Canada's elections - October 14

[Lumière]

So...

It's pretty much sure to be another PC minority.  Harper will not be very pleased, will he? 

I expected to see more Liberal seats...


I'll have more coherent thoughts later. =)

[Sheriff Roland]

Yes.

Where the rest of the world is turning it's back on conservative 'ways' (British Isles, U.S.A.), we in Canada have given the Conservatives a stronger (though still minority) mandate. 

Toronto's still not giving up seats to the conservatives, and the North has gone completely orange (NDP). Greater Toronto (the 905 region) has done what they'd done with Mulrony in the 80's & with Harris in the 90's - they went blue.

If the Conservatives had not blundered in Quebec, they would have had a majority government.

Toronto and the North aside, Ontario's given more seats to the Torys.

[Lumière]

...

If the Conservatives had not blundered in Quebec, they would have had a majority government.

Toronto and the North aside, Ontario's given more seats to the Torys.

Agreed.


I was happy to see that the Green Party went up (even though there is a chance they won't get any actual seats).
I voted Green.  I knew where they stood compared to the other parties.
I was hoping for a few Green MPs... 


The other 'interesting' piece of info in all this is that less than 60% of eligible voters actually went out to vote.  That translates to about  10 million people NOT voting.
Makes you wonder how differently things may have turned out & why such a huge percentage of people just weren't interested enough to vote..

[David In Indy]

I don't understand much of the terminology you all are using so please forgive me if my question comes across as ignorant, but do you all know who won yet? Was this an election for a new Prime Minister? I remember John Harper being elected in a few years ago. I watched the election process on C-Span although I really didn't understand what was going on. I also remember watching John Harper give his acceptance speech.

How long between the elections for Prime Minister?

I'm sorry if I sound like an ignorant American (and I must confess I am) but I'm very interested in these elections in other countries and I don't always understand them. I'd love to learn though!

Comcast moved C-Span to its digital line-up so I couldn't watch the Canadian elections tonight.

[Sheriff Roland]

In a federal election (entire country, as opposed to provincial or municipal election), you vote for one candidate to represent your riding (or district). The party that manages to get the most seats (one per riding) elected gets to form the government. Before the election, each party already has their leader and that leader needs to get elected in a riding just like all other Members of Parliament (MPs).

Should the leader not be able to be elected (as was the case for the Conservatives in Ontario's last provincial election) he might remain the leader of it's party but he's be less effective as he wouldn't have a voice in Parliament. Whenever it's happened in the past on the federal level, he would either step down or run in a by-election in a 'safe' riding.

In this case, all 4 major party leaders (The Green are still without a single seat so they don't have a voice in parliament) were elected in their riding. As a matter of fact, all the major candidates who ran for the job of Liberal leader a year (or two) ago, won their riding.

In summary ...

There will not be a seperate vote for Prime Minister. You get one vote: for your MP. And the party leader of the party that wins most seats becomes Prime Minister, even if he doesn't have a majority of the seats in Parliament.

[Sheriff Roland]

Because there is not a majority government, it is possible that we may yet have another election at any time.

250 million$

ka ching!

However, the last 3 elections have produced minority governments and this one last nearly 3 years. The Conservative thought that if they called an election now, they might end up with a majority and be able to press their agenda with fewer compromises. And they almost did, had they not completely misjudge the francophone vote of Quebec.

Before the elections were called, they were expected to double the number of seats they held in that province but instead they (or should I say Harper) fucked up (he keeps his members prety much to party line). Harper went wrong on arts funding and juvenile crime and of course, the world economy had both positive and negative effects on this election.

Mostly, I felt the Conservative ran a very negative ad campain against the Liberals (that started WAY before the 5 week elections was called). Ads that turned Dion's Liberal 'green shift plan' into 'a carbon tax'. He had people believing (through more ads than the Liberal could counter with) that the 'green shift plan' would translate into people paying more taxes. And in English Canada, that's what the message was all about.

In other words, a very negative, Republican style propaganda campain.

I feel sick.

[Lumière]

Officials deny Dion to announce resignation Thursday

By The Canadian Press


OTTAWA - Liberal party officials were denying reports that Stephane Dion would be resigning his leadership on Thursday.

There has been widespread speculation he plans to quit after losing 19 seats in Tuesday's vote but will stay on until a successor is chosen. But a spokesman sent an email saying the report in a Toronto newspaper is not true.

