.

What's the margin for re-counts?

That seat is just weird. Still BQ getting 4 seats instead of 3 is kind of disappointing though doesn't mean much longterm.

Awww, quoting Tommy Douglas. ;D

Despite this tragic night, that statement is still correct.

Plot twist! (http://enr.elections.ca/National_e.aspx)

Voter turnout still decreased this election. This time, it would be more immigrants not voting than general inactivity, though I think Albertans cared little either. At least my skepticism over high advanced voter turnout was justified.

Where are you thinking there could be a recount?

What is the reason for the  cane, anyway?

Elections Canada says "less than one one-thousandth of the total votes cast in the electoral district". (http://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=vot&dir=faq&document=faqelec&lang=e#a7)

I should note that carpetbagging in most non-US countries isn't all that controversial at all, also see George Galloway or Enoch Powell after being kicked out of the UK Tories running in Northern Ireland just because the UUP was the only other real conservative party...

Of course if the US had a parliamentary system it might be the same here.

I think you'd be better off hating the boundaries :P

Three heartbreakers instead of one. Is that better or worse? But a majority government (as distasteful as that is given its composition) does mean that the boundaries will change before the next election. And given the disparity between votes and seats there this time, the case for a radical redesign in Saskatchewan is pretty overwhelming.

Why is Abbotsford so hideously right wing? I can see it being right wing but like that, wow.

That tends to happen when a party gets more of the vote than in 2008 - versus two parties that ran significantly behind their 2008 tallies.  Conservatives had a better chance picking up Liberal seats than NDP seats, too.

Mennonites, I think. Maybe there is some Dutch Reform spillover from Lynden, Washington, too.

Not quite - turnout is calculated from counted votes versus the number of eligible voters, even if not all the votes have been counted yet. It's currently at 57% but with a few thousand polling stations still to come I expect it will pass 60%. A rise, but a small one - certainly not the big increase a lot were predicting.

My grade 10 bio teacher said that the school board in Abbotsford cut out the sections about sex from their textbooks.

Langley/Abbotsford is basically the Canadian Colorado Springs - Focus on the Family Canada is based in Langley, and Abbotsford has the highest % answering just "Christian" on the census, basically a proxy for Evangelicals.

Thanks; CBC is predicting 61% turnout now.


Also realized Conservatives have a seat in every province right now. Couldn't cringe a little when Mansbridge said they were "The true national party".

Since the NDP put a lot of female candidates in Quebec to fulfill a gender quota, their landslide in Quebec means they have greatly changed the balance of the sexes in parliament; ~38% of their caucus, in fact.

Harper up soon.

From Elecitons.ca With 
Polls reporting: 68,516/71,513 Voter turnout: 13,952,058 of 23,971,740 registered electors (58.2%)

Stephen Harper about to speak.

anybody see Canada turning into France where the left remains split and is dominated by a leftist/socialist party that cannot seem to win nationally, but cannot move toward the center, while the center-right governs for an eternity?

How'd you like to win by 14 votes?

Nipissing-Timiskaming
Jay Aspin (CON) 36.6%   
15,507
Anthony Rota (LIB) 36.6%   
15,493
Rona Eckert (NDP)  20.8%   
8,807
Scott Edward Daley (GRN) 6%   
2,550

That waitress won by a large margin, too!

Can someone please give me a short summary of the results so far ?

(I´m not really interested in reading 30+ pages ... :P)

Harper: "Candians chose hope, unity of purpose, and a strong unity of Canada."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Strange_Death_of_Liberal_England

The Bloc was slaughtered down to 3 or 4 MPs.  The Tories will have a majority, and the NDP will get just over 100 MPs.  The Liberals took a hit, and while Ignatieff hasn't mentioned it, others in the Liberal Party seem to be open to a merger with the NDP.  Ignatieff stressed the importance of remaining a centre party during his speech.  Elizabeth May won her election, making her the first Green MP to be elected.

Harper should be praising Layton.  It's because of Layton and the NDP that the Tories won tonight.

How so?

There were a lot of ridings where the NDP and the Liberals split the vote allowing the Conservatives to win.  I guess you could blame Ignatieff, but either way, without both an NDP and a Liberal party, the Conservatives wouldn't have reached a majority.

The Parkdale-High Park rematch wasn't even close. Neither was Davenport.

