Election 2011

[vonGarvin]

What a night...

 

[SeaKingTacco]

Okay, so I missed the magnitude of the NDP up-swing...

Nice to see a future Prime Minister win his first election - Chris Alexander.

I like this.

 

[Bass ackwards]

What a night...

Amen!
I honestly did not expect this.
The Captain Morgan spiced rum is flowing in celebration.

 

[Brad Sallows]

The NDP's chief problem is not that many of its newly-elected MPs are inexperienced.  The NDP's chief problem is that it will be so beholden to Quebec.

 

[Retired AF Guy]

With the solid CPC majority, there is no chance that the opposition parties can form a coalition.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Ray Sturgeon was a very, very well connected soldier, senior public servant connected and lobbyist – almost the ultimate Ottawa insider.

This story, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail, is a bit of a hatchet job, focused almost exclusively on his third career as a lobbyist for CFN* and ignoring his many and varied career accomplishments:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/tory-candidate-lobbied-ottawa-for-us-fighter-jet-manufacturer/article1959650/

I had, some 25 or so years ago, the opportunity to work with Mr. Sturgeon a few times: after every meeting I carefully checked my pockets and wallet – he was a skilled bureaucratic infighter and I don’t know many people who ever bested him at NDHQ politics, a "game" which usually involved billions of dollars. He is, also, a pleasant and personable fellow; he can tell you to go to hell and make you look forward to the trip! So: connected, smart, pleasant and personable, plugged in, very knowledgeable about Ottawa – the voters of Algoma-Manitoulin-Kapuskasing could do a lot worse.

                       

Ray Sturgeon – Conservative candidate    Carol Hughes, MP – NDP incumbent
Algoma-Manitoulin-Kapuskasing                  Algoma-Manitoulin-Kapuskasing

The early  polling has Ms. Hughes out in front 46.1% to 32.2% for Mr. Sturgeon.


_________
* CFN is the ultimate DND lobby. CFN stands for Crutchlow, Friedel, Nixon who were, respectively: ADM(Mat), Associate ADM(Mat) and DM of DND many, many years ago.

Looks like Ms. Hughes won for the NDP. So the Tories couldn't turn all the tides in ON.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Duceppe and his party is done like a dogs dinner

 

[Edward Campbell]

From the same Ottawa Citizen article quoted just above:


Here they are, with links to their web sites:

                               

Pierre Lemieux - Conservative                      Sylvie Lemieux - Green
Source: http://www.pierrelemieux.ca/          Source: http://www.sylvielemieux.ca/


According to ThreeHundredEight.com Conservative candidate Pierre Lemieux has a commanding (51.9% to 4.5%) lead over Green Candidate Sylvie Lemieux.

LCol (Ret'd) Pierre Lemieux won his riding for the Tories.

 

[dapaterson]

Predictions for cabinet?  Cannon is out, will Alexander be dropped into Foreign Affairs, here the staff still know him?  Will Mackay stay in Defence, or will Harper do a significant shuffle?


And how will Jack control his caucus, where he's got both the strong federalists of Anglo Montreal with the sovereignists of other parts of Quebec?

Add to that the list of new MPs with little or no experience in the NDP caucus, and we're looking at a very interesting next few years.



On the plus side, if you're looking to move to Ottawa in the next few years, it looks like real estate prices will trend downwards...

 

[Gimpy]

The NDP's chief problem is not that many of its newly-elected MPs are inexperienced.  The NDP's chief problem is that it will be so beholden to Quebec.

I believe the first part of your statement might/will also apply to some of the new Conservative MPs. It obviously might not be as pronounced as the NDP MPs, but I expect there to be a massive learning curve for many new MPs from all parties which might lead to an interesting beginning of this sitting of parliament.

 

[GR66]

While I'm certainly not a Harper fan I think that tonight's result holds great potential going forward.  The Conservatives are free to govern (hopefully more to their economic ideology now that there's no risk of the government falling).  The Bloc is wiped out and despite the probably low calibre of the NDP candidates elected in Quebec hopefully Quebecers will find that voting for a nationalist party won't cause the stars to fall from the sky.

Probably the best result is that the NDP and the Liberals will be free to finally sort out where the Centre-left will stand going forward.  My hope is that there will be some sort of merger/take-over between the two parties so that we're not stuck with hung parliaments and split votes going forward.

The Greens winning a seat is an added bonus.  I'm not a fan of Elizabeth May either, but some fresh ideas and different approaches can't hurt in Ottawa.

While some Party supporters might not be happy with tonights results, I think that Canadians might be pretty well served by what has happened in the long run.

Cheers!

 

[Rifleman62]

And Jacko is back living in subsidized public housing!

 

[Gimpy]

While I'm certainly not a Harper fan I think that tonight's result holds great potential going forward.  The Conservatives are free to govern (hopefully more to their economic ideology now that there's no risk of the government falling).  The Bloc is wiped out and despite the probably low calibre of the NDP candidates elected in Quebec hopefully Quebecers will find that voting for a nationalist party won't cause the stars to fall from the sky.

Probably the best result is that the NDP and the Liberals will be free to finally sort out where the Centre-left will stand going forward.  My hope is that there will be some sort of merger/take-over between the two parties so that we're not stuck with hung parliaments and split votes going forward.

The Greens winning a seat is an added bonus.  I'm not a fan of Elizabeth May either, but some fresh ideas and different approaches can't hurt in Ottawa.

While some Party supporters might not be happy with tonights results, I think that Canadians might be pretty well served by what has happened in the long run.

Cheers!

I'm in a similar position. I'm not enthralled with Harper and the Conservatives, but I am still going to go into this session with some optimism with the possibilities of a stable government and hopefully one that is still willing to reach out to the majority of the Canadian population. (I say this because even though they won a majority of seats, they did not win a majority of the popular vote.) On the other hand I'm very happy with the progression of the NDP and hopefully this can lay the foundations for many more successful campaigns in the future.

 

[ModlrMike]

Looks like Elizabeth May has won her seat.

 

[a_majoor]

Sun TV made an interesting point; the NDP surge has actually diminished their influence in Parliament.

They can no longer influence legislation and votes. The Public Service Alliance support of the NDP in fear of public service cuts may have paved the way for a CPC majority government to make these cuts. The inexperienced caucus full of "traffic pylons" placed in ridings to get the $2.00/vote subsidy will take a long time to shake out, and there is no LPC to lean on either for mentoring or tips (as a coalition would have provided).

I prefer to end with a positive note, enjoy: Canada is, and always has been, our country

 

[Brad Sallows]

If Bob Rae is already making conciliatory noises about negotiations with the NDP, I think he will be shown the door by the LPC unless the LPC is preparing to dissolve itself and send its left-leaning members to the NDP and right-leaning members to the CPC.  The LPC has had its leader's head handed back to it twice by the NDP; it would be amusing if any truly centrist Liberal thought he could find the path back to power by bargaining with the NDP while the latter occupies the high ground.  With a CPC majority, there is ample time before the next election for the LPC to tell the heavily Quebec-owned NDP opposition to sod off while it rebuilds.

 

[HavokFour]

I kind of wish the Conservatives won downtown Ottawa. Darn Ottawa U.

 

[Occam]

I kind of wish the Conservatives won downtown Ottawa. Darn Ottawa U.

Ah, it's not all their fault.  The trendy Glebe dwellers and their $500,000 one bedroom homes probably had a part in it too....    ;D

 

[Haletown]

two fingers of Balevene, one ice cube and a very satisfactory evening.

 

[canada94]

My riding remains NDP 

Finally a Con majority..