本帖最后由 东方盛 于 2011-5-2 23:31 编辑
Conservatives win majority government
Jered Stuffco, CTV.ca News
Date: Mon. May. 2 2011 10:46 PM ET
Canadians have handed Prime Minister Stephen Harper his first-ever majority government, in a historic result that also saw the mighty Liberals decimated and the separatist movement in Quebec all but obliterated, according to CTV projections.
In a stunning result, NDP Leader Jack Layton made history by becoming the first-ever NDP leader to move into Stornaway as the official Opposition leader, CTV also projects.
While Layton and his party were cruising to a historic win, the Liberals and the Bloc were heading for crushing defeats.
Much of the NDP's rise has been attributed to a burst of support in Quebec, where Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe was forced to do heavy battle in his home Montreal riding and across the province.
Just after 10:30 p.m. ET, these were the results for elected or leading ridings:
- Conservatives: 156 ridings
- NDP: 105 ridings
- Liberals: 33
- Bloc Quebecois: 3
To secure a majority government, 155 of 308 seats are needed.
At NDP gatherings across the country, the party faithful were giddy with excitement as the left-leaning party reaped massive wins in Quebec and knocked off high-profile MPs across the country.
"This is really good for Canada," said former NDP Judy Wasylycia-Leis.
"This really shakes things up in Quebec and it really shows that the separatist movement is in trouble.
Among those MPs who won't be returning to Parliament:
- Conservative cabinet minister Lawrence Cannon
- Liberal MP Gerard Kennedy
- Liberal Mark Holland
- Independent Helena Guergis
The numbers were also dismal for Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff, who officially became the party's leader exactly two years ago to the day.
To secure a majority government, 155 of 308 seats are needed.
In Atlantic Canada, Conservative cabinet ministers Peter MacKay and Gail Shea held onto their seats.
Liberal candidate Siobhan Coady, meanwhile, was dislodged in St. John's South-Mount Pearl as part of the NDP bump that led to the party picking up seats across the region.
The Liberals lost five seats in Atlantic Canada, with the NDP and the Conservatives picking up the slack.
"We were offering a choice," said incumbent NDP MP Jack Harris in St. John's East in Newfoundland. "Mr. Ignatieff said 'Red door, blue door' (but) he forgot about the orange door."
Conservative Fabian Manning, an ex-MP who quit his Senate post to run in Newfoundland, was defeated in a close battle.
Reflecting on the party's increased haul in Newfoundland and Labrador, and the Maritimes, MacKay said the party had done well.
"We had tough ground to till on the Rock but we ran a very good campaign in the region."
Exactly two years ago, Ignatieff was officially endorsed as the Liberal leader, and many in the party were hopeful he could heal a fractured group that suffered a major loss in the 2008 campaign.
But the results Monday were anything but encouraging, falling into third
place for the first time in the party's storied history.
Results were still being tallied in Quebec, Ontario and the West, but the Liberals were already licking their wounds.
Some, like Liberal insider and Senate mainstay David Smith, were looking beyond the results for glimpses of hope.
"I hear that word ‘demise,' but there's another word: regeneration," Smith said. "There will be soul-searching, no doubt about that, but we'll come back."
In the Prairies, Harper grabbed his home seat in Calgary
While the election campaign began with a whimper, the contest heated up as Layton, Ignatieff, Harper and Duceppe jostled for support in key ridings.
"This started out like an episode from Seinfeld -- an election about nothing -- but it turned into the Big Bang Theory," said pollster Nik Nanos.
As of the beginning of the campaign, Parliament looked like this: - Conservatives: 143 seats
- Liberals: 77 seats
- NDP: 47 seats
- Bloc Quebecois: 36 seats
There were also two independents and three vacant seats.
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