Early projection: Liberal minority in Canada

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-06-28 10:38pm

At last count, the Liberals are comfortably ahead with 74 seats as opposed to the Conservatives' 46 (and the NDP's pitiful 6).

Of course, there are a large number of seats for which the entire ballot count is not yet in, and of those seats, the Liberals are currently leading in 55, the Conservatives are leading in 39, and the NDP is leading in 12.

If the current trends continue, the Liberals will gain a minority with well over 100 seats, but not enough to get a solid majority. And they will have one man to thank: Stephen Harper, whose campaign went off the rails shortly after the leadership debate. After a surprisingly good showing, Harper proceeded to shoot himself in the foot multiple times by demonstrating the campaign skills of a raving imbecile: speaking publicly about sweeping changes that he'd like to see in various institutions (hint: people get scared when one talks about revolution rather than evolution) and lending steam to Martin's last-minute "the party for all Canadians coast-to-coast drive" by going home to Alberta and saying that he would be "a strong voice" for their regional interests. I have to seriously wonder if his campaign was secretly being run by a Liberal mole.

Grand Admiral Thrawn · Post by **Grand Admiral Thrawn** » 2004-06-28 10:48pm

I'm surprised they did so well in Ontario (they're predicting nothing for Concervatives in Toronto's 23 seats). Of course, the damn Bloc got most of fucking Quebec. Why are they so popular again?

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-06-28 10:55pm

Grand Admiral Thrawn wrote:I'm surprised they did so well in Ontario (they're predicting nothing for Concervatives in Toronto's 23 seats).

I'm not surprised. In the last two weeks, Harper's support plunged precipitously as he idiotically began getting cocky and talking about all the changes he wanted to make. And then on the last day, the final crowning stupidity when he was seen on national TV boasting to a crowd of cheering supporters in Alberta that he would fight for their regional interests! How do you think the people in the rest of Canada feel when they see him falling right back into the Reform Party mould, playing to the regional interests of his homebase rather than talking about the big picture of all of Canada? He kissed an awful lot of votes outside Alberta goodbye with that single act. Fucking idiot.

When will those Reform, er- Alliance, er- New Conservative morons out in Alberta realize that you can't win votes outside Alberta by loudly pandering to Alberta? They still don't get this whole "big tent" thing at all.

Of course, the damn Bloc got most of fucking Quebec. Why are they so popular again?

Spite.

SCRawl · Post by **SCRawl** » 2004-06-28 10:55pm

The Bloc promises what most Quebecers want: more money for Quebec. Their idealogy calls for separation, but everyone but the hardest of hardliners knows that that isn't likely to happen anytime soon. So, they remain the party which will get everything it can get for Quebec.

Also, in the unique situation we have in this election, the Bloc might end up being the balance of power for the party which forms the government. This gives the Bloc even more power, and makes them more likely to be able to squeeze more money out of the rest of us.

Besides: who else are they gonna vote for? The thieving Liberals, the scary Conservatives, or the pointless NDP?

Montcalm · Post by **Montcalm** » 2004-06-28 11:17pm

The Liberal won in my district Liza Frulla was elected,i was worried the Bloc would get it.

Grand Admiral Thrawn · Post by **Grand Admiral Thrawn** » 2004-06-28 11:29pm

Now for the fun part, the other parties trying to act as if though this was a victory for them.

J · Post by J » 2004-06-28 11:35pm

It's almost certainly a Liberal minority now unless something really wild happens in BC. The Conservatives & BQ don't look like they'll have enough seats to form a coalition even if they wanted to, so it looks like we'll be having a Liberal/NDP minority.

Icehawk · Post by **Icehawk** » 2004-06-28 11:35pm

*breathes Immense sigh of relief* Liberals win.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-06-28 11:41pm

Now the question becomes: will the Conservatives be intelligent enough to understand what this means? That fiscal accountability sells well but their neo-Cambrian social policies don't? Will they be able to watch the pattern of their big mouths shooting off and the effect on poll numbers and put two and two together?

Or will they just retreat back to Alberta and rant anew about gay marriage and evil stupid leftists in the eastern provinces?

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » 2004-06-28 11:42pm

Darth Wong wrote:Or will they just retreat back to Alberta and rant anew about gay marriage and evil stupid leftists in the eastern provinces?

//me wonders how hard it would be to get the Western provinces to seceede, we do have extra space on the flag for more states

HemlockGrey · Post by **HemlockGrey** » 2004-06-28 11:47pm

I wouldn't mind if we snapped up all of Canada except Quebec.

Now, what is the Bloc Quebecois? Is it basically a party that exists only to further the interests of Quebec, to the exclusion of all other provinces?

aerius · Post by **aerius** » 2004-06-28 11:49pm

This is why the Conservatives should've elected Belinda Stronach as their leader and shaped the party in her image. She took the Liberal's views on gay marriage and most social issues which I think would've gone over quite well in Ontario & BC. I don't know if she'd been able to sway the hardliners in the prairie provinces, but in the end that doesn't matter much if you get wiped out in Ontario the way they did.

