CON 167 seats 40% of the vote

NDP   102     31%

LIB      34     19%

BQ        4       6%

GRN     1       4%

Give Harper and his Conservative Party credit. Again they defied the media, the chattering left and even a good body of 'conservative' opinion, much of it blogosphere-based, to cruise to a majority victory and signal to the world that Canada is not quite as left-wing as one assumes. It is a good day for Canada. 20 years ago the Conservative party had 2 seats. Now it has 167 and a clear majority. Harper who is always underestimated, usually surprises. I would not bet against his next term, and one should not discount the real possibility of changes to socialized health care, the tax system, old age and welfare guarantees, and perhaps even a resuscitation of the military. The only monster in the bedroom is Smiling Jack Layton, a Communist, who believes that Leninism was a great idea, but failed due to bad luck and circumstance.

But Mr. Harper has proved his doubters wrong again. The direction of the country is still in the hands of a man who, for all his faults, knows how to navigate – knows when to use the oars, when to sail and when to catch the tide. This takes years of skill and study and Mr. Harper has now earned the right to govern in far less turbulent parliamentary waters than his five years of minority government.

It is a victory for the party that Mr. Harper has built. The Tory strategy of targeting “ethnic” ridings has been vindicated, with a number of constituencies in the arc around Toronto turning blue. The Tories even took a handful of seats inside the city itself, including seats held by Liberal stalwartds like Joe Volpe and Ken Dryden. The only black spot was the defeat of five MPs in Quebec, including ministers Lawrence Cannon, Jean-Pierre Blackburn and Josee Verner.

But for all Mr. Harper’s success, this was Jack Layton’s election — one that has broken the mould of Canadian politics by taking down the Liberals and the Bloc. The NDP scored a record seat count — 60 from Quebec alone — and Mr. Layton is now heading for Stornoway, as leader of the Official Opposition.

The success of the NDP also confirmed that people think in herds and apparently go mad in herds.

The NDP success in statist Quebec whilst surprising will not be permanent. Socialized Quebec is open to bribery at the national level but as more people get to know Smiling Jack, the less impressed they will, especially when his destructive policies are revealed to be as vacant as they are corrupt.  It is heartening to see the Liberal party so roundly routed.