Election
2004 Vote for Equality - Home
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Canada's
Election 2004
Results & Analysis
|
Overall Election Results
|
|
Party
|
Elected |
Vote
Share
|
|
LIB
|
135 |
36.71%
|
|
CONS
|
99 |
29.61%
|
|
BQ
|
54 |
12.40%
|
NDP
|
19 |
15.69%
|
|
NA
|
1 |
.13%
|
|
OTHER
|
0 |
5.47%
|
| |
308
seats |
|
|
Voter
Turnout: 60.5 %
LOWEST turnout of voters since Conferation.
2000
federal election turnout of voters was 61.2%
Number
of newly elected candidates by party:
Liberals
– 31
Conservatives - 42
NDP - 9
Bloc - 26
|
The Liberals did
far better than expected in the largest province. Ontario, the battleground
with 106 seats, is the story of these election results. It’s
where the Liberals landed 75 seats and the Conservatives got 24 (up
from 4 but a long way from predictions of around 40). It’s where
the last week of the campaign was crucial – when Prime Minister
Martin turned up the heat and the Conservative leader Stephen Harper
appeared to stop campaigning. It didn’t hurt either that the
Prime Minister crossed the country in the last 24 hours of the campaign,
dipping his feet in both oceans.
Ontario is where
the PM asked NDP-leaning voters to prevent a Conservative government,
and the electorate agreed in part. It’s where one Conservative
leadership candidate, Tony Clement, was defeated, while another, Belinda
Stronach, was elected by a slim margin.
After Prime Minister
Martin, the second biggest winner of the election is Jack Layton,
leader of the New Democratic Party, despite the fact that the party
did not make the gains it had hoped for, particularly in urban Toronto.
With the NDP at 19 seats and the Liberals at 135, in a House with
308 seats, the NDP is now strategically placed to drive the government
agenda for the first time since 1972.
The Bloc Québécois
is also a strategic player in the next Parliament. With a Liberal-NDP
union one vote shy of a majority, the government is going to have
to rely on wayward votes from Bloc or the Conservatives to govern.
It helps that the Bloc have “maxed out” on the number of
seats they are ever likely to win in the House, and will, therefore,
have little interest in provoking an early return to the polls.
The Conservatives
will be key to the action in Parliament too, depending on the posture
they choose to take. In a minority government situation, the Opposition
has the opportunity to slow things down and tie things up. (Note that
as of today’s election standings, the Bloc and the Conservatives
together total 153, only two votes shy of a majority). The question
is whether and where they will choose to be obstructionist. And like
the Bloc, they too don’t relish an early return to the electorate.
Prime Minister Martin must rebuild his Cabinet, where he lost six
members -- among them Canadian Heritage Minister Hélène
Chalifour Scherrer, Agriculture Minister Bob Speller, Western Diversification
Minister Rey Pagtakhan, National Defence Minister David Pratt, and
National Revenue Minister Stan Keyes.
The Prime Minister
must regroup after this surprisingly strong result, which probably
left him somewhat disappointed nonetheless. His challenges are to
assess which policy priorities can successfully be acted on in a minority
Parliament and to build party strength and unity to fight another
election sooner than normal.
Post
Election Analysis & Election Results
Women
Candidates - Results in Election 2004
Party
Standings Pre & Post Election