To conclude the night, remarks against Harper:

-Now that Harper has a four-year mandate, he will be the longest serving PM under the Conservative label since John A. McDonald.
-Always irritated when Conservative spin refers to Harper as "Prime Minister Stephen Harper" or "Rt. Honorable Stephen Harper". If they were as reformist as they claim, they would botch the honorific system altogether.
-"Strong Stable National Conservative Majority Government" should be the Party's slogan in 2015.
-Harper thanked Conservative supporters "for their prayers".
-Surely he must stand up for "all regions", considering he will either lose the stranglehold on Alberta and Ontario if he prefers one too much.
-"Comprehensive measures to make our streets safer"? How comprehensive?
-Harper paid lip service to all politicians except for Ignatieff.
-For all his compliments of Canada, he never mentioned that the nation could be a "leader".



Of course. I'm terrified.

EDIT: Well, not "move toward the center" as instead "shoot itself in the foot".

RE: the NDP not moving to the centre... um... that's exactly what they've done under Layton so far. Despite his background. It's worked as well.

Bloc Québécois has secured 4 MPs.

City of Toronto (counting Pickering-Scarborough East as .5): NDP 8, Con 7.5, Lib 7. Wow.

More like the UK.

^^^

Almost as eye-catching as Quebec.

Are elections for the Toronto City Council partisan and if so what is the current composition?

Amusing: Westmount-Ville-Marie may yet hold for the Liberals. This was the NDP's second best seat in Montreal last time, but this isn't maybe so surprising, given that they mostly surged with pure laine voters and Westmount itself is very... you know. Not that.


Nonpartisan, but everyone knows the general leaning of the candidates.

Newton-North Delta has all 213 polls reporting, but CBC has not called it.

The NDP leads 15,413 to the Libs at 14,510, and the Conservatives at 14,434.

Well, the CBC has now just called Newton-North Delta for Jinny Sims of the NDP.

The last of the "leading" CBC ridings;

Etobicoke Centre: With 1 poll left, LIB Borys Wrzesnewskyj leads CON Ted Opitz by 9 votes out of 51174 voters. Will head for a recount.
Esquimault-Juan de Fuca: With 4 polls left, NDP Randall Harrison leads CON Troy DeSouza by 573 votes out of 62279 voters.
Yukon: With 1 poll left, CON Ryan Leef leads LIB Larry Bagnell - who was whipped on a no vote to abolish the gun registry - by 168 votes out of 15877 voters.

The LIB lead in Etobicoke Centre is down to 9 votes with 1 poll left.

Quebec seats with over 50% for the NDP as of... whenever I type each one out.

Gatineau - 61.9
Hull-Aylmer - 59.2
Outremont - 56.4
Riviere-du-Nord - 55.1
Trois-Rivieres - 53.6
Montcalm - 52.9
Saint-Hyacinthe-Bagot - 52.2
Chateauguay-Saint-Constant - 52.0
Longueuil-Pierre-Boucher - 51.9
Repentigny - 51.9
Drummond - 51.7
Abitibi-Temiscamingue - 51.3
Shefford - 51.1
Rosemont-La-Petite-Patrie - 50.8

Don't think I've missed any. Near-misses include Manicouagan (remember that one?), some in Quebec City, the North Shore burbs and the East Island.

I know this is the sort of thing no-one will believe you about after the fact, but I was actually thinking a few days ago that the Tamils in Scarborough-Rouge River could be a bit of a wild card, since this whole boat people/human smuggling issue was basically about them, putting them at the centre of certain issues and greatly increasing their interest in Canadian politics when before they had been just another marginalized taken-for-granted group in the inner Toronto suburbs.

Scarborough Centre has been called for the Conservatives.

Etob Centre went back to the Conservatives.

Only Yukon and Esqu-Jean left

Etobicoke Centre has also been called for the Conservative candidate, with 21,661 to the Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj,  with 21,635.  Yikes - that was a close race!

CBC has now just called Vancouver Centre for the Liberals.

Etoibicoke Centre will go under a recount, since the Conservatives' candidate only has a 21-vote lead.

Looking at the Yukon results
There is a led of 168 between the Conservatives and the Liberals.

A total of 15,877 votes in 100 polls. An average of 158 votes per poll.

Westmount—Ville-Marie will hold, it appears. Hilarious.

By 26 votes.

I figured they'd have a recount there. ;)

Two final observations:

1) Already the complaining (mostly from NDP supporters, but some others too) about the lack of PR. However, for the first time the NDP is on the benefitting end of our current system, giving them 103 MPs for 30-31% of the vote. Something I like to remind them of as well is the famous 1960 medicare election: the CCF won a 21-seat majority with 41% of the vote, similar to the Tory vote tonight. If we had had PR then, with the ambivalent Liberals and the anti-medicare Socreds holding the majority, would medicare as the NDP want it have come about?