"This morning there are media reports that M. Dion will be resigning today," wrote George Young. "This is not the case.

"We will properly advise the media when M. Dion is prepared to speak publicly."

Dion, leader for 22 months, went to ground after Tuesday's election defeat, the Liberals' worst showing in more than a century.

Liberals were full of praise for Dion on Wednesday, but their words sounded more like a eulogy than a celebration. One insider said Dion is a decent man and nobody wants to kick him when he's down.

Party insiders said the bitterly disappointed leader spent the day calling defeated candidates, licking his wounds and reflecting on his future.

Liberals won only 76 seats in Tuesday's election, down from 95 the party had before the election was called.

Their share of the popular vote fell to 26 per cent - two points lower than the party's disastrous showing under John Turner in 1984 and only four points higher than the party's all-time low in 1867.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/081016/delection/fedelxn_dion

[oilgun]

Damn!  I just now find this thread?  Man, to think of all the bitching I could have done!

David, just to add to Roland's post, except for early elections the standard term for a ruling party is 4 years.

I think it's funny that the US election is still to come, it feels like the longest campaign trail in the history of the world!  Harper called the election on Sept 7 (never mind that he started campaigning way before and even used tax-payers money to do it, the slimeball) and 5 weeks later it's over.  For a total of $350 Million wasted dollars.

Actually it wasn't all a waste.  We learned that all parties apparently hired the Three Stooges as their campaign advisors:

-The Greens, who have a strong intelligent and articulate leader proved that they are NOT ready for prime-time by having her run in McKay's riding, an inexplicably popular Tory cabinet minister, in effect losing their ONLY opportunity to win a seat in Parliament.
 
-Jack Layton, the NDP leader, was convinced he was running for Prime Minister and ran TV ads that effectively called Harper a strong leader but that he himself was the new strong, whatever that means. 

-The Liberals had an intelligent and compassionate leader with vision but he came across as very weak, expecially in English.

All in all, an embarrassing and depressing exercise.

The only good thing about it all is that although the right of centre only had one party to choose from - the centre-left vote was split between 4 parties - they still couldn't manage a majority government.

The left has to get its act together and unite, but we won't, lol!

I don't understand much of the terminology you all are using so please forgive me if my question comes across as ignorant, but do you all know who won yet? Was this an election for a new Prime Minister? I remember John Harper being elected in a few years ago. I watched the election process on C-Span although I really didn't understand what was going on. I also remember watching John Harper give his acceptance speech.

How long between the elections for Prime Minister?

I'm sorry if I sound like an ignorant American (and I must confess I am) but I'm very interested in these elections in other countries and I don't always understand them. I'd love to learn though!

Comcast moved C-Span to its digital line-up so I couldn't watch the Canadian elections tonight.

[Lumière]

-The Greens, who have a strong intelligent and articulate leader proved that they are NOT ready for prime-time by having her run in McKay's riding, an inexplicably popular Tory cabinet minister, in effect losing their ONLY opportunity to win a seat in Parliament.
 

I know. 
The Greens could've had a shot for a seat if they weren't going up against McKay's riding.

There are no Green MPs heading to Ottawa...and it feels like the almost 1 million Green votes (one of those mine) dissolved into nothing.
Still, there is hope because there were over 250,000 more Green votes this time around (compared to the last election).

I think it's funny that the US election is still to come, it feels like the longest campaign trail in the history of the world!  Harper called the election on Sept 7 (never mind that he started campaigning way before and even used tax-payers money to do it, the slimeball) and 5 weeks later it's over. For a total of $350 Million wasted dollars.

I just hope that Harper doesn't attempt to call another election in another 6 months.

[oilgun]

I know. 
The Greens could've had a shot for a seat if they weren't going up against McKay's riding.

There are no Green MPs heading to Ottawa...and it feels like the almost 1 million Green votes (one of those mine) dissolved into nothing.
Still, there is hope because there were over 250,000 more Green votes this time around (compared to the last election).


I just hope that Harper doesn't attempt to call another election in another 6 months.

But he has to within a year, doesn't he?

I just read in the Globe & Mail that Dion didn't listen to his advisers to not mention his "Green Shift" (aka: Carbon Tax  aka: Tax increase) during the campaign.  I guess it was hard to do when he kept getting grilled about it by Harper.  I actually liked Dion but he seemed too naively honest for the job, lol!