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Conservatives Return With More Seats, But Still A Minority
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It wasn't the rousing victory Stephen Harper had hoped for, but he'll take it.

From the beginning of this election campaign, when the writ was dropped September 7, the Conservative leader had said he wasn't looking for a majority government.

As the polls strengthened in his favour, that unspoken outcome looked more and more likely. Though he didn't take the 155 seats needed for a clear mandate, the Conservatives fell only 12 ridings short of that total.

But how soon until we're heading to the polls again? This was the third election in four years, and not very many of us made it out to the ballot box.

Only 59 per cent of Canadians voted, the lowest turnout in history. Whether we do this again in the next year rests upon the minority government's ability to avoid a deficit in the face of slumping revenues and increasing social costs.

The Conservative gains came at the expense of the Liberals, especially in Ontario.

They won 51 seats in the normally red province, 10 more than they had when Harper called the election.

The massive breakthrough was the best showing for a Tory government in Ontario since the days of Brian Mulroney and the Progressive Conservatives in the 1980s.

Overall, the Conservatives ended the night with 143 seats, a huge increase from the 137 they held at dissolution.

Stephane Dion, who struggled to explain his Green Shift to voters, saw his party lose 13 seats in the province, falling from 51 to 38.

Coast to coast, the Grits dropped 27 ridings, sending them to Parliament with just 76 seats.

The fall from 103 spots is the second-worst showing for the party in history - and the worst performance since 1867 in terms of the popular vote.

Analysts predict that those losses came because of vote-splitting in Ontario, and because of the controversial carbon tax plan.

"We Liberals will do our part responsibly to make sure this parliament works. It's clear our economy...is the most important issue facing our country at this time," Dion said.

"Canadians have asked me to be leader of the opposition and I accept this responsibility with honour."

He may not have the chance for long - he could be out as leader within the next 12 months given the party's poor performance. It would be the third change of leadership in five years.

Meanwhile, the NDP also made big gains, siphoning off voters from the Liberals and Conservatives. They had 29 seats at dissolution and came back with 37. Those gains were mirrored in Ontario, where the party moved up five seats to sit at 17.

Leader Jack Layton handily won his riding, but things weren't the same for incumbent Peggy Nash. She lost to Liberal Gerard Kennedy.

And no seats for the Greens. Not even leader Elizabeth May made it in, losing to incumbent Tory Peter MacKay in Nova Scotia.

Harper vowed to keep taxes low, the budget balanced, to strengthen the criminal justice system and to make progress on bettering the environment.
Stephen Joseph Harper PC MP (born April 30, 1959) is the twenty-second and current Prime Minister of Canada, and leader of the Conservative Party of Canada. Harper became Prime Minister after his party won a minority government in the January 2006 federal election. He is the first Prime Minister from his current political party, and the first since 1993 from any Conservative party, following twelve years of government by the Liberal Party. Harper is the first Canadian prime minister born in the second half of the twentieth century.

Harper has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for the riding of Calgary Southwest in Alberta since 2002. Earlier, from 1993 to 1997, he was the MP for Calgary West. He was one of the founding members of the Reform Party, but ended his first stint as an MP to join, and shortly thereafter head, the National Citizens Coalition. In 2002, he succeeded Stockwell Day as leader of the Canadian Alliance (the successor to the Reform Party) and returned to Parliament as Leader of the Opposition. In 2003, he reached an agreement with Progressive Conservative leader Peter MacKay for the merger of their two parties to form the Conservative Party of Canada. He was elected as the party's first non-interim leader in March 2004.

Billy Truong Hong Ngan, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, Asian, Vietnam, Vietnamese

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