A few thoughts on the election and the future

[chickenfeet]

It went pretty much as expected. The CPC did surprisingly well in Quebec and rather badly in Ontario but the overall outcome is not dissimilar.

The NDP picked up two handy seats in the Toronto core but didn't really dent the Liberals' hold on the city.

There were a few odd results. Who would have predicted that Belinda Stronach would get reelected?

Ten Quebecers in the CPC caucus should act a some sort of brake on the loonier, socially conservative, Western chauvinists.

CPC+NDP = 153, even without a recount in Muskoka-Parry Sound. So, no PR based deal going there unfortunately.

Any sort of CPC/Bloc or CPC/Liberal alliance would appear to be unthinkable.

A Harper government would therefore appear to be highly unstable unless there are major defections from either the Bloc (unlikely) or the Liberals. The latter would only appear even remotely possible if there were to be a huge dust up over the leadership.

Dare Harper gamble on an early election while the Liberals are leaderless?

Comments

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

Well I don't think the sky is falling. In some ways it's the best of the reasonably likely options. The Tories will have a pretty hard time pushing through the more extreme parts of their agenda. The Liberals will have an opportunity to do some house cleaning and refocusssing. It remains to be seen whether they take that opportunity or give us another bent apparatchnik from Quebec as leader with the usual suspects backing him up. I don't know where the NDP goes from here. Without PR it's hard to see how they can push past 30-40 seats tops and I think the Liberals and the Bloc will derail any moves towards PR.