End of the Liberal Party?

Without a role to play as the chosen party of Bay Street who manages the expectations of the liberal left, what role is there now for the Liberals. Dead in rural Canada. Irrelevant to business with Harper's now their party. Losing its grip on even affluent intellectual areas like Vancouver Quadra. Is this what Harper wanted -- a dissolved middle that used to play the role of managing away polarization, ushering in instead a new era of sharply polarized Conservative - NDP Parliaments?

It's over

Love those early election night tweets.

“Conservatives ___ _____ in ___ ridings. Liberals ___ _____. NDP _____ __ ___ ___ seats!”

“13 Blueberries, 12 kitkats and Seven tasty cups of Orange Drank. Yummy Election snacks!”

“Results now rolling in. 72% of on-air personalities are completely bewildered by twitter terminology.”

First victory of the 2011 federal election? I trust it’s the end of the hopeless Elections Canada reporting ban. The ban became idiotic a long time ago, and perhaps the regulators will notice this time that the game is up.

CBC accidentally broadcast results at one point. CTV’s Lisa Laflamme tweeted news of a Conservative near majority before it was permitted, and that was then picked up by TSN on a hockey broadcast. Only a prank-like rash of predictions of an NDP minority government kept people alert, or proved that they weren’t.

What does Elections Canada think it is protecting us from?

First loser of the election? Well, at the risk of pointing out something else utterly obvious, the Liberals collapse in support exceeds even what polls suggested.

Second winner? British Columbia, which may actually determine the fate of Parliament, even while many of its citizens abhor the result.

One indisputable fact

That CTV "moving leader's heads" logo is CREEPY!!

Bloc

Happy to see Bloc collapse. And yet more than any other factor that could elect a Harper majority.

3 digits

NDP #'s now north of any predictions I saw.

Here's a bold statement:

I begin to think that a huge NDP opposition under a Harper majority is the best possible outcome for the NDP, in purely political terms.

Four years of a dictatorship

Four years of a dictatorship ahead of us....:(

The environment will suffer. Corporations will get generous tax breaks. Social Programmes cut. health Care cut and people will pay through the nose. Gay Marriage will be replaced with civil unions, no more gun registration, we will be the USA's bitch, We will not pull out of Afghanistan in 2011, we will go deeper in debt.......

It is not going to be nice.

Thank you Liberal Party of Canada for destroying this once fine country. If you would of done the coalition Harper would of been long gone.

Sweeet....

The NDP win a moral victory taking out the BQ.

The PMSH wins a majority to punish the left base for their mean attacks and whining and overdemanding and bullying and election fever. That's all this is: Just desserts :-).

The Fed Libs are ready for reconstruction under new leadership. I think had they had the gov't fall in November they could have had Christy Clark lead them now instead of 2021. Big mistake!!!!

So that said, there's something for everyone.

Harper Majority Declared by CBC

We are witnessing the rise of right-wing populism.

David

As the Liberals decline and possibly decline into marginal status, many Liberals will have to go somewhere else. Some might drift to the Dippers but many will drift to the Conservatives. The Conservative Party will only grow larger and, as this happens, it will become more tempered and more attractive to previous Liberal voters.

A Big Thankyou to Jack.

Thanks Jack for whacking the separatists. Something you can now wear with pride. Rather you do the whacking Jack. Goodonya!

The decline of the Bloc will be the big story in the history books.

Five Conservative cabinet members lose their seats

and maybe Michael Ignatieff? He's in second in his riding reports CBC

Another Thankyou for Jack

The Conservatives will extend a big thankyou to Jack too for also whacking the Liberals and providing the country with a stable majority government.

May may . . .

Much excitement at Elizabeth May's election night party, with three of 245 polls reporting. She's in the lead so far, but says she's not confident . . . A source says they identified 20,000 solid voters, plus another 10,000 maybes. With a solid get-out-the vote effort, it's possible . . .

Ugh

A Tory majority?
One lesson here is crime pays, apparently, & there are millions of Canadian dupes all too happy to help enable criminals the PMO & Tory Cabinet.

Another lesson is our first-past-the-post system is flawed & undemocratic, as it allows a party with far less than 50% of the popular vote to win 50%+ of the seats.
Harper's gang may get less than 40% of the popular vote. So the 60%+ of Canadians who voted left are disenfranchised and will be subject to a Tory tyranny of the minority for the next 4 years or so. This is a perverse version of democracy, because it's undemocratic.
Proportional representation is much fairer & more democratic.

This sucks.

David

So Iggy must be happy too. He wouldn't really want that seat now, would he?

RAFE MAIR sent this note and I post it here

7:55 I'm surprised at the size of the win but I think the great surprise for an old guy like me who saw Conservatives as once in a while winners and then only by a fluke now so well established across the country.

I also wonder how this plays out for the Liberals in BC -- does this mean that Premier Clark calls an early election? I personally hope she does because I think she will have two problems. She is after all a Liberal not a right wing opportunist like Campbell nor and unknown yet articulate newcomer like Gordon Wilson.

For an environmentalist it's a disappointing and very scary night.

Libs Gone, "is this what Harper wanted"?

"Is this what Harper wanted -- a dissolved middle that used to play the role of managing away polarization, ushering in instead a new era of sharply polarized Conservative - NDP Parliaments?"

No David, it's what VOTERS wanted. Even though BC has little effect, Ontario tossed them out. I believe, for creating an excuse for an election. Through all of the political rhetoric and BS, MOST reasonable folks still expected the parties to at least work together to make parliament constructive. Under Iggy's leadership and Layton's support, Parliament became just a shouting match from Christmas on. The "issues" were essentially contrived and most people felt this election was wrong. "Iggy the instigator" pays the price. The LPC pays the price. And most delicious of the results is that Duceppe is done like a dinner!

Catastrophic Night

The despair I feel for Canada at this moment is overwhelming any joy I might feel about the NDP becoming the opposition. Harper is going to move this country to the right--that is his project. The CBC will be bled to death and subsidies to the other parties will be cut off. We're forked!

Bobb999

I know many lefties that vote Conservative. They couldn't vote for the Liberals after all those shenanigans and they can't vote for the dippers because they are entrepreneurs.

There's nothing wrong with the system.

Ignatieff says farewell...

...and the Liberal Party walks into the shadows where the Whigs went long ago.

A Dubya moment

This feels a little like when George W. Bush became President - except worse.

I know many lefties that

I know many lefties that vote Conservative. They couldn't vote for the Liberals after all those shenanigans and they can't vote for the dippers because they are entrepreneurs.

There's nothing wrong with the system.
=======

A) 60% did not vote for Harper

B) The libs are a centre right party.

Iggy didn't step down ... yet

Says he's proud of the campaign, accepts blame for loss, will serve party in any way it sees fit... but hasn't yet done a Paul Martin, quitting the night of he's led the party off a cliff.

Ignatieff still wants a "party of the centre"

Good luck with that.

Alain Badiou on the election of Sarcozy:

"To raise impotence to impossibility means rejecting the service of wealth, which is the impotence of the possible. It thus means choosing a point that is your point, and that you say you will hold on to, whatever it costs, against the law of the world. What point, then? Never mind what, as long as it is formally an exception to the rule of the service of wealth, and universally proposes a truth discipline."

Hey all, let's continue the conversation at the new cover story

over here

http://thetyee.ca/News/2011/05/02/HarperWins/