Election Results - 2006

I promise this is my last post about Canadian politics for at least a little while. Honestly!

So, last night the Conservative part won a minority victory. They have 124 seats in parliament, compared to the Liberals 103 seats. This is the second (third?) minority government in a row, although the last two were Liberal. I am pretty disappointed, because I certainly didn't want a Conservative government, and the last thing I wanted was another minority government. Nothing is going to get done because all the parties will be to busy bickering and trying to trade votes.

• We will have another election no later then Spring 2008
• The Conservatives will attempt to enshrine the right to own a gun in the Charter of Rights, but it will be defeated
• The GST may be lowered to 5%, but it won't make much of a difference
• Health care in Canada will suffer with the first Conservative budget
• Mr. Harper (our new PM) will probably try to de-legalize gay marriage, but the protests that result with change his mind
• When we finally get another election, the Liberals will end up with a majority government

My biggest disappointment is that the Green Party didn't manage to get a single seat in Parliament. I don't think that as a party they are ready to form a government, but I still would like to see them have some representation. They did get 4.5% of the popular vote, so they will continue to get government funding since they have met the requirements for official party status.

Actually, this brings me to a point I'd like to make. In Canada, every party that gets more than 2% of the popular vote is considered an official federal party and receives $1.75 funding each year until the next election for each vote that they have received. Having a good guess at what the outcome of this election would be, I decided to vote for the party that I thought deserved my $1.75.

For interests sake, here is the results for my riding of Parkdale-High Park in Toronto. (The bottom four parties are Green, Marijuana, Marxist-Leninist, and independent. Weird, eh? But that is the beauty of a multiple party system!)