Harper got what he wanted. A temporary majority. The liberals are going to have to go through another leadership race and wont topple the govt. The NDP wont be so eager to topple the govt either since they are going to give back seats to the liberals.

Small win for Cons, not the majority Steve was hoping for, though. The next few years are going to be shaky, and I'm not sure if he'll be able to count on the opposition parties being as docile as they were last term.

A larger win for NDP, reaping the rewards of a weak Liberal party and antipathy for the Conservatives. Layton has been slowly but consistently expanding NDP influence. Too bad influence means nothing to a Harper government.

The Bloc is... still around. No gain, no loss. They're the big spoilers in parliament at this point. It's tough to put together a majority government as long as Quebec refuses to throw its lot in with any of the other provinces. I wonder wonder if Harper is plotting the next volley of bribes he's going to launch in an attempt to wrest Quebec from the Bloc.

Big loss for Dion. The Liberals are down 20 seats and about 5% of the vote. With typical Liberal bickering already calling his leadership into question, I don't think he'll be leading the party into the next election.

And another big loss for May and the Greens. With no Liberal opponent and a strong showing at the debate, May can't hope for a better shot at parliament than this. Sad that there won't be any Greens in parliament.

I heard this year's turnout is going to be the lowest in Canadian history. That is according to the CBC's coverage.

I was hoping the NDP would make greater gains in Toronto and Quebec (though it's great to see Mulcair will probably keep his seat), but it's nice to see increased support in Manitoba, B.C. and Newfoundland. Right now the riding to watch is Saskatoon-Rosetown-Biggar, where 140 out of 150 polls show the Cons beating the NDP by only 52 votes (it was the other way around one minute ago!)

I wouldn't say this was his only chance to win a majority ...

Canadians (in general) are fairly moderate in the political spectrum, and as long as the conservatives stick with the center-right politics Stephen Harper has been following (and the Liberals, NDP, and Green Party stay on the left side of the political spectrum) vote splitting will ensure that the Conservatives will have a very good opportunity to form the government.

With this in mind, whether the Conservatives can win a minority or a majority will depend on two things; whether the Liberals run on a center-left or a true-left platform, and whether the Bloc can be effective at preventing a breakthrough in Qubec. If the Liberals choose a leader who makes a move to the left (Bob Rae) the Conservatives only have to follow a true centerist platform to caputre the more moderate Liberals and Red-Tories and gain a majority; the risk here is they can't alienate their base in Alberta for fear of a grassroots movement which can split the vote on the right. At the same time, if the Conservatives can weaken the Bloc's hold on Qubec (through returning power to the provinces) even fairly small gains in the province will push them to a majority.

Edit: On top of this, from my understanding the only time that a political party formed the government in Canada that didn't go into the election with the most money was right after radio was initially used in political campaigns. With the way the Liberals changed campaign finance they (effective) ensured that once the Conservatives formed the government they would always have (much) more money than the other political parties.

I think the Conservatives bought themselves an extra 2 years governing at least. Regardless of how long it takes for the Liberals to sort out their leadership, no one is going to want to force an election before that date. 

I agree that the biggest disappointment here is the Bloc's continued success. I really had high hopes that they'd lose a lot of seats (regardless of who picked up those seats, a weakened bloc is a stronger Canada). 

As for May, I still don't get why she ran against Mackay... Elsewhere she really could have made it.

Nettie Wiebe is the second-best candidate in the whole damn province after Ralph Goodale. She really deserves to go to parliament. Sadly, she's down by 250 votes now with only 5 polls left to report. (Edit: And the riding is called for Kelly Block, pictured below. I guess we elect the government we deserve.)

A 52% voter turnout? Yuck. That kinda sums up this whole election campaign right there, though the proximity to Thanksgiving excuses a little of it. I'd think with all the trouble going around that it wouldn't be so hard to persuade people to give a damn, but I guess I'd be wrong.

Williams' ABC campaign sure worked. Liberals and one NDP seat.

http://www.politicalcompass.org/canada2008

Liberal's look right to me.  But then again this has always confused me.  Liberal in itself suggests left, but I've always viewed them as center-right, with the Conservatives as simply right.

The United States is pretty much the only place on the planet where the word 'liberal' means left wing. The word represents a moderate point of view pretty much everywhere else.

In Canada, the Liberals swing whichever way the wind blows to improve their chances of getting elected. In Trudeau's time they leaned left, ever since then they've leaned right. If this financial crisis tips off a depression, you can expect a resurgence of socialism around the world and the Liberals will swing back to the left.