Election Day

[bcholmes]

According to the CBC:

Party	Elected	Leading	Total
LIB	135	1	136
CON	93	4	97
BQ	54	0	54
NDP	19	1	20
NA	1	0	1

Highlights:

1. The house has 308 seats. A majority is 155 seats. The Liberals and the NDP together just barely squeak by with enough votes to control the house. (It's an odd thing, Canadian elections. Canadians don't elect the government, they elect the parliament. Whomever can control the house gets to form the government).
2. Jack Layton won his seat in Toronto-Danforth, beating out incumbant Liberal (and socially conservative) Dennis Mills.
3. Sam Bulte won in my riding, beating out my favourite candidate, Peggy Nash.
4. Tragically, Cheryl Gallant (who, I think, caused the Conservatives the most PR problems) won her seat.
5. Olivia Chow, wife of Jack Layton, lost her seat to do-nothing Liberal incumbant, Tony Ianno.
6. Paul Martin's own seat wasn't safe this election. Although he came in with a strong win, it wasn't called until fairly late in the evening.
7. For a brief moment, the Marxist-Leninists were polling in the lead in one riding. Everyone got quite the chuckle out of that.
8. The one independant seat went to a Conservative-wannabe.
9. Ruby Dhalla and Tony Valeri won. Both were people that Martin installed in their ridings. (Actually, CBC called Valeri's riding to the NDP. Their site now says that Valeri won).