| mrstickball said: Can someone explain to me how the Liberals and BQ lost 40 seats each? That would be like the Democrats losing 80 seats in Congress to the Greens or Communists... |
Canada is a very moderate country in general which is (typically) why the Liberals have been so successful traditionally. Even though extreme progressives will disagree with me, a lot of the success Stephen Harper (Conservative) has achieved over the past several years has been the result of being a very moderate center-right party; and his policies would (probably) best be represented in the American political system as a "Blue-Dog" Democrat.
Michael Ignatieff (Liberal) didn't really understand the traditional success of the Liberals and decided to steer the party to being a far more progressive party in order to steal support away from the New Democratic Party. The NDP is run by a far more charismatic leader (although I have always thought he seemed creepy personally) and has the freedom to run a campaign less based on reality and more based on ideology because there is no realistic expectation that he would ever govern. As a result of this, moderate Liberals stayed home or voted for the Conservatives while progressive Liberals voted for the NDP; and there wasn’t much support left for the Liberal party.
The Bloc is a much more difficult to explain situation ...
Personally, I suspect that the majority of people in Quebec know that they will be throwing out the Liberals provincially in their next election and (probably) replacing them with the Seperatist ADQ; but they don't actually want to separate for Canada at the moment. If the Bloc remained in power they would face an unwanted referendum so they looked for someone else to vote for; and the NDP promised them (effectively) everything that they wanted.
