The Aftermath

The Conservatives won the most seats, but it was hardly the overwhelming breakthrough that they might have been hoping for.

The Numbers:

CPC: 125 Seats
Lib: 103 Seats
Bloc: 51 Seats
NDP: 29 Seats
Ind: 1 Seat

Considering the last election gave a scandal-plagued Liberal party just over 130 seats, giving the CPC 125 is hardly a ringing endorsement. In fact the Liberal support remained much stronger than perhaps it had any right to - especially with a badly fumbled campaign from the start.

Canadians didn't "flock" to the Conservatives as perhaps one might have anticipated given a well run campaign, with the wing-nuts kept carefully muzzled. I'd call this a 'training wheels' government. The people have handed Harper the keys to 24 Sussex, but like a parent loaning their teenage child the family car, a strict admonition not to drive recklessly.

The real winners in this election seem to have been the NDP, who picked up ten more seats. Clearly, as much as voters in Alberta might have thought that "soft" Liberal support would flock their direction, they did not. Instead, their votes moved to the NDP, and possibly the Green party to some extent. Although I was less than impressed with Jack Layton, both during the campaign and in the final weeks of the last sitting of Parliament, apparently he was more successful not only in wooing new voters, but in keeping his core support base.

Intriguingly, B.C. seems to have been the province to slap the CPC upside the head. The party actually lost 5 seats in B.C., giving up one to the Liberals no less. (Of course, when you run known extremist cases like Darrel Reid (former Focus On The Family Canada leader) in urban Vancouver, I can't say that it comes as any big surprise.

Sadly, Alberta voters were nowhere near as canny as B.C.'s - returning some of the worst MPs we've ever had to the House of Commons, and wiping out a couple of very good candidates. When will this province learn? Voting "en-herd" simply means that everybody walks through the same pile of manure.

Stupid Comment of the Night Award:

I have to deliver this to Stephen Harper. Echoing the roots of the Reform/Alliance days, his victory speech contained the line "The West wanted in, and now it is". (or something to that effect)

What a dumb statement to make. Once again, it reinforces the idea that the party is a regional protest party. It creates a false expectation on the part of the Party's long-martyred MPs from Alberta (especially) and the other prairie provinces that suddenly they are going to be in "control".

The mandate that the CPC got is sufficiently weak that Stephen Harper has a lot to balance in order to hold on to power at all. He has no ideological allies in the house, and the voters have not given him a blank cheque. That means not only must his cabinet be regionally balanced, the party as a whole must become very disciplined in the house. (So much for all the free votes they've been promising)

The Surpise of The Night:

Paul Martin stepping down as leader of the Liberal party. I'm alternating between surprised and shocked by this. Martin spent the better part of a decade pursuing his moment in the sunshine, and he has stepped aside on the night of his party's defeat.

It's absolutely the right move, and opens the doors for the Liberal Party to start the rebuilding process - one that could not really begin until the Chretien/Martin factions were dismantled. Leadership campaigns are often very divisive, but I think Martin's "long game" play was exceptionally damaging to the Liberal's internal cohesiveness.

Martin's pursuit of the leadership hat was a "corporate" move - where he took a very long range view of the objectives, and wasn't afraid to break a few eggs as he did it. While building a corporation up, this is a great way to do business, it's not necessarily the right way to handle a political party.

... more to come - as I think of things to babble about...