The Results .......

[The Green Barbarian]

it is going to be a looooooooooooooong 4 years until the next election. lets pray we are able to survive harper the the conservative/reform/alliance/party.

I thought one of the biggest beefs of most posters on here was Harper bringing religion into politics? You guys sure are confusing...you want prayer, then you don't want it, now you want it again....make up your minds!

say goodbye to social programs.

Care to name one program you think we'll have to "say good-bye" too or is this just NDP zombie-speak? Here's what I would do as fast as possible with a majority:
1. Reform the "Human rights" commissions in this country asap and take away their Stalin-esque Kangaroo Court system of persecution
2. Reform the CBC - stop all production of the horrible lie-filled "The Nature of Things" and kick David Suzuki to the curb so he can try to earn a living NOT on the government teat for once in his life. Show more hockey and bring back CFL football too!
3. Reduce the deficit and start reducing the debt too.

say hello to more corporate tax cuts.

HELLO CORPORATE TAX CUTS!! COME TO PAPA!!!

watch the political corruption increase.

Definitely. With Jackie-O now in Stornaway (aka Camelot) I expect their annual bilking of the Canadian taxpayer to double, from $1.2 million to $2.4 million per annum or even higher. Their spending on personal endeavors is going to know no bounds - I guarantee it. I also wouldn't mind taking a peak at Elizabeth May's expenditures too in a year's time.

watch the arrogance from harper and his government increase to an even higher level

Arrogance is in the eye of the beholder. The Harper government has a long way to go to come within the same galaxy of the arrogance of the Trudeau and Mulroney governments. All Federal governments usually develop some arrogance, and that's when they fall. I expect Harper to be no different, but I also would expect the arrogance of Jackie to soar now too - and he already was a pretty arrogant guy to begin with.

[Captain Awesome]

On another note I will be removing myself from the Castanet forums.

Ragequit, lol.

[The Green Barbarian]

On another note I will be removing myself from the Castanet forums. Spending time posting seems like a waste now. This country will need real, on the ground help. This election has taught me to put my money where my mouth is. Its been a slice, thanks for the good times.

Bye Bago - I'll miss you!! Good luck on your quest - put your money where your mouth is for sure if that gets you through the day. Maybe you can volunteer to pay for some of Jack and Olivia's massive expense account so that the rest of us Canadian taxpayers don't have to (70% of us didn't vote for them so why should we be paying for their wastefulness and arrogant largesse?)- that really would be helping all of us out and would be considered a true philanthropic endeavor. Thanks Bago and good luck out there.

[Logitack]

LOL, you just chastised someone on the 60% the conservatives didnt get in support, and now you dare to use 70% didnt support the ndp.....can you say, HYP OOOOOOO CRITE! LOL

[The Green Barbarian]

LOL, you just chastised someone on the 60% the conservatives didnt get in support, and now you dare to use 70% didnt support the ndp.....can you say, HYP OOOOOOO CRITE! LOL

can you say SAR CA SM!!! LOL!! Wow - I thought that was pretty clear dude - sorry that you missed it. Wow!! is all I can say.

[Veovis]

I think they were intending it to show that flawed logic can go both ways was all. I don't think it was hypocritical, I think it was more of an example.

[The Green Barbarian]

I think they were intending it to show that flawed logic can go both ways was all. I don't think it was hypocritical, I think it was more of an example.

DING DING DING!!! WE HAVE A WINNER!!

[Logitack]

LOL, you just chastised someone on the 60% the conservatives didnt get in support, and now you dare to use 70% didnt support the ndp.....can you say, HYP OOOOOOO CRITE! LOL

can you say SAR CA SM!!! LOL!! Wow - I thought that was pretty clear dude - sorry that you missed it. Wow!! is all I can say.

lol, nice save.....i guess you didnt see my SARRRRRRcasm either....LOL

ok, let the games begin, right VS left, it is going to be 4 long years emulating american poltics right here in the frozen north

[Lady tehMa]

On another note I will be removing myself from the Castanet forums.

Ragequit, lol.

[grammafreddy]

ok, let the games begin, right VS left, it is going to be 4 long years emulating american poltics right here in the frozen north

I don't think it will be that way, Logi.

I think Harper is more left than you give him credit for. I think Harper and Layton will work very well together and I look forward to much more cooperation than we have seen in the relatively recent past with all that bull from "the coalition". Thankgawd that power struggle is finally over and Canada can now have a functioning government. The pettiness and power struggle (mostly Libs) was disgusting.

But I am happy to see the gun registry go bye-bye and I do so very much want to see that national debt paid down.

[Urbane]

For those on the left worried about what Harper will do with a majority think again:

In Canada, we have no conservatives

Terence Corcoran May 3, 2011

Stephen Harper and his Conservative party ran a classic front-runner election campaign. They looked back when necessary to fire rhetorical volleys at approaching enemy forces, but they never lost focus on their main message and the idea that Mr. Harper was the leader of the pack. No matter how close the other parties sometimes seemed, Mr. Harper held fast to the idea that Canada is strong, the choice is clear and major risks are to be avoided.

The dubious success of that strategy shows in the results, a division of power and political forces about which only one sure thing than can be said: Yes, we have no conservatives in Canada, we have no conservatives today.