2) The seemingly inexorable movement of affluent urban constituencies away from the Tories, starting during the Diefenbaker years. Britain experienced this in a big way in 1997 (though the cities had been drifting very slowly towards Labour in the years before that). However, there's been a big reversal tonight as the Tories have oh-so-carefully targeted issues that are big on city & suburban families' minds (much as Blair did). They got some nice fat swings last time (York Centre, for instance), but some even better ones today. Call it Labour's 1997 in reverse as decades-long Liberal seats like Eglinton & York Centre go blue.

Where that missing poll in Yukon is from really matters.  Small village could equal low turnout but a landslide for one or another candidate.  Whitehorse could mean higher turnout and who knows what politically.

Yukon now has all 101 polls reporting:

Leef (CON) 5,422
Bagnell (Lib) 5,290
Streicker (GRN) 3,037
Barr (NDP) 2,308

CBC Vancouver is interviewing Libby Davies, NDP MP for Vancouver East.

For some reason she keeps refering to Layton as "our leader". She also blabbers about proportional representation, as if the Tories will ever blink on that!

NDP candidate Randall Garrison will win Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca at this point.

Anglo-snobs for Iggy!

Nipissing-Timiskaming is even closer and also heading to a recount: CON+14 votes over LIB.

Bramalea-Gore-Malton

Gosal (CON) 34.4% (-3)
Singh (NDP) 33.5% (+21)
Mahli (LIB) 28.4% (-17)

A 500 vote margin between Singh and Gosal. I was expecting it to be close because of Singh's star candidate prowess but woah.

1 poll left to come in from Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca.  The NDP leads by just under 400.

Elections Results: Save as a text file. Open using Excel

http://enr.elections.ca/DownloadResults.aspx


re: Yukon:
Largest poll in the 2008 election had 287 voters.

The Liberals star recruit in Hamilton Mountain (a former MPP for the area) polled a miserable 16.2%.

Harper lost 4 cabinet members tonight.  All from Quebec.  The NDP surge there ended up hurting the Conservatives, and that's the one dark spot in an otherwise great night for the Conservatives.

The Globe and Mail has called every riding:
CONSERVATIVE 167
NDP 102
LIBERAL 34
BLOC QUEBECOIS 4
GREEN 1

So they're assuming Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca will go to the NDP, since they have the lead now, I guess.

Thanks!  Too bad I didn't have that link 3 hours ago - I could have made some maps!

Make some now!

Other dramatic swings of interest:

Vaughan
Fantino (CON) 56% (+7)
Ferri (LIB) 30% (-17)
Pratt (NDP) 12% (+10)

Thornhill
Kent (CON) 61% (+12)
Mock (LIB) 24% (-15)
Stelchik (NDP) 12% (+5)

Etobicoke-Lakeshore
Trottier (CON) 40% (+5)
Ignatieff (LIB) 35% (-9)
Erickson (NDP) 20% (+8)

Davenport
Cash (NDP) 54% (+23)
Silva (LIB) 28% (-18)
Rodrigues (CON) (+4)

Gary Lunn, Minister for Sports also lost in Saanich-Gulf Islands.

Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca has been called.

NDP 26,198
CON 25,792

Final results are CON 167, NDP 102, LIB 34, BQ 4, GRN 1.

Some members of the media did lose, but not in the way I expected. PostMedia and Sun Media won for supporting the Conservatives; the Globe did, to an extent. the Star backed out fast enough. For those who lost, they lost badly:

Projectors. Once again, even the most generous projection underestimated the Conservatives by ~15 seats. The actual NDP seat count of 102 was 7 above the mean 95 seats projected, which is decent. Nobody saw the GTA dissection, however, nor did anyone predict the scope of the BQ's defeat. In light of any accurate result, most of them will either be fired or ignored. Which leads me to...

Strategic voting groups. As the NDP carved into the Liberal vote halfway through, it became impossible to rally all non-Conservative voters under a "progressive" banner. This is exemplified by Project Democracy, that strategic voting site which not only exaggerated Liberal support but could not prevent a Harper majority. Toronto bohemia has finally failed.

Pollsters. Since there was a greater diversity of results, it is difficult to blame pollsters as a whole for being incorrect. And it's not as if they were horrible; they can blame a 2% swing from the Liberals to the Conservatives on an election-day scramble. It is clear regional breakdowns need a lot of work, though, and perhaps there will now be a move from national polling to provincial polling, as different firms have to downsize.

