The NDP did fantastically. So did the Bloc, but the Bloc often does well, and yes, they only run in Quebec. 155 is a majority.
OK, but I don’t get it. 23 seats in 308 ridings doesn’t sound too good, but maybe it’s more than was expected? Or maybe they can ally with the biggest party to form a coalition? And the rest of Canada doesn’t mind having one province have 54 seats basically reserved for them?
The CBC coverage is fun. Very low-tech, no giant boards with provinces lighting up…very genteel.
I have relatives in (checks) Cape Breton-Canso riding. Think I’ll drop an e-mail tomorrow.
The NDP is elected or leading in 22 ridings, up 8 seats from what they had last election. Their share of the popular vote is way up as well. They’ve never been as big a party as the Liberals or Conservatives. There is some speculation (just speculation, I don’t know how much to make of it) that the Liberals and the NDP could ally on some issues.
As to Canada minding the Bloc… well, yes, they DO mind, but what are they going to do?
Been watching the CBC all night… and as a Gay person, the election results are fantastic … At least Gay marriage is now safe… Between the Liberals and the NDP, things should be fine…
At this point, the Liberals have 137 seats, the NDP have 22… A party (or combination of parties) needs 155 seats to pass legislation…
I’ll be interested to see how Layton handles things, given his ideas about proportional representation. 
There may now be a situation where the NDP have a disproportionately large amount of power, even though 85% of the votes and 90% of the seats have gone to parties to the right of them. We’ll have to wait and see how things shake out.
I suspect from the perspective of the NDP party faithful the election has turned out very well. Their share of the popular vote increased, in fact, it nearly doubled to approximately 15 per cent. Also as noted, their number of seats has gone up as well. From a strategic perspective they are in a very good position. With the Liberals holding somewhere in the range of 137 seats, and with 155 needed for a majority, one may expect that the Liberals will be knocking on the NDP door for support. This gives significant opportunity to influence the policy agenda.
And Mehitabel, this is standard CBC coverage. Not flashy, but fairly thoughtful, and with a reasonable amount of humor, whether in the form of jokes about the NDP and Liberal pundits strategizing while on set once the numbers were coming in or Rick Mercer’s “streeters” that included a riff about people who didn’t vote because they didn’t want to choose between the lesser of three evils, and how it was very important to vote so that the lesser of three evils DID win, and if you don’t vote for them, you would then be pro-evil.
OK, now I get it–right now (12:22 EST) it’s Libs 136, NDP 21 (how did they LOSE a seat?) and Cons 95. So if the Libs and NDP team up, they can do stuff.
But what can the Conservatives do during this government–can’t they pass legislation too, if they can sign on enough cross-party votes? They got a lot of people supporting them out there after all.
Harper’s giving his–well, it’s not a concession speech, I guess. When he congratulated Martin on his victory people booed, and he looked stern and held his hands out and clapped them slowly. Very funny. Not as funny as the blueJapanese-baseball-fan bats the party faithful are banging together, though. I guess the big foam rubber ‘We’re Number One!!’ fingers are on back-order.
Oooh, balloon drop!
Remember, Mehitabel, the numbers are the sum of seats that are won AND leading. So they can fluctuate through the night. But as it looks now, we’ve got the balance of power. w00t! 
They can propose legislation as private members’ bills. What usually happens is that, if the governing party likes it, they propose it as their own bill.
Well, the government doesn’t *have to call an election soon. But it can now lose a vote of no-confidence, which would cause the government to fall. Minority governments can and have survived for a full term.
The problem now is that before contentious votes the Liberals have to reach out to other parties and get their support, or risk losing. That may mean an informal alliance between the Liberals and one of the other parties. The real problem now is that the Liberals can form a coalition with the NDP, giving them a combined majority. So even though the conservatives have 95 seats so far, and the NDP only 21, it may turn out that the NDP have more influence in the government than the conservatives.
There are some dangerous signs in this election. The first is that western alienation is bound to grow. A lot of people out west expected the conservatives to essentially tie the Liberals, which would have given the west a real voice because Liberals would have been forced to accept some conservative policies. Now the conservatives can be shut out by the east.
This election once again showed just how polarized Canada has become. For instance, out of 75 seats, Quebec elected 54 separatists, 20 Liberals, and no Conservatives or NDP. That’s the best showing the Bloc Quebecois has had for a long, long time. And in his acceptance speech tonight, the leader was already talking about a referendum on separating from Canada.
In the meantime look at this split between east and west:
Western Canada results (92 seats):
Conservatives: 59
Liberals: 16 (mostly in BC)
NDP: 10
The west voted overwhelmingly Conservative. Over 60% support.
Now look at Eastern Canada (216 seats):
Liberals: 121
Conservatives: 36
NDP: 11
Bloc: 54
The Liberals are basically an eastern establishment party, with huge support in Ontario (Liberal - 75, Conservative - 22). The west could have voted 100% Conservative, and the Liberals would still have the government.
A lot of people in the west were pinning their hopes on finally breaking the Liberal stranglehold on the government. The Liberals have been hammered with scandal after scandal, a new and uncharismatic leader, and all kinds of other problems. And yet, the election wasn’t really close.
