About last night…

Being in Canada today is like waking up next to an ex you’ve just hooked up with again.

Things feel like old times, but you’re a bit uncomfortable after experiencing the new tricks she picked up while she wasn’t with you.

In short, we now have a Conservative majority government, but with the New Democratic Party as the official opposition.  The Liberals, formerly “the Canada party,” have been relegated to the third-party status once endured by the NDP.  The Bloc Quebecois was almost totally wiped off the federal landscape while the Green Party finally made it to the dance.

As big a story as the Conservative and NDP success is, the bigger issue is the total failure of the Liberals and BQ in this election as Canada and the House of Commons become more polarized in a left vs. right divide.

Here’s how it breaks down:

The Bloc Quebecois – Once the official opposition under Lucien Bouchard, Canada’s federal separatists under Gilles Duceppe went from 49 seats and 10% popular support (38.1% just in Quebec) in 2008 to only 4 seats and 6% of the popular vote (23% in Quebec) according to Elections Canada.  Duceppe even lost to the NDP candidate in his Montreal riding of Laurier-Ste. Marie and stepped down as the BQ leader during his concession speech.

Although heralded by many federalists as a welcome change in Quebec’s attitude towards Canada, perhaps the groundswell of support for the NDP is more a protest against Harper’s Western Canada base and right-wing ideas.  The Bloc’s inability to keep its finger on the pulse of la belle province has led to its brutal downfall, but not so remarkable as the fall of another.  Speaking of which…

The Liberal Party – Thanks to an effective and ongoing series of attack ads by the Conservatives against Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff, as well as a poor performance in the televised debates and overall inability to engage Canadians in a way that past leaders had, the party that ruled Canada for much of the 20th century saw itself reduced to 34 seats and 18.6% of the popular vote, well down from 77 seats and 26% popular support in the 2008 election.

Traditionally Liberal in federal politics, the Greater Toronto Area turned Conservative blue as many high profile Liberal candidates suddenly found themselves out of work.  Ken Dryden of York Centre , Joe Volpe of Eglinton-Lawrence and Ruby Dhalla of Brampton-Springdale all lost to strong Conservative challengers.  In Toronto proper, Liberals incumbants like Gerard Kennedy of Parkdale-High Park and Maria Minna of Beaches-East York lost to NDP candidates, while Bob Rae of Toronto Centre and Carolyn Bennett of St. Paul’s held on.  The Conservative vs. Liberal/NDP divide echoes the results of the 2010 Toronto municipal election, in which Toronto’s suburbs propelled conservative Rob Ford to power as the city’s mayor over downtown-based liberal George Smitherman.  Monday’s results also can’t help but further unsettle Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, whose Ontario Liberal Party will seek power once again in the province’s scheduled election this October.

Of course the biggest story of the Liberal implosion comes from the riding of Etobicoke-Lakeshore, where party leader Michael Ignatieff lost to the Conservative candidate.  Acknowledging his local and national failures during his concession speech on Monday night, Ignatieff did one better and stepped down as party leader Tuesday morning after taking the Liberals to their worst showing in an election in the nation’s history.  To say that the Liberals will be rebuilding over the next four years is an understatement.

The Green Party – Canada’s advocates for environmentalism actually lost popular support in Monday night’s election, falling from 6.8% in 2008 to 3.9%, but they did get their coveted first seat in the House of Parliament with leader Elizabeth May’s victory over longtime Conservative incumbent Gary Lunn.  In an interview with the CBC, May credited a strategic focus on her riding as the reason for the Green’s breakthrough, but made sure to mention that it was a circumstance forced on her party thanks to being “shut out” of the national debates by the media.

The New Democratic Party – Jack Layton’s eight-year odyssey to restructure Canada’s left finally bore fruit, thanks mostly to a groundswell of support in Quebec, the province of the NDP leader’s birth.  Having just 18.2% popular support and only 37 seats in the House of Commons in 2008, the NDP now enjoy 30.6% popular support, 102 seats in the House and status as the official opposition.  Of Quebec’s 75 seats in the House, the NDP took 58 according to Elections Canada at press time.  To say the least, Layton’s appeal to families and openness to issues of Quebec’s status in Canada hit home more than the same-old separatist argument from Duceppe’s BQ, rising the NDP’s popular support in the province from 12.2% in 2008 to a whopping 42.9%.

Perhaps the most comical story coming from the election out of Quebec is the victory of NDP candidate Ruth Ellen Brosseau in the riding of Berthier-Maskinongé.  Brosseau was elected with 40% of the popular vote while living in Gatineau, Quebec and working as an assistant manager at an Ottawa pub.  Her boss didn’t even know she was running in the election.

Best of all?  She took a one-week vacation to Las Vegas during the campaign, and it hasn’t yet been confirmed whether she’s even visited the riding in which she’s been elected.

If that doesn’t say Canadian federal politics are about leaders and not candidates, I don’t know what does.

The Conservatives – The bridesmaid finally became the bride as Stephen Harper’s Conservatives achieved majority status with 167 seats  in the House (155 was needed) and 39.6% popular support, up from 143 seats and 37.7% support in 2008 and after five years as the minority government leader.

While a 1.9% increase in the popular vote isn’t much, it’s the extra seats in the Greater Toronto Area that helped secure Harper’s dominance.  Traditionally Liberal ridings like Eglinton-Lawrence saw support bleed away to the rising NDP and Conservatives thanks to targeted campaigning and grassroots efforts, especially in the 905 region.  Clearly, focusing on the economy and lamenting the ordeal of another election campaign does pay off.

Then again, when you look back to the time before the election campaign, one can’t help but wonder if this was the Conservative plan all along.  It was Harper’s minority government that made the March 2011 Budget (with a focus on fiscal management, lower taxes and targeted spending) into more of an election platform with few concessions to the other parties that held the balance of power in the House.  When the Budget was rejected, a motion of no confidence for being “in contempt of Parliament” was tabled by the opposition parties at a time when the Conservatives had a 39% approval rating, the highest in years, according to a poll from March 10th, 2011 by Angus Reid.  The government fell, an election was called, and Stephen Harper spent much of the campaign telling Canadians how much he didn’t want an election.

Had that been true, Harper’s Conservatives would have worked with the other parties to keep the government stable and build a budget reflective of the interests of the majority of Canadians.

Turns out the Conservatives didn’t have to after all.