Polling is a lot harder in Canada too.  The "All politics is local" phrase is increased in huge magnitude in Canada.

Closest Ridings

Nipissing--Timiskaming (Consv - Liberal)   14
Etobicoke Centre (Consv - Liberal)   26
Montmagny--L'Islet--Kamouraska--Rivière-du-Loup (Conserv - NDP)   110
Winnipeg North (Liberal - NDP) 117
Yukon   (Consv - Liberal) 132
Labrador   (Consv - Liberal) 231

Forgot about him, and CBC didn't list him  as a Cabinet Minister.

I checked, and this was actually the best NDP result in Saskatchewan since 1988. Despite winning no seats.

The first two will go for an automatic recount. The NDP might demand a recount in Winnipeg North, given how sure a victory it was for most observers. Maybe the NDP will challenge all of its lost seats, but the Liberals certainly won't. In Yukon, Bagnell knew that voting for the gun registry would spell his doom. The less one thinks of Labrador, the better.

I do not understand why the boundary commission would draw those seats like  that.

I don't know the original reason, but the boundaries were kept last time round because Dick Proctor didn't like the look of the proposed Moose Jaw seat and promptly shot himself (and his party) in the head. The argument for change wasn't so overwhelming at the time because NDP candidates had managed (over divided non-socialist votes) to win in 1997 and 2000.

They almost did not.
http://www.elections.ca/scripts/fedrep/sask/sask_map_e.htm
|The Liberals were in power in both 2004 and 1994 and thus, the way the map is now is the way they'd win the maximum number of seats.

Blow-Outs: (All Conservative over NDP)

Calgary--Nose Hill   33225
Vegreville--Wainwright   33594
Macleod   34674
Calgary Southwest   36179
Wild Rose   36397
Crowfoot   39309
Calgary Southeast   41713

Ridings with Lowest Popular vote for the Winner

Liberal   25.6%   Haute-Gaspésie--La Mitis--Matane--Matapédia
BLOC   30.3%   Ahuntsic
Liberal   30.9%   Vancouver Centre
NDP   32.5%   Richmond--Arthabaska
NDP   33.4%   Newton--North Delta
NDP   33.8%   Gaspésie--Îles-de-la-Madeleine
Conservative   33.8%   Yukon
Liberal   34.1%   Lac-Saint-Louis
NDP   34.2%   Pierrefonds--Dollard

Biggest % of Popular Vote:

NDP   71.2%   St. John's East
Conservative   71.6%   Medicine Hat
Conservative   72.1%   Fort McMurray--Athabasca
Conservative   74.0%   Souris--Moose Mountain
Conservative   74.6%   Wild Rose
Conservative   75.1%   Calgary Southwest
Conservative   75.7%   Peace River
Conservative   75.9%   Red Deer
Conservative   76.0%   Portage--Lisgar
Conservative   76.3%   Calgary Southeast
Conservative   77.1%   Yellowhead
Conservative   77.5%   Macleod
Conservative   77.8%   Westlock--St. Paul
Conservative   79.7%   Vegreville--Wainwright
Conservative   81.5%   Wetaskiwin
Conservative   83.9%   Crowfoot

So in summary:
Tories: The Tories accomplished something tonight. How on earth did they get to this majority? Was it only because of the NDP surge splitting the vote or was it because of something else? How will they govern? Harper has never seemed to be one of the shining leaders of Canada, but he may now have a dynasty that could continue for a total of 9 years of power. Will he be considered one of the great leaders of Canada, and how will he do that?

Liberals: Fail. The liberals have been limited dramatically to a few seats in the West, a spattering of seats in urban Ontario and Montreal, and Atlantic Canada, (in fact Atlantic Canada is now the largest caucus!). How did this happen? What will the Liberals do now? Merger, disband, continue? Who will lead the liberals now? What message will they cling to? Who will they reach out to?

NDP: Wow, but with so many caveats. To have this party that has traditionally represented left-wing English Canada, to now be largely represented by Francophones is a huge shift. What will this do to this party? Where will the NDP go from here? What will the NDP do as opposition? In the next four years will the NDP continue to lead as opposition and possibly aim for the top post at the next election?

BQ: Another fail. Where does the bloc go from here? Does separatism still matter? Who will lead this party? Will members resign or join another party? What now? How on earth did they collapse so much?

