[Sin]

Hmmm..

I didn't vote, because watching the campaigns left me with a bad taste in my mouth.

Liberals -- They have some good policies yes, but there's the scandal and myself (along with another LARGE portion of Canadians I'd imagine) can't forget that while Martin may have been exonerated in the Gomery report, there still remains the unanswered question of "How is it that the Federal Minister of Finance had no idea what was going on with the Federal Finances?????" There's just something *wrong* with that. In the end it would have likely been enough to get me to vote Conservative because as much as I agree with the Liberals policies, I simply cannot get past that point. Paul Martin did a good job in the last "year" (I'll give him a year) as far as fulfilling his promises went IMO. In fact, he did such a notable job of it that I think he's gotta be one of the only PM's to deliver much of what was promised. However on the same note, how much of that behavior was due to the heat that the Liberals were under anyways as a result of the Sponsorship scandal????

Conservatives... living in BC I am at a point where the BC Liberals (who ironically enough aren't even acknowledged by the Federal Liberals) have just... done too much. (pretty much none of it good) I seriously don't like Stephen Harper and much of what he said in his campaign, however if he can do for Canada what Ralph Klein has done with Alberta (and Klein is Conservative as well) then good.

NDP -- It's going to be interesting to see how they handle their seats in Parliament. Really interesting. I'm used to the NDP being "The party that has their seats loyalty bought out" and this campaign they seemed to actually take the opportunity to create ... I don't know, an independent party identity if you will? Less wiffle waffle, more of their own views and hopefully we'll see less "buying out" of them in the future. They did an excellent job in campaigning in BC (I wonder how much of it is influenced by the BC Liberals bullshit & the association of "liberals/bullshit" that now exists) ...and came in 2nd to the Conservatives in this province as well. Something that astonished everybody it would seem, considering how badly they crashed & burned about 12 years ago.

Going by this country's historical pattern, the Federal Liberals seem to go through "chunks" of about 12-15 years of power, and then there's a "blip" of another party getting power. Going by the average over the years since Confederation, the length of time the Liberals have been in power, its definitely right on time for the 'blip' and here we are with the Conservatives in power.

It was also so close overall that chances are good that if the Conservatives don't handle things right, then they'll find themselves in the same boat the Liberals did, ousted with a vote of non-confidence, and we'll have another election in a year or two anyways.