whoop-de-doo.

Well, that was as lack-lustre as elections get, frankly. The Conservatives dissolved parliament as a minority government and still come out of it a minority, albeit with a handful of extra seats. (I love the "Bigger minority" headline on the Times-Colonist today.)

The only good thing is that Dion will hopefully realize no one wanted to vote for him and he will hand the reigns of the Liberal party over to someone more ... appealing.

Locally, our three incumbents kept their seats -- Savoie handily won her Victoria seat, Lunn's win was less decisive (and there are more than a few questions about how things played out in Saanich and the Gulf Islands), and Martin's results were down to the wire (I expect a full recount for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca).

For comparison to the 2006 election; Conservatives moved from 124 to 143 seats; Liberals from 103 to 77; the Bloc from 51 to 49; NDP from 29 to 37 and "other" from 1 to 2 but the one lone Green Party member (who was not elected as Green but crossed to the Green party shortly after being elected) was not re-elected. That's going to make life pretty hard for the Greens in the next election. [Interestingly, Wikipedia lists a slight variation for the 2008 results with one fewer Liberal and one more Bloc member.]

We have to wait a few more weeks to watch the U.S. election outcome and then we limp into the late fall Municipal elections. The City of Victoria is overrun with candidates with 8 people vying for the Mayor's seat and 35 fighting for the 8 council seats. Included in that batch are a bunch of people whom one member of Vibrant Victoria said he wouldn't "hire to serve coffee" -- the kind of candidates who give "fringe" candidates a bad name.

After November I think I will be all electioned-out.