Canadian Federal Election 2008: Live Blogging

My predictions are these:

1. The Conservatives will win, but only with a minority government.
2. The Liberals will primarily do well in the Toronto 416 area code.
3. The NDP will get a fairly close popular vote to the Liberals.
4. The Green Party will not win any seats.
   

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Background
With 308 seats in total, the Conservatives need 155 seats to achieve a majority.

In the 2006 election, the breakdown of seats was as follows:

• 124 - Conservatives
• 103 - Liberals
• 51 - Bloc Quebecois
  
• 29 - NDP
• 1 - Independent
  

Real-Time Blogging
6:57pm: I searched some blogs and it appears that the results from the 4 Maritime provinces have leaked out, with the Liberals ahead of the Conservatives 17 - 10. I await confirmation of this in a few minutes.

7:03pm: The CBC advertised live video on their website but it's not working; probably overloaded. So I'm listening to the coverage on CKNW instead. I do confess that there'll be a certain pleasure in listening to super-Liberal, Christy Clark try to twist & turn if Stephane Dion's party goes down in flames.

7:06pm: Here are the early results (leading or elected) :

• 118 - Conservatives
• 71 - Liberals
• 34 - Bloc Quebecois
• 27 - NDP
• 2 - Independent
• 0 - Green

7:08pm:

7:22pm:
7:33pm: I just heard Province columnist, Michael Smythe, say something really stupid on 'NW and decided to send the host, Jon McComb, this e-mail:

IMHO Michael Smythe's comment that the election results reflect Canadians' desire for a minority parliament begs the question: "When & where did all the voters confer to agree upon this decision?!?"

The electoral map more conveys to me that the Canada is actually like several countries in one. This is especially true with the very different economic issues facing the various regions of our nation. I'd love to have Michael Levy comment on this.

Robert Werner
Vancouver Centre
Almost certain to be disappointed once again with the most useless MP in our nation's history!


7:38pm: The Conservatives are approaching the magic number of 155 and things may come down to B.C.:

7:53pm: They're getting closer:A Canadian friend, Mike, just called from Seattle. One thing I pointed out to him was that even with a minority government, Harper will have a pretty strong mandate to push through any bills he wishes. The Liberals will be in a pretty difficult situation if they bring down the government, especially in the first year.

By the way, Stephane Dion is history. If he doesn't resign tonight, the knives will be out for him tomorrow.


8:21pm: Blogger had a scheduled outage for 10 minutes. There are some swing ridings but it seems pretty much impossible for the Conservatives to get a majority. All the fear mongering down by our leftist "friends" seems to have worked (even though they all claim innocent on this front). But Harper clearly has a much stronger minority than before.

9:35pm: Things have pretty much stabilized. We won't know until tomorrow how a few ridings shake-out. My twit of an MP, Hedy Fry, got re-elected. I'd love for someone to tell me what she has EVER done for her riding.

One thing that the pundits at 'NW have downplayed is how much the Bloc Quebecois has caused a stalemate in Canadian politics. Some of them said that Stephen Harper's tenure may be in trouble. Huh?!? I think it's a great credit to those Canadians who voted for him to have cut through the MSM B.S. and focus on which leader and party is the best one for the country. Not quite enough for a majority, but close.