Greens: Wow. She finally won a seat. Is she irrelevant? How can May make the most out of this in the next four years? Will the Greens win more seats in the future? How can the Greens turn this around for their benefit?

Quebec: What happened? Is separatism dead or is it still an issue? How will Quebecers react to this new NDP in control?

What an amazing night! I'm not particularly thrilled by the ultimate result, but it sure has been fascinating.

On the greens winning a seat:

Back in 1989 Reform won a single seat. The office manager for that MP was one Stephen Harper.

A seat is what you make of it.

Separatism is still an issue, but it will be fought on the provincial scene from now, I think.

The BQ experiment failed, finally.

Winner, with color shading for percentage of vote to Winning candidate:
Nationwide:
()

Toronto/Golden Horseshoe:
()

Ottawa:
()

Montreal:
()

Quebec City:
()

Vancouver/Lower Mainland:
()

There's some wacky border stuff going on with the Montreal map.

Yes there is.  The river/ocean shapefile I downloaded doesn't exactly match the Elections Canada shapefile when you zoom in very close.  I could see the same type of wackiness when CTV was putting results up in Montreal and Quebec City.  I haven't tried to clean things up.

This is a pseudo-swing measure - 2011 Vote Percentage MINUS 2008 Vote Percentage.   Red=hot' Deepest red = +20 points or more from 2008.  Blue=cold; Deepest blue = -20 points or more from 2008.  The scale is in 5-point intervals:

First, the Conservatives:
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T.O. inset:
()

Next, the NDP:
()

T.O. inset:
()

Finally, the Liberals:
()

T.O. inset:
()

And national maps for the percentage of the vote won by party.  These are in the party's colors, with 10 steps that increase in intensity every 10 points, per the atlas color scales for those parties:

Conservatives:
()

NDP:
()

Liberals (Yikes!):
()

Bloc (Quebec only, naturally - light blue kind of stinks as a color to use for comparisons, but there really wasn't a ton of variation, anyway):
()

I'll do similar regional maps tomorrow by request.

You probably noticed I haven't posted in the canadian elections thread since a while... Not that I didn't care, to the contrary : I was afraid of being too disappointed by the results. This sudden NDP surge just seemed to be too beautiful to be true.

In the end, I feel it's a great day for Canada. Of course, we're headed to 4 more years of Harper, with the potentiality to do a lot of harm. But fortunately the majority is narrow enough for this not to be a total catastrophe. The most important thing is that the realignment of Canadian politics seems to be inevitable now. The bloc is already gone, and Quebec should remain a NDP stronghold. Whether they merge with the NDP, fade away or remain a minor parliamentary party, the liberals shouldn't recover the place they had previously (I can be wrong of course, but it seems difficult). Thus Canada will finally have a true left/right system. That was beyond anything I could imagine, especially considering how the election started. That's a great day in the long run.

It seems like Canada experienced the exact reverse of 1993 (maybe this has already been said though) : with the NDP as reform, liberals as PCs and conservatives as liberals. If this lasts, the entire political system will have radically shifted in a bit more than two decades. Now, with such results, will Layton still step down ? I've heard that he would, but that was before the massive surge. It would make little sense to get rid of such a successful leader, especially since he could very well become PM by 2015.

Of course I have a thought for my friend Hashemite, for which today is certainly a very bad day. As much as this wipeout seems somewhat deserved to the liberals (I've not followed the campaign myslef, but everybody in the forum seems to think they've run an awful campaign), it's certainly sad for all their supporters who didn't necessarily identify with the leadership. I can only feel sad to see the party of Pearson and Trudeau reduced to that.

Anyways, it's quite stunning to see how a dull and predictable election suddenly turned into a massive realignment. As I've said, Canada has extremely passionating politics, and has showed once again that nothing should be taken for granted there. Thank you Canada, please keep on thrilling us ! :)

Starting tomorrow, every New Democrat will have to ask a question: what should the NDP oppose?

Do they begin with opposing the crime legislation brought forward by the Conservatives, and barring that the extra money spent on prisons? Do they protest the cancellation of the vote subsidy, arguing that it hurts the opposition more than the government? Do they oppose the copyright laws or a weakening of government control over telecommunications? Or do they go right after the social issues, taking a strong stance against regression over abortion and gay marriage?

For everything they oppose, they will lose voters. For a party elected on an era of good feeling, having to alienate some to please others might be a difficult choice. But four years is enough for a post-Layton leadership to start thinking ideas, a grand blueprint for federal government; to snatch away Harper's "national government" before it can be entrenched. If four years is too short a time, the NDP would never be able enough for government anyway.