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » 2004-06-28 11:49pm

HemlockGrey wrote:Now, what is the Bloc Quebecois? Is it basically a party that exists only to further the interests of Quebec, to the exclusion of all other provinces?

Yes.

aerius · Post by **aerius** » 2004-06-28 11:53pm

HemlockGrey wrote:I wouldn't mind if we snapped up all of Canada except Quebec.

Take Quebec too, loads of cheap hydroelectric power over there which can be sold for shitloads of money. Also, there's no way in hell they can survive an American cultural assimilation, a decade or so with you guys and they'll be eating bigmacs and speaking english like the rest of us.

Now, what is the Bloc Quebecois? Is it basically a party that exists only to further the interests of Quebec, to the exclusion of all other provinces?

Yup, and they're also Grade A shitheads.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-06-28 11:54pm

The interesting thing is that the numbers currently look like they'll shake out so that the NDP's seats added to the Liberals' seats will equal a majority. So if the NDP can play nice with the Liberals, the two parties can push their agenda through Parliament.

Since the NDP made Proportional Representation a key plank of their election platform and warned that they would insist on it as a condition of co-operation if they ended up holding the balance of power, this means we might finally see some movement toward re-examining some of the structures of our electoral process.

Montcalm · Post by **Montcalm** » 2004-06-29 12:00am

HemlockGrey wrote:I wouldn't mind if we snapped up all of Canada except Quebec.

Now, what is the Bloc Quebecois? Is it basically a party that exists only to further the interests of Quebec, to the exclusion of all other provinces?

For More Info On The BQ Click This Have Fun Googling It
Funny Two Website For One Bunch Of Lunatic

BTW aerius thats what i hope the total assimilation of every french speaking quebecers,once they're Borgified......i mean Americanised they'll finally STFU

Montcalm · Post by **Montcalm** » 2004-06-29 12:17am

Consult this site to see how many voted for your local candidate French site just choose your province and district

J · Post by J » 2004-06-29 12:50am

It's still theoretically possible for the Bloc and Conservatives to form an alliance if all the ridings remaining went to the Cons, but it doesn't look like it's gonna happen. Sure is too close for comfort though...

Ma Deuce · Post by **Ma Deuce** » 2004-06-29 01:00am

It's final:
Liberal:135 seats
Conservative: 97 seats
Bloc(heads): 54 seats
NDP: 21 seats
Independant: 1 seat
Green: 0 seats (yay)

The Liberals and the NDP have barely enough seats to constitute a majority, but are just 5 seats ahead of the combined Conservative/Bloc.
However, there is still one other issue that could bring down the Liberals before this term is up: The sponsorship scandal investigation report is not out yet (which is why Martin called the election 18 months before he needed to), and if Martin is implicated in it... Non-confidence vote, anyone?

Ma Deuce · Post by **Ma Deuce** » 2004-06-29 02:37am

Well, shit I spoke too soon in figuring the results (although not completely counted) were the final numbers (it sure looked that way)

. If the current numbers hold, the Conservatives end up with 99 seats, and the NDP with 19, which means that the Liberal/NDP combo is just one seat shy of a majority, and the Conservative/Blockhead combo is just one seat behind that...

Icehawk · Post by **Icehawk** » 2004-06-29 03:15am

lol. Talk about a last second bitchslap. Those poor NDP were really flaunting their "doubled" increase in power and popularity and this last second surprise appears to squash that little notion flat.

Son of the Suns · Post by **Son of the Suns** » 2004-06-29 03:22am

Don't you know that has to be annoying, to be labeled as the majority, and therefore responsible (or at least made out to be so) for all the screwups over the next few years, and you really don't have enough of a majority to do anything.

White Cat · Post by **White Cat** » 2004-06-29 03:25am

The "final" results they've got now are:

Liberal: 135
Conservatives: 99
Bloc: 54
NDP: 19
Independent: 1

This could still change a bit, since some of the districts are still very close. (In Edmonton-Beaumont, the Liberal is ahead of the Conservative by 32 votes.)

The independent is Chuck Cadman, a former Canadian Alliance MP who lost the Conservative nomination. Odds are he'll join the CPC caucus in short order, or at least vote with them.

This means that:

Liberal + NDP = 154
Conservative + Bloc = 154

Of course, the Conservatives and Bloc really don't have much in common, so I can't see them forming a coalition to oust Martin.

It will definitely be an interesting 38th Parliament.

Ma Deuce · Post by **Ma Deuce** » 2004-06-29 03:39am

Icehawk wrote:lol. Talk about a last second bitchslap. Those poor NDP were really flaunting their "doubled" increase in power and popularity and this last second surprise appears to squash that little notion flat.

Still, if it wern't for the sponsorship scandal, I'd bet the NDP would have been all but wiped out this election...

The_Nice_Guy · Post by **The_Nice_Guy** » 2004-06-29 06:38am

Liberal + NDP = 154
Conservative + Bloc = 154

Canada looks to be a very interesting place for the next few years, between the Liberals who want to take all the money, the Conservatives who want to dictate what the people can and cannot do in their social lives, the Bloc who wants their money for their pork projects in Quebec, and the NDPers who have no idea what they want.

Cool.

TWG