SuperFreak

Harper wouldn't even want the US model if the public didn't care. Medicare costs way, way more then our health care does. So Canada would have to raise taxes to pay for it. Private companies then have to pay for health care, and the costs are also ridiculously high. Companies would essentially be getting a corporate tax hike and employees wages would get reduced to help cover private insurance. Oh and Canada has a higher life expectancy.

That could have been the difference. The race in many peoples minds no longer being Harper majority or minority, but Harper or Layton as PM. Some Liberals that jumped to NDP to stop Harper Majority may have re-evaluated when it appeared NDP or CPC. Or simple that conservative voters went out to polls more then NDP ones.

Layton had 43% of the vote in Quebec and got 58 of 75 seats. No NDP could complain unless they believe they should give lots of seats to the bloc.

Circumstances surrounding this vote is completely different then previous ABC ones. Every time ABC was used it was with Liberals being in clear second. This time it was very different with NDP in second. This time lots of discussion of coalition and liberal/NDP mergers, not just from Harper but mainstream media. Even if people ignored that, the NDP were getting very close to conservatives in polls and it seemed possible based on some NDP would get minority. It could make possibility of Layton being in power if you vote ABC simply. Lots of people might hate Harper being in power but they could hate even more NDP. Ask older people in Ontario, do you hate Mike Harris reign? You'll get a lot of yes. Ask if they hated Bob Rae reign? You'll get even more.

NDP saying stopping Harper is top priority is the necessary message to achieve their objective. Which was to beat the liberals, which Layton did very decisively.

People who voted CPC, or are happy CPC in power and not have to worry about NDP are celebrating or sleeping contently. People who are angry much more likely to be venting. Hard to sleep if you want to break stuff.

Four years should be enough time to learn french. That's actually not a joke, many of them will need lots of training. NDP will have to figure out how to manage more then half of MPs being from Quebec. Having to keep them happy, and they are very demanding bunched, while not alienating their other half in English Canada.

I felt sorry for him and Iggy, both had such visible pain on their faces, how they walked and how they delivered their speeches. They looked so, so sad.

Quebec is extremely fickle. AQ nearly wins provincal election, then get whipped out. Not saying NDP will, just if NDP don't represent there new base, Quebecers won't hesitate to give them the boot.

The NDP looked dead to many at start of the campaign, media only questions to him were why are so few supporters at events. Then suddenly the bloc mentioned sovereignty vote, bloc changed to Layton and a huge surge happened. Saying liberals are dead is extremely premature. Big swings can happen, doesn't prove anything. Need at least another one.

The liberal message of late is the NDP don't have what it takes to lead. As they never have had a prominent role its unknown. The liberals will hope the NDP can't handle all the attention and scrutiny that comes from being official opposition or pm. If liberals were part of coalition they really couldn't criticize too much and say see, told you so. If it worked well the NDP would get all the credit. If you form a coalition with someone its much harder to pass them. As liberals were always ahead of NDP before its the top priority of the liberals to do so. Egos alone wouldn't allow them to work under NDP.

As I didn't vote conservative I don't know who your talking about? And yes I did vote in advanced polls.

Why would the liberals want to do that?

Hehe. There many ways I thought NDP might increase spending, never imagined it would be paying even more mps.

That is interesting. A factor working against that in Canada is multiple parties. Whenever a party is close to majority, supporters of other parties will have some pressure to vote for party second in polls to stop them. It can be counterproductive in many instances as many ridings aren't 1vs2. There many conservative vs liberal at Toronto outskirts where NDP are completely out of it.

Sorry to disappoint you WWWTT but Harper will have a majority no matter what. Liberals and Bloc will sign anything blindly until they can pass NDP.

CPC targeted Iggy since he became leader really knocked him down and he never recovered. That won't happen again, CPC will target Layton. As will Bloc and Liberals. The new Liberal leader sole objective is to pass Layton, that's it. Knock him down to where they feel he belongs, a distant, fringe irrelevant party. He/She will only trigger an election when Liberals have a good chance to do that. The bloc will do same. NDP doing well in one election could be called a fluke, two and its for real, no liberal leader will allow a second humiliation. Harper will run an essential majority until that is possible. The liberals were in power for a long time with Chretien, it is only natural that another party reigned for a while. It was just arrogant they expected to rule forever. It would be funny if Bob Rae was the new leader. Make for some interesting and comical exchanges with NDP. It wouldn't happen as he wouldn't be able to legitimately distinguish himself from NDP and criticize for big spending.

I don't get it. A labour party is outraged because the conservative party is doing something to help unions in another country. Would he have prefered that they kept it out?

Actually I think Jessie's comments help Obama. Jessie is seen as an extreme black politican that white voters wouldn't want to elect. By critizing Obama about not respecting blacks it helps him seem more moderate and its harder to paint him as an extremeist if another extremeist critizes him. Jessie is black and he was making comments about a black politican concerning black people. He's allowed to do that and its compleltey different than if Imus had made the same comments.