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Final Update: 143 Conservative, Liberal 77,  BQ 49,  NDP 3, Indpendent 2 – some results still to come in so numbers could sway either way.  Conservative minority government.

Update (11:00) Definitely a minority conservative government. I would have liked a lib-NDP coalition, but this is as good as I hoped for when the election was called. Fundamentally, the Conservatives are no more powerful than they were before, and since Harper broke his word to the other parties to call this election, I don’t think he’s going to enjoy the next year or so very much – in charge during a recession, with the other parties hostile.

Update (10:37) Conservatives closing to within 10, but it doesn’t look like they’re going to make it. Key here is that suburbia went hard conservative, urban went liberal and rural outside of the Maritimes and the Prairies split NDP/Conservative. Big winner so far looks like Jack Layton and the NDP. Conservatives did ok, but con minority, even if larger, is still just a minority. Still time to go, things could change. Dion is probably not going to be Liberal leader next election.

Well, it’s here and the results are coming in. Conservatives doing better than expected, their percentage vote total is identical to the liberals as of this writing (32.39% to 32.33) but it’s much more concentrated and is leading to them having a higher projected seat total (92 to 52). I also expect it to rise as more Prairie and Alberta results come in. The NDP is doing well, at 23.77, but likewise it isn’t translating. Amazingly to me, Southern Ontario is trending Conservative, I think because of NDP/Liberal vote splitting. The Bloc Quebecois is doing quite well in Quebec.

The election is in the air still, but the Cons are definitely doing better than predicted. Outside chance of a majority just got larger, though I still think they won’t get it, unless BC trends hard their way, and I think that’s unlikely. This looks like a bit of a breakthrough election for the NDP and BC is the hard core of their support. I think they’re going to do quite well there.

But we’ll see, it’s early hours yet.

(Primer:

Conservatives are our crazies. Not quite as crazy as Republicans, but they still believe that the correct response to all ills is to take a tax cut and don’t call the doctor in the morning.

Liberals are like very liberal Democrats, the left wing of the party would be around Bernie Sanders

NDP are socialists. No, it’s not a dirty word.

Bloc Quebecois think Quebec should separate. Other than that, they might as well be NDPers.

Greens are conservatives who believe that cooking the planet alive is bad for business)