Well, now what?

[C_eh_N_eh_D_eh]

So, we've got a Conservative minority. Disappointing, but not unexpected, and it could have been a whole lot worse. The Grits, Bloc, and NDP will all have to work together to keep Harper under control.

Paul Martin won reelection in his riding, so he gets to be LotO. Hopefully he'll have lost enough support in caucus that the Grits can pry him off and pick a new leader.

We can depend on the NDP to represent progressive values, even if they don't have much of a voice. Layton's got a busy year ahead of him if he wants to build support at the federal level.

I don't trust the Bloc Quebecois. They may be moderate lefties right now, but their party was originally founded by right-wingers; plus, they have their own agenda to pursue.

Harper knows that most Canadians don't want a social conservative running the show, and that the bulk of his votes came from people who were simply voting against the Grits. He won't try anything too extreme. The other parties will have to pressure him on health care, education, etc., and pick his economic policies apart.

[ClusterFreak]

1. Grits gotta clean house....i.e. dump Martin.

Dump the Martin muscle too.....time for some new blood. Lets see who steps up.

[Bassic]

7. Hopefully not Ignatieff, he's a bit too right wing. nt

[HuffleClaw]

2. yes it could have been dramatically worse

cbc (as of 11:15pm eastern time) says 122 cons, 103 lib, 50 bq, 31 ndp, and 1 ind. so, with only a narrow margin of victory, the conservatives will be fighting a constant uphill battle to get ANY legislation passed. i expect the liberals and the nbp will have more to offer the bloq than the conservatives do overall. we're in for some real interesting days ahead.

[eve_was_framed]

4. they are now projecting 123 for the Torries

[eve_was_framed]

3. actually the Bloc came from the PQ which came from Liberals who

had broken away their party...so the Bloc's origins are leftist not right wingers.

[C_eh_N_eh_D_eh]

5. Am I thinking of the wrong party, then?

I'm thinking of the party brought to us by Lucien Bouchard and Jacques Parizeau, who couldn't be called leftist by any stretch of the imagination. Aren't they the Bloc Quebecois?

[eve_was_framed]

6. yep that's the party but their origins were anything but the right...

Levesque, Trudeau and the rest were all part of the Liberal party and all great buddies and Levesque and others broke off from the Liberals to form the PQ which has now (post Levesque) morphed into the Bloc. But in terms of ideology, the Bloc is still not as right leaning as Harper is, IMO.

[Bassic]

8. Not nearly as right leaning,

The Bloc is a rather left-leaning party. Hell, it's chief is a Marxist.

[Canadian_moderate]

10. Most of the Bloc did split off from the PC's

I believe it was in the late 1980's. Lucien Bouchard was a cabinet minister under Mulroney and a close friend before betraying him.

I think the traditional political left/right spectrum can be pretty much disregarded when it comes to separatists. There is little consistency except for the fact that most seek to create a new country called Quebec.

I believe that the Bloc support 2-tier (hybrid) healthcare based on many of the European models. I'm sure they'll be happy to cooperate with Harper on that issue.

[C_eh_N_eh_D_eh]

9. Fair enough, then.

I really don't know that much about the separatist movement. I'm too young to remember Levesque, but I remember Bouchard, Parizeau, and Landry; hence my assumption that separatists as a group are not to be trusted. :shrug: