Not many surprises so far. Danny Williams’ anything but conservative campaign appears to have worked but it won’t make much difference in the end probably. Even though I knew it would be unlikely I was really hoping Elizabeth May would be able to beat out Peter McKay. Here in New Brunswick the Conservatives are ahead, which shocks the hell out of me.
Your thoughts?
Are you getting results locally already? Here it’s 9PM and we won’t start seeing results on the CBC’s web pages until 10.
I didn’t realize that the coverage started earlier here. Peter Mansbridge is on so I assumed it was the national coverage. Most of the polls are back, so far 17 seats liberal - 10 conservative - 4 NDP, no big surprises yet, except that I thought the Liberals would do a lot better here.
Polls are closing in a minute here; the broadcasters are prohibited from broadcasting results until the polls close, so you’ve gotten an earlier start. Until just now we had Peter on the air with Rick Mercer, Rex Murphy et al.
Sort of – yes, Mansbridge and the CBC election team is on nationally, but the results from the East are not being transmitted yet so as to conform to the Election Act (which tries to stop results from one end of the country from affecting voting at the other end).
The most interesting thing about the CBC’s national coverage is that Mansbridge is being assisted by some very heavy hitting journalists and political pundits, as well as commentary by George Stroumboulopoulos, pre-election party leader interviews by the 22 Minutes crew, and the Royal Canadian Air Farce. One of the pundits is Rick Mercer, playing it very straight.
For Americans who are not familiar with Canadian television, this is the equivalent of NBC’s Brian Williams and Chuck Todd having Jon Stewart as a key pundit, with colour commentary by Saturday Night Live.
May was running in Peter MacKay’s riding? Why on earth wouldn’t she pick a riding without any particularly strong candidates in order to get a Green foot in the door? 
How is this different from the status quo ?
That’s a pretty good description, at least they cut into Rex Murphy’s time. Was his only book as a child a thesaurus?
I think it’s pretty similar, conservatives lost ground in Newfoundland and I think they gained seats over last time in NB; my riding went from Liberal to Conservative. NDP hasn’t gained many seats but are doing really well in the popular vote. They’re starting to report the Quebec results so the numbers are changing quickly now.
ETA: They just showed Liberals (-4 seats), Conservatives (no change), NDP (+2), Independent (+2), so far…
Liberals -3, Tories +1, NDP +1, Ind +1 (these just the Atlantic Canada seats, not the early returns from elsewhere that are now coming in)
I like Rex Murphy, and I like the fact that he does not play to the lowest common denominator language-wise. The guy is very bright and not afraid to show it. Especially in an era where there are often anti-intellectual undercurrents (though in my assessment more predominantly in the US than in Canada), I think every network needs a Rex Murphy. I like his accent too.
Any Ontario results yet?
Early returns from Alberta through Quebec are starting to trickle in, but so far it stuff like 30 votes to 17 from a single polling station. That said, the “leading or elected” tally off of CBC at the moment:
Tories 53
Grits 46
NDP 14
BQ 6
Other 2
Rex Murphy has an accent?! I’ve never noticed it 
You’re right in what you say. In the spirit of politics I am now flip-flopping and becoming a fan of Rex Murphy (I still wish he’d throw away his thesaurus though). I think we have a lot of great coverage for the election, Peter Mansbridge is very good as well.
Ontario results are just starting to come in.
Saskatchewan’s looking like it’s going to stay all blue except for Goodale…and Goodale is only just barely leading in his riding. Liberals doing worse than I expected, trailing the NDP in nearly every riding, not that there are any prizes for finishing second instead of third.
Last scroll I saw shows Goodale in front of Hunter by 1,000 votes - approx 5000 to 4000 so it looks like he’s starting to pull away somewhat.
Ha! Just a wee bit.
So… next election in 2010? More of the same… yay!
Yes, his lead has been increasing as they count. Looks like the riding to watch in SK might be Saskatoon-Rosetown-Biggar, where the Tory incumbent Carol Skelton is not running. The riding features the strongest NDP candidate in the province, Netty Wiebe, former president of the National Farmers Union and it’s neck and neck at the moment.
There’s something sexy about Wendy Mesley going on at length about wedges, although I can’t say I would ever enjoy a wedgie.