My Take on the 41st Federal General Election

As of early Tuesday morning, the Federal Conservatives, under Stephen Harper, were awarded by Canadians with a slim majority of 166 of the 308 seats in the Federal House of Commons.  The NDP, in its history, was awarded with "Official Opposition" status (103 seats) with the Federal Liberals with 34 seats (stunning defeat since 1984 election of 40 seats) and the Bloc Quebecois with just 3 seats, not enough for Official Party Status in the House of Commons.  The Green Party was awarded with its 1st seat from Saanich-Gulf Islands and believe Elizabeth May will add to the debate in Ottawa. 

Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe, upon being defeated in his own riding of Laurier-St Marie, resigned as Leader of the Bloc Quebecois.  And I believe that Micheal Ignatieff, after losing his seat in Etobicoke-Lakeshore, will be under tremendous pressure to do the same in order to allow the Federal Liberals to "re-generate" into something newer/better to challenge the Federal Conservatives

In local election races -  both Dick Harris from Cariboo-PG and Cathy MacLeod from Thompson-Kamloops-Cariboo are both going back to Ottawa.  Mr. Harris took 56% of the vote while Ms. MacLeod bested her opponent, Micheal Crawford of the NDP, by 9,000 votes

I believe the end result speaks of Canadians' desire for a stable government over the next 4 years.  And once again - I was disappointed by some on Facebook stating that a Federal Conservative win was a "loss for Canada".  The voters' spoke and let's respect the result that has occured, but to suggest Canada lost is a bit much.  This reminds me of the 2008 Election when the local Federal Liberal candidate suggested that the win by Dick Harris then was "disturbing"

Now with the Federal Election now done, it's time for Ottawa to get back to work.  With future elections coming up which includes:

a) Possible Provincial Election this fall - September 2011?
b) Mandatory Civic (Local) Election in November 19th, 2011

While I hope the provincial politicians hold off on any election until the Spring of 2012, I hope voters in the Cariboo-Chilcotin pay attention to their civic elections, especially in Williams Lake, where a lack of leadership/ethics at WL City Hall seems to be a concern, given the poll question I'm running at the moment with 3 people in the last couple of days stating that Ethics at WL City Hall will be a campaign issue for them in November.   The poll question will remain active until next Tuesday.  The poll question can be found at the top of this blog page

SF