Looks like a minority Liberal government, and one that'll have to make nice with the NDP to get anything done. Either that or the Bloc Québécois, which is a bit like trying to get a conversation going with that guy at the end of the bar mumbling into his beer about visitors and velostat. Cutting deals with the ConservativeSoCredAlliance is a scary idea; they've got big knives.
CBC will have the latest numbers and the official spin. My first Canadian election as a voter; biggest difference from my last American election (aside from the paper trail) was that the ballot listed all six or seven or so MP candidates for my riding. That was it. That's all that was on there. I turned it over twice, to be sure I wasn't missing anything. I think the font was 12pt Helvetica Bold, rather than the 6pt Arial Narrow I'm used to. And I had to mark one of the (half inch) circles in pencil rather than stab at the ballot with a pointy thing. Which is kind of a shame, as I used to work out a fair amount of pent-up campaign feelings that way.
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Regarding your ballot: Yeah, Canada is pretty small town that way. We’ve been known to count the ballots and decide the election in one night too! ;)
I think everyone has visions of a nice lefty Liberal/NDP coalition but I worry about them swaying over the Conservatives to pass some of their less than lefty legislation (missile defence, for example). Or I worry that the Cons and the Bloq could team up to defeat any laws they don’t like. I don’t think the government will last long either way but hopefully we’ll get some decent laws passed before we go back to the polls. It would be encouraging, for example, if the NDP would get Martin to stop waffling and just get on with passing that same-sex marriage bill they’ve been promising.
I’m trying hard not to think about the Libs snuggling up with the once-and-future-CA to suck Canada into a missile defense boondoggle. And I see Abbotsford re-elected Randy White, which is about on par with Kansas uniting behind Fred Phelps. I’m very disappointed in Abbotsford.