Canadian Politics

A bunch of normally secure NDP ridings are going red in Atlantic Canada. If they can't hold Halifax and Eastern Passage...what will happen in Toronto and Quebec?

In fact the Liberals could very well sweep the entire region if this keeps up.

I shudder to think how utterly fucked we are if Harper somehow keeps power.

edited 19th Oct '15 5:47:10 PM by Rationalinsanity

Atlantic Canada would have a right to be very put out with the rest of Canada if that happens.

Seriously, do not fuck this up for us Ontario/Quebec. Harper holds grudges and we just gave him the finger at full force.

Whatever else happens, I don't see Québec stopping hating Harper. He's not going to be depending on the Québecois for victories.

CBC and CTV have called it a Liberal win. Haven't said if it's minority or majority yet.

I don't see that? How can you call a Canadian election before Ontario and Quebec are counted?

Huh, just saw the CTV call. Bit too early for my liking.

edited 19th Oct '15 6:44:11 PM by Rationalinsanity

The number of votes already counted in Ontario and Quebec gives the Liberals 40% of the vote.

Yeah I'd rather not jump the gun and would've waited for more concrete numbers.

edited 19th Oct '15 6:47:49 PM by latenight

Tories have been declared the Official Opposition by CTV.

Shit.

On the upside, it's unlikely that Harper plans to stick around as opposition leader. Who his successor will be? I'm not sure anyone knows.

On the even upside-ier upside, at least he's not in charge anymore.

Looks to be a Liberal majority.

x3 NDP was never gonna be 2nd if Liberal was going to win.

edited 19th Oct '15 7:18:32 PM by nightwyrm_zero

There's gonna be pressure for Peter Mackay to return t politics and assume leadership from the more progressive part of the party, you can bet on that.

All of the ridings on the CBC map are showing things like "2 polls counted out of 284", so I wouldn't put much bank on the results yet, but going by the way things look in the Maritimes - Trudeaumania is apparently back. Between this year and 2016, it looks like it's going to be a time of dynastic politics for North America.

And if that's the case, we have tonight to find out which party wins, and the next several months to learn who's actually running the country. Because using the old leader's name to get back in power is one thing, and letting a schoolteacher with little political experience run the show for real is another thing. Who the big names in Cabinet are, not to mention the early policies, should show us a lot about the direction things will take, and who's pulling the strings.

Any bets on whether they're going to let him actually legalize weed?

edited 19th Oct '15 7:25:59 PM by Galadriel

MacKay is uncharismatic and known to be a backstabber. He has lots of enemies within the party.

Its looking like a Liberal majority, which frankly amazes me.

But even as a true red Liberal...its bittersweet to watch Jack Layton's legacy be destroyed like this. The NDP will be lucky to get 40 seats at this rate.

Yes, it's awful to see the NDP fall apart like this when they were poised to form a government two months ago.

I think the turning point was Mulcair's pledge to run a balanced budget when the Liberals were promising stimulus spending.

I'm just hoping the Liberals keep their promise on voting reform.

If the Liberals are half as smart as they are in this campaign they'd realize that most of these votes were protests against Harper and if they don't enact voting reform they won't be forming government in a long time.

edited 19th Oct '15 7:38:20 PM by latenight

I can see why he did that; figured the NDP would be vulnerable on accusations of fiscal irresponsibility and decided he had to make that claim. But whatever went wrong, somethign clearly did. It could be as simply as making the NDP platform 90% similar to the Liberals and thinking they could still hold on to voters in a close race where they Liberals (for the first time in about a decade) didn't have a desperately unpopular leader.

Another observation about the results: for the first time since the days of Trudeau père, the Liberals are leading in Québec. (It was the Conservatives with Mulroney in '88, the Bloc in '93, '97, 2000, '04, and '06, and the NDP in '11.)

Right, because if First Past the Post gives them a majority, they'll be all-fired keen to change that. I don't think so.

edited 19th Oct '15 7:37:00 PM by Galadriel

CTV has called a Liberal majority.

I'm staying up for Harper's concession speech. It will be magnificent.

I was seeing a lot of Strategic Voting posts on my facebook the last two weeks. I think a number of people just voted Liberal to not split the left vote and be sure of kicking Harper out.

edited 19th Oct '15 7:42:33 PM by nightwyrm_zero

Looks like New Democrats voted strategically for the Liberals, but Liberals didn't vote strategically for New Democrats; if they had, we could have won a lot of the BC ridings that the Conservatives are taking.

Also, the Liberals are leading in a couple ridings in Calgary. CALGARY. What is happening?

I'm hoping the Greens are able to pick up a seat or two. I always liked their platform.

It looks like the Bloc is winning a few seats, which I don't like very much.

edited 19th Oct '15 8:21:08 PM by LinkToTheFuture

I'm watching Victoria very closely for that reason. It'd be good to see more green.

Yeah The Bloc winning some seats isn't great but at least Gilles Duceppe is losing to the NDP incumbent. Although I'd rather have 1 Gilles Duceppe than 10 Bloc Quebecois.

edited 19th Oct '15 8:22:13 PM by latenight