Election

Yesterday was election day in Canada and my worst fears did not materialize. I actually stayed up and watched the returns on TV - interesting because they did not have a black out of the results across the time zones this time. So the people on the west coast knew how the east voted.

So we returned the Liberal Party to power but with a minority. The other party that will likely be called upon to form the government is a socialist party - the NDP. This is quite a good combination and usually brings progressive results on social and health care policy. The current Liberal leader is a bit right leaning so the NDP will pull him over to the left a bit. Never hurts to go a bit left in my humble opinion.

This has been a bad election for national unity and the country was badly split in the vote. The west went solidly with the Conservative Party. It was partly a protest vote and partly I'm sure because of a fundamental agreement with Stephen Harper's right wing views. Ontario might have liked to do a protest vote but were far too afraid that might actually get Stephen Harper into power and all Ontarians know he has horns and a tail. Quebec registered a protest vote as well and voted in the PQ which is a Quebec separtist party - this promises some grief down the road. I like to think Quebec is no more separtist than it was last year and that it really was only a protest vote against the Liberals. The east coast provinces were with Ontario all the way and voted solidly Liberal. These separate voting patterns don't really bode well but at least we were delivered from Harper for the time being.

I hope Paul Martin is smarter in the days ahead. He has a lot to make up for and being as we have a minority government, the next election can only be a couple of years out now. I am already starting to pray that the Conservatives do not make any more inroads.