Thoughts on tonight’s election results.

I never think to post here anymore, and oddly I often end up posting lengthy posts on Facebook that should probably go here in the first place. This post is precisely one of those.

I tweeted a lot and randomly throughout the evening, so I’ll summarise thoughts here:

Overall this election went about as well as I could have realistically expected. Liberal, not Conservative, with a plurality but not a majority. Greens gained, albeit not by much. The NDP were not totally obliterated, and Singh seems to have the needed focus to force the Liberals into doing the right things. And the results were basically over before 10pm, but weren’t over before we finished voting.

As usual, the big loser of the evening is Canadians, as FPTP continues to fail us. The Liberals, Conservatives, and Bloc all benefited from it, and the Greens, New Democrats, and even the PPC lost out. CPC got more votes than LPC and significantly fewer seats. This is not right.

I’m also concerned about the continued urban-rural divide, which seems to worsen every election.

In my riding of Vancouver Centre, I take comfort that Fry’s share of the vote is likely down to around 42% from 56%, with the NDP up from 20% to 24% and the Greens doubling their vote to 12%.

The continued entitlement of Trudeau in pulling that gross power move of going on air with his speech while Scheer was just starting his just really gets under my skin. I like Trudeau significantly less today than I did even a couple months ago. Althia Raj commented that many Liberal candidates won this time not because of Trudeau (like last election) but in spite of him. I agree. There are many good people in his caucus and I hope he can learn to yield to them more often.

I’m sad for the losses of Brosseau, Goodale, Raitt, and Robinson, and for the retirement of David Christopherson in Hamilton. I’m happy for the win of Wilson-Raybould.

What’s remarkable to me is that despite the fact that almost all the parties had disappointing results this election, my social media feeds are full of people who are quite pleased with the results. Many of us are quite happy the big parties didn’t succeed. I know I am basing this on small social media bubble, but I think we need to better embrace political diversity in our parliament and this very colourful election map is to me a good start (if only we had electoral reform to make it match closer).

And finally, despite some hilariously bad graphic design choices, the CBC had reliable and excellent coverage tonight and the many many members of their team covering this election deserve so much credit. I hope Rosie Barton gets a much-deserved vacation soon.