We have centrists and pragmatists, power-seekers and grasping compromisers. We have an expanded role for New Democratic Party interventionists who lack experience, a credible economic program, even a raison d’etre in Quebec. The Liberals are essentially leaderless and in an ideological disarray that is deeper than their usual inconsistencies. The Bloc Quebecois is a dead force.

The Harper Tories hold the upper hand, but they are no conservatives. In Ottawa, no party stands for less intrusive government and more disciplined spending. Chances of lower taxes and greater reliance on private enterprise and markets in key economic sectors are now out of reach. The possibility of smaller bureaucracies and fewer subsidies and handouts to cabals of handout-seekers are unthinkable in the wake of Monday’s vote.

Even the extreme electoral result of an all-out Tory majority, out of reach according to polls through the campaign, pales in importance when viewed against the official Conservative election platform, a gigantic basket of political baubles that betrayed the party’s post-progressive role as Canada’s only hope for a less intrusive government.

The Tory campaign slogan, “Here for Canada,” scored high on the vapidity metre. The words “free markets” or even private enterprise were missing from the Tory platform. Milton Friedman’s famous phrase, “Free to choose,” appears only in relation to the provinces, who under Tory rule, the platform reports, have the “freedom to choose” whether to harmonize provincial sales tax regimes with the GST. The rest of us, apparently, never get to choose much of anything beyond what the government delivers.

That’s where Canada stands today. The Conservatives prior to Monday had an opportunity to do much more to change the Canadian ideological landscape over the past few years. Instead, the party stuck to the status quo. While governing and in their platform, the Conservatives made it clear that even with a majority they would not change the culture of Canadian politics.

Stephen Harper has not altered the Canadian political landscape with this election, and he won’t now, even if he can. Instead of writing the script for a new conservative Canada, the Harper Tories reconstructed their political operation as the new Liberal Party of Canada. The Tories rode down the centre of Canadian politics, promising more of the same if elected — the same health care, the same muddled corporate policies, the same ad hoc interventions in economic and social programs that played to a range of existing political camps.

A few elements of Tory policy — foreign affairs, corporate taxation, caution on climate change policy–suggest a Conservative willingness to buck Canadian tradition by sticking to programs that are under constant opposition attack. But that willingness was all too limited over the last four years, and nothing changed during the election.

One welcome product of Monday’s election is that we do not have socialists in control. But neither do we have the opposite, which means that little has changed in Ottawa and not much will change until a leader and a party emerge to champion what I suspect more Canadians than we know really want or are at least willing to try. Until that party and that leader come along, we must stick with what we have, which is no conservatives in Ottawa.

[email protected]

[Rwede]

I think young Justin Trudeau is exactly who they will pull out of the hat now. He won his riding and he's a good-looking, charismatic YOUNG man. I can see him being wildly successful at rallying the Liberals - the old supporters will follow the name and the new young ones will go for youth and charm. Give them four or five years to "groom" him and the numbers could very well come back.

I kinda thought they would have him as leader this last time around but they ended up with Iggy instead ... and well, that didn't exactly work out too well for them, did it?

Considering that his father was THE single worst thing to ever happen to Canada, I have to wonder if those of us with memories beyond the past decade would ever give him the popular vote.

[grammafreddy]

I think young Justin Trudeau is exactly who they will pull out of the hat now. He won his riding and he's a good-looking, charismatic YOUNG man. I can see him being wildly successful at rallying the Liberals - the old supporters will follow the name and the new young ones will go for youth and charm. Give them four or five years to "groom" him and the numbers could very well come back.

I kinda thought they would have him as leader this last time around but they ended up with Iggy instead ... and well, that didn't exactly work out too well for them, did it?

Considering that his father was THE single worst thing to ever happen to Canada, I have to wonder if those of us with memories beyond the past decade would ever give him the popular vote.

Well, you and I both know that, but there's a LOT of Liberals today who started out their young political beliefs with Trudeau and his Trudeaumania and have never wavered from their poster boy and his party - and he even managed to get labeled as "the most influential Canadian of the XXX (whatever)" - and he certainly was that (even if some of us think it was all a bad influence).

[Carmencat]

Considering that his father was THE single worst thing to ever happen to Canada, I have to wonder if those of us with memories beyond the past decade would ever give him the popular vote.

Well, you and I both know that, but there's a LOT of Liberals today who started out their young political beliefs with Trudeau and his Trudeaumania and have never wavered from their poster boy and his party - and he even managed to get labeled as "the most influential Canadian of the XXX (whatever)" - and he certainly was that (even if some of us think it was all a bad influence).

I also think the Libs will prop up Justin just because he is young and good looking. They will have to go after the youth vote because going with the status quo isn't working. The U.S. has demonstrated that a 'celeb' type candidate can get elected regardless of experience. And I dare say JT has as much political experience as Obama did. Likely more.

[Logitack]

the liberal party will be fine. didnt the conservatives end up with only 2 seats after the mulroney implosion...look at how they reinvigorated themselves. took them a few years, but they did regain power. the center is still open for any political party to take, liberals can fill that void again.

the end result of this election did what it was supposed to do---get rid of iggy. he has stepped down, the rebuilding of the liberal party begins.