Posted on 10/14/2008 7:15:02 PM PDT by Chet 99
CBC projects Conservative government
Last Updated: Tuesday, October 14, 2008 | 10:10 PM ET
CBC News
Canadians have re-elected Stephen Harper's Conservatives, but it is still unclear whether the party will gain enough seats across the country to form a majority government, CBC News projects.
The Tories' fortunes were buoyed early in the evening by surprising gains in Atlantic Canada, especially in New Brunswick, despite the party being shut out in Newfoundland and Labrador.
Meanwhile in Ontario, early returns suggested vote-splitting was cutting into Liberal support in the party's traditional heartland.
For Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion and NDP Leader Jack Layton, Tuesday's results might be considered enough to warrant tests of their leadership, as the Liberals and NDP evaluate their chiefs' campaign performances and what the parties gained or lost in the formation of the next Parliament.
Unlike Dion, who vowed he would not quit as leader after a Liberal loss, Harper said he would step down as leader if the Tories were defeated.
Harper's Conservatives began the campaign with a huge financial advantage over the other parties and with polls suggesting they had the potential to win a majority in the House of Commons. The Conservatives led the Liberals by as much as 17 points in early opinion polls.
But that lead shrank steadily, with the Liberals pulling within striking range of the Tories just over halfway through the 37-day campaign amid a meltdown in the world's financial markets sparked by the U.S. credit crisis.
Voting results for the country's 40th general election could not be publicized nationally until after the polls closed in British Columbia and the Yukon at 7 p.m. PT.
Europe and Canada are turning conservative, and we very well may go in the opposite direction.
Change indeed.
Tories in Canada; Agnela Merkel; Sarko; Tusk in Poland approves the shield; Klaus in the Czech Republic waiting to do the same; Berlusconi in Italy. How can this be if we Americans are in such low esteem? (sarcasm off)
I Hope i don’t have to move back up North after November 4th.
Although the Conservatives are more like RINOs, at least they are not as socialist as 0.
Listening to results on CBC Radio One now. Sounds like a big night for the Conservatives.
The polls here are always right...
There is a 1-2 month campaign... so people know who they will be voting for and the change is minimal...
I hope we get a majority...we are now at about 125 seats
Cool. Maybe I’ll migrate there if Obama wins.
I’m looking at the results, and it appears Harper will fall short of a majority.
If you have CSPAN available you can watch the results and commentary live. Certainly more reserved than the US election returns.
Canada already had a conservative government. Harper’s party already had more seats than the other parties. They appear to be gaining some seats this time, but it remains to be seen if they will win a majority. Canada has several parties so it’s a conservative government if the Conservative Party has the most seats, even if that might just be thirty some odd percent of the seats. They had 127 seats before tonight, and so far it looks like they have 133 or just under 36% of the seats. Results are still coming in though. They have to win 155 seats to take the majority. That would be newsworthy if that happened.
yes, i think a majority is around the 155 (not sure here) seats and he has around 132 as of now....it is stronger mandate than the 2006 election...im still hoping
All of the opposing parties are leftist. I am surprised they do not band together to block Harper from taking office.
It looks like Harper will have to win every single remaining seat to get 155.
yeah, i think they are around 142 with about 15 seats left to count...
Shoot, the Conservative Party in Canada isn’t all that conservative. But yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Liberal Party and the NDP and maybe a couple of the lesser parties join together to take on the conservatives. The Conservative Party was formed by a merger of parties.
Harper now at 148 seats, with 5 outstanding. Soooooooo close to a majority.
Somehow I don’t see a Lib/NDP coalition happening. Even the Libs know the Dippers are a nest of vipers.
It would be an irony if, in the unfortunate even that Obama won in the US, Canada found itself to the right of its southern neighbor for once.
Merkel didn’t really win. In coalition with pinkos.
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