Hooray for Democracy!

[pyat]

Well, that was probably the least interesting and most pointless federal election I've ever voted in. The Conservatives have a slightly larger minority government. Voter turnout was an all time low of just under 60%, meaning the Conservatives were handed the reins of government with just 26% of the population voting in their favour.

The Green Party received 6.8% of votes cast, up from the sub-1% abyss of a few years back, suggesting a growing awareness that the party is not entirely made up of extreme hippy-dippy folks. This is good.

Locally, the NDP incumbent was re-elected with a solid lead over the other candidates.

Comments

[nottheterritory.livejournal.com]

Actually I found the results strangely reassuring. The lesson I took away is that Canadians really don't want a Conservative majority. The Liberals tried as hard as they could to hand one to them - to the point of working on behalf of yet a third party to split the Anyone But Conservative vote and they still weren't able to give Harper his majority. Basically that tells me that if they run any halfway charismatic talking head in the next election, we should be back out of Conservative territory.

Also, as I noted over in robin_d_laws's LJ, the second quote that Toronto's local classical station (otherwise known as Wealthy_North_Toronto_Boomer_FM) used to summarize the election (after Harper) was Justin Trudeau - there's a party that would win with any half decent leader that looks and sounds good on air and a young man with the best possible pedigree for a Liberal leader... I'm just saying...

[anidada.livejournal.com]

Mmm. Justin Trudeau. *swoon*

[amarafox.livejournal.com]

I agree *swoon*

[thebitterguy]

Oh, yeah. He'll help them make that much needed breakthrough in the west.

[nottheterritory.livejournal.com]

*gallic shrug * He couldn't do worse than Dion did

[thebitterguy]

Dude, I think I couldn't do worse than Dion did.

[nottheterritory.livejournal.com]

*sizes you up * - OK then, how's your French?

[thebitterguy]

Better than his English.

Which, once again, is setting the bar nice and low.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Basically that tells me that if they run any halfway charismatic talking head in the next election, we should be back out of Conservative territory.

I agree that's a silver lining, but it doesn't help to make the election itself less pointless!

And, yeah, I think Justin Trudeau is being groomed for power in a secret bunker, somewhere. They're just waiting for his hair to turn silver.