32-0. The holding pattern that took election night viewers in the 2 hours from when polls closed in the Maritimes (7:30 pm ET) to when polls closed from Quebec to Alberta (9:30 pm ET) gave us a sea of red from out East.
Previous election patterns have taught us that Atlantic Canada patterns don't guarantee how the rest of the country will vote. In 2015, you couldn't help but wonder a bit since every single riding went to one party. The Conservatives had a few seats in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. While the PCs dominate Newfoundland and Labrador on the provincial level, there is no love lost between the local party and the federal Conservatives.
The 32 ridings are more than the margin of error giving the Liberals a majority government. The Liberals will have plenty of Maritimes candidates for potential cabinet posts.
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So did the Maritimes dominance influence how Canada voted elsewhere? Did British Columbia tune out the results from all points east?
This was the first Canadian election where we could officially get results before all the polls closed. So those watching CBC, CTV, Global, or another outlet knew of the 32-0 Liberals shutout.
The polls are set up so that most of the country weighs in at the same time: 9:30 pm ET. The results came in here and there in that last half hour before the polls closed out west. If those in BC were in line in the waning moments, they could have checked their smartphones.
Then again, the 18 seats that went red are the extra margin on a Liberal majority government.
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The best number from Monday night was that more than 68% of eligible voters cast a ballot, according to preliminary figures from Elections Canada. The 17,546,697 registered electors doesn't count those who registered on Election Day.
The trend had been going down, culminating in about 61% in 2011.
Prince Edward Island led the way with 77.4% turnout. The Yukon territory (76%) and New Brunswick (74.6%) also did well. Newfoundland and Labrador had the low bench mark at 61.5%, a mark that any U.S. state would be proud to have.
More than 3.6 million cast in advance polls over the long Canadian Thanksgiving weekend. Given the overall total and assuming exactly 3.6 million, 21% of those who voted did so before October 19.
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Wyatt Scott received 881 votes in his independent bid to represent the new Mission-Matsqui-Fraser Canyon riding in British Columbia. Scott finished 5th of 6 candidates with Liberal Jati Sidhu being elected to represent the riding.
Canadian election 2015: Wyatt Scott and his goose
You likely remember Scott's unusual campaign ad. The goose, the dragon, the idea of sending an independent to Ottawa. In fact, the new Parliament will have 0 independent MPs, even though there were 8 independent MPs when Parliament was dissolved.
While we don't know Scott's age, one of the joys of the ad was the idea of getting more young people in Parliament. As Maclean's points out, there are at least 10 MPs under 30 in the new Parliament. The U.S. requires a minimum of 25 years to be in the House of Representatives; Canada only requires MPs to be 18. In fact, Pierre-Luc Dusseault was re-elected in the Sherbrooke riding for the NDP. Dusseault is 24 and was elected at the age of 19, though took office when he was 20 back in 2011.
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The World This Weekend on CBC Radio One spent parts of both weekend programs in the Sarnia-Lambton riding. The riding had correctly picked the winning party in every election since 1963.
Anchor Martina Fitzgerald hinted that the report could show how the results might turn out on Monday. Our take from the report was that the riding was going to stay Conservative, even if the rest of the country ultimately felt otherwise.
Sarnia-Lambton voters elected Conservative candidate Marilyn Gladu to represent them in Ottawa.
The riding has a considerable rural influence so switching from Conservative wasn't going to be easy. The better trend will be to see what happens in the next election.
We don't think there is a CBC Radio curse. We prefer to look at the report as taking us to the moment when the streak was going to be snapped.
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13 Conservative cabinet ministers lost their seats last night. Joe Oliver (Finance); Chris Alexander (Immigration); Julian Fantino (Associate Minister of Defence); and Leona Aglukkaq (Environment) were the biggest names to fall on Monday. Fantino is remembered more for his role as veterans affairs minister, where he seemed more interested in verbal exchanges with former soldiers and closing Veterans Affairs offices.
The Liberal Maritimes sweep took out Bernard Valcourt (Aboriginal Affairs) in New Brunswick and Gail Shea (Fisheries) in Prince Edward Island.
That number is pretty high, but we should factor in a number of cabinet members who chose not to run for re-election.
Peter MacKay, John Baird, Shelly Glover, Christian Paradis, and James Moore were the biggest names from the cabinet that chose not to run. Throw in Jim Flaherty who stepped down in 2014, but tragically passed away weeks after leaving the cabinet.
The Conservative Party, as the opposition party in Parliament, will need to fill a boatload of roles in the opposition party shadow cabinet.
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Justin Trudeau spent a lot of time in Alberta, symbolic and otherwise. That time paid off as the party captured 2 ridings each in Calgary and Edmonton. The party's lone Saskatchewan MP is in Regina. The 7 seats in Manitoba are all in Winnipeg.
Winning governments should ideally have representation in every province, and the Liberals meet that mark. The rural ridings remained mostly Conservative.
The Liberals cleaned up in what can be considered Toronto proper and certainly dominated the GTA. The party also did really well in Vancouver at the expense of the NDP.
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The Liberals had their best year in Quebec since 1980. Yes, Pierre Elliott Trudeau was the Liberal Party leader in that election. We already mentioned the party's dominant streak in the Maritimes.
We heard some potential high drama in Quebec about 4-way splits. In the end, the Liberals won an amazing 40 of the 78 ridings up for grabs in La Belle Province.
In 2011, the Liberals only had 7 seats, all of them around the island of Montréal.
The NDP had the vast majority of Quebec seats in 2011 with 59 out of 75 but ended up with 16 seats Monday night.
Not much went well for the Conservatives Monday night, but the party jumped from 5 to 12 seats. The party's strength is around Quebec City but expanded out from their seats in 2011.
The Bloc Quebecois went up from 2 to 10 seats in the province. The party is 2 seats short of official party recognition in the House of Commons.
The niqab issue likely helped both the "blue" parties increase seats. Even though the positions of Trudeau and Mulcair are pretty similar, the Liberals took the lion's share in Quebec while the NDP fell badly.
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I watched the results come in at the Canadian Consulate in Chicago. There was a capacity crowd on hand. All were pulling for the Toronto Blue Jays to win Game 3. Many, but not all, cheered when the Liberals got to 170 seats.
A special thanks to the consulate for hosting us.
The picture of the Canadian flags were from that event. Canadians and fans of Canada together to watch democracy in action. So the picture of the flags reflect that spirit.
photo credit: me
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