Stephen Harper, the conservative leader, is on record as advocating (actually, almost pushing) a ‘firewall’ for Alberta, as a check on eastern power. He’s downplayed that for the election, but expect that debate to heat up again. Ralph Klein in Alberta is also threatening to violate the Canada Health Act with a new Alberta health care system. If the firewall idea heats up (basically, Alberta would create its own police force, pension system, and in other ways disconnect itself from federal programs like Quebec has), and if the Bloc starts exerting its power to demand more for Quebec, we could see the start of real fracturing in Canada.
Sorry, that was 60% support in Alberta, not the west as a whole. Across the prairies, the Conservatives had 53% support. In Ontario, it was 31%, and in Quebec, 8.75%.
Not so fast. The Liberals plus the NDP is down to 155, the majority level. Martin will definitely still be PM, but I get the feeling that when I wake up, they’ll be below the magic number.
Interesting though, if you look at Conservative popular support in Western Canada:
Manitoba at 39.17%
Saskatchewan at 41.82%
Alberta at 61.79%; and to round out Western Canada
British Columbia at 36.5%
The percentage across the prairies at 53% is being pretty heavily skewed by the Alberta vote.
Whoops, the numbers changed again. And where the heck has the CBC set up shop? I guess it’s Parliament, because the bald guy spent some time talking about the caricature statues in the cornices of the room. It’s just not the same without Dan Rather and his wacky, wacky metaphors.
Biggest guffaw of the night for me–Martin thanking his wife for standing by him during the grueling, endless drudgery of thirty-six days of campaigning. Those sarcastic laughs you hear are from every living first lady, the SO’s of all the Dem candidates, Teresa Heinz Kerry, and Laura Bush.
Too confusing for the likes o’ me. Off to bed. Thanks, Canadians, for putting up with my endless questions about your vast, bilingual, Japanese-baseball-fan-bat wielding people and their color-coded take on democracy. Hey, y’all have red and blue states too!
Waitaminute, the Canadians are having an election?!? You mean, like those people that live in Canada? Who the hell OK’d that plan!?
But an actual question:
So it seems that a ‘coalition’ gov’t will be made, of the Liberals and ‘NDP’ (who I take are uber-liberal). Does this leave the Convervatives just plain f*cked? Are most votes in the parliament straight ‘Aye/Nay’ votes, with a simple majority carrying the day? Or are there a host of parliamentary tricks and procedures that the Conservatives can use to try to get something passed or blocked? (Sort of like how Repubs did it in the early nineties and Dems do it today; Artful politicing.)
Oh, for clarity, and 'cause I’m tired and hit “submit” instead of preview, so maybe there isn’t a lot of clarity to be found, B.C. isn’t part of the prairie region. I included it as one of the 4 western provinces.
And also because it interested me that the popular vote for the Conservatives from the voters in British Columbia was closer to that of the voters in Ontario than the voters in Alberta.
Oh, and on preview, Mehitabel, we have red and blue provinces and territories (Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut). And hey, this campaign was more than long enough for most of us, including candidates’ SOs.
I’m not really one to downplay Western alienation, but I have to say that I think Sam’s overstated the case for it. The seat totals, particularly in Saskatchewan, don’t reflect the popular vote very accurately at all. Saskatchewan’s sitting at 13 Conservative and 1 Liberal at the moment, in spite of 42%/27%/23% vote split for the Con/Lib/NDP respectively. The conservatives won a lot of really tight 3-way races here. I don’t think we’re really as alienated as all that, in spite of the fact that Ralph Goodale’s our only non-Con MP. (As an aside, when was the last time Saskatchewan didn’t have an NDP/CCF MP?)
I’d also say that Duceppe’s comments notwithstanding, the Bloc gains tonight don’t have the remotest tie to Quebec nationalism.
I don’t mean alienation is at a boiling point or anything, just that this result could increase it. Plus, this election is bound to increase Quebec’s demands. Couple that with a potential Liberal/NDP coalition, and you have a recipe for increased dissatisfaction among many groups.
It’ll all depend on how the government behaves.
Hmm. Yes, I think I can agree with all that, aside from not sharing your fears about a Lib/NDP coalition. Frankly, I wish the Bloc weren’t so close to holding the balance of power, because you’re right in suggesting that their position is likely to exacebate regional issues in Quebec. The irony, of course, is that the shift of seats from Liberal to Bloc has nothing to do with issues and everything to do with the sponsorship scandal. Though perhaps it’s just as well those seats did shift, or we’d be listening to you rant about another Liberal majority.
Appears to be 1965.
Because I like to do things like this, I ran the numbers for the most seriously advocated proportional representation system, the 2/3 1/3 system, where 2/3 would be decided as they are now (i.e. first past the post) and the other 1/3 based on % of the vote in individual provinces. I realize that people weren’t voting with this in mind and combining ridings could change things, but it was interesting to me at least.
The results:
Liberal: 129
Conservative: 94
Bloc Quebecois: 49
NDP: 30
Green: 5
Other: 1
cough
A little underwhelming, to tell the truth, though I still support the idea.