whew...

I had made a bet with Josh that we would end up with a Conservative minority, thankfully I owe Josh a penny. Surprisingly the Grits ended up with a rather strong minority (134 ± 2 seats). Based on the results of this election and last election, it seems the Liberals will do better than the pollsters say prior the election. Thanks to this strong showing the Liberals and the NDP combine to form the majority. This fact combined with the BQ's social views, will lead to a Canada that I think will be better than the recent Liberal majorities.

Having seen the preliminary results for Westmount Ville-Marie, I'm very happy to see Eric Steedman in third place. It seems Robert Gervais (forth place) just aligned himself with the wrong party. It's a shame people vote for parties over good individuals. In my heart of hearts I wished political parties did not exist or were a lot weaker. The BQ candidate didn't deserve to be in second in this riding.

I'll comment on the final numbers once they come out tomorrow.

oops

Well... It seems I spoke too soon, when I woke up this morning the NDP had 19 seats (as opposed to 22 last night). This means the NDP doesn't necessarily hold the balance of power since their 19 seats combined with the Liberal's 135 seats, equals exactly half the seats in the new Parliament. Obviously not all MPs are present all the time, and the BQ still plays a role in social issues, so I'm not too worried. Which brings me to the meat of this discussion, how would the NDP do in a PARTIAL proportional representation scheme. I'm not totally behind a complete proportional representation which does away with ridings. I think regional candidates who are elected as individuals should still play a role in Canadian government. I think regional independents (like Chuck Cadman) would get lost in a full PR system. I decided to put this election's results through my VERY CRUDE partial representation system to see what happens.

( Kozo' Partial Proportional Representation Parliament )

I also went out and saw Fahrenheit 9/11 today. Although the facts presented are nothing new to well informed lefties, the film highlights emotional aspects that are often absent when you read alternative (non-CNN) news sources. Fahrenheit isn't the light hearted view that Bowling for Columbine presented, and even Michael Moore haters (people who think he's abrasive) should go see this film.