Being in opposition is hard. Harper has hammered his policy goals so much that infrequent voters have been bit by curiosity. From tomorrow, the NDP will have to convince that these fantastical policies have real effects. The next hundred days are very important, but in a completely different way.


I have to thank this forum for their interest and analysis; certainly better than the most of the Canadian media. Please stick around for four more years!

It's dawned on me that there won't be a Canadian or British election until 2015 :(

Australia better do something exciting.

Actually when Lester Pearson was opposition leader the Liberal Party was in nearly as bad a place as now.  In 1958 the Progressive Conservatives under John Diefenbaker won 208/265 seats, which is 78.5%.  But at least Pearson still won his riding and the Liberals retained official opposition status.

To add, I agree with your attitude about Canadian elections.  The coverage is especially great on the CBC; it's nowhere near as scripted and polished as American coverage.  Over the last few elections the numbers have been much more interesting, with more than two parties competing for seats.

While the NDP hasn't really been a western party since the rise of Reform, this election pounded that point home. For fun, here's a table of CCF/NDP seat totals by province:

Year	Terr.	B.C.	Alta.	Sask.	Man.	Ont.	Que.	East	Total
1935		3		2	2				7
1940		1		5	1			1	8
1945		4		18	5			1	28
1949		3		5	3	1		1	13
1953		7		11	3	1		1	23
1957		7		10	5	3			25
1958		4		1		3			8
1962		10			2	6		1	19
1963		9			2	6			17
1965		9			3	9			21
1968		7		6	3	6			22
1972	1	11		5	3	11			31
1974	1	2		2	2	8		1	16
1979	1	8		4	5	6		2	26
1980	1	12		7	7	5			32
1984		8		5	4	13			30
1988	1	19	1	10	2	10			43
1993	1	2		5	1				9
1997	1	3		5	4			8	21
2000		2		2	4	1		4	13
2004		5			4	7		3	19
2006	1	10			3	12		3	29
2008	1	9	1		4	17	1	4	37
2011	1	12	1		2	22	58	6	102

The Conservatives actually outpolled the Liberals on PEI 41.2% to 41.0%. Seats still went 3-1 Liberal though. Yay FPTP!

Interesting to see the new factions emerging in the NDP and Conservative Party. Both Layton and Harper will have though jobs inside and outside their caucuses and one misstep for either will see their parties embroiled into a Liberal-style civil war.

Primary vote of winning party:

()

I'm sure we'll have our fill of election coverage for 2012, at least.

Yeah but the way we do "election coverage" in America....as in two-year long campaigns makes me want to vomit long before the actual election...

     I find it intriguing how the NDP now holds 58 seats in Quebec after not holding any prior to 2008. The dramatic swing in Quebec has to be the most momentous aspect of this election on a geographical level.

The number of seats doesn't really matter as much as the rank. It's very easy to come from second to first, but far more difficult to come from third to second (in FPP countries at least).

The tab is quite stunning indeed. Of course seeing Quebec switching from BQ to NDP is a very good thing because that means Québec will finally play a true role on federal politics. But now the risk is to see the NDP becoming the party of the Québec and only of the Québec. It is very important for it to consolidate its inroads in Ontario or BQ, because they can't win more in Québec and they can't hope to win nationally with only Québec.

If we look at the results of previous elections outside Québec, we can see it even more clearly.

	2004	2006	2008	2011
Con	99	114	133	161
NDP	19	29	36	44
Lib	114	90	63	27
Others	1		1	1

That's quite surprising, actually. NDP gained a mere 8 seats, only one more than in 2008 and less than in 2006, when it gained 10. Almost all seats lost by the liberals have come to the conservatives. In some way, it's understandable : with NDP and liberals close in term of votes, there has probably been a huge voting split favoring the conservative. If the NDP confirms its second party status and the liberals further shrink, which seems likely, we will probably see strong NDP gains outside Québec. Otherwise, there's a risk to see the NDP become trapped in Québec.

It's interesting how, if you look at everything outside of Quebec, the number of seats is just a continuation on the same level of the previous trends. When you throw Quebec into the mix, then everything turns completely sideways.

Bramalea-Gore-Malton was surprisingly close. And look who was second :)

Why are Labrador and the PEI ridings underpopulated compared to the rest of the country?

If I'm not mistaken it has to do with an old rule that no province can have a fewer number of seats than it had during the first parliament. Or something like that.