We may have a new Prime Minister in Canada, but none of the political parties can claim a real victory.

Conservatives:
They managed to pick up more seats, but they fell well short of a majority. Canadians wanted a change, but not radical change. The result of the election also highlighted the source of conservative votes: rural Canada. This is a sociological pattern seen everywhere in the western world. If people live close together (large urban cities) they tend to be more progressive. Where people live farther apart they tend to be more conservative.

Its not enough for the Conservatives to move closer to the centre of the political spectrum. They have to move left if they hope to capture seats in cities like Toronto.

Liberals:
They lost power. A loss can rarely be regarded as a victory.

They did not, however, get blown out completely. Some Canadians may have been frustrated with Liberal scandal, but a great number of them still believe that the Liberal platform is more "Canadian" than the alternatives.

The leadership of the party is also in question today as Paul Martin has said he will not be leading the party to the polls in the next election. The party needs to regroup and rebuild.

Bloq:
When the polls were showing them sitting at or above 50% popularity in Quebec, many in the party framed this election as a kind of referendum on sovereignty. If they could win with 50% of the popular vote (the thinking went) a separation vote could not be far behind. But, its not the way it went. The bloq lost seats in the house and only managed a popular vote count of 40% in their home province.

NDP:
While the NDP managed to increase their seat count by 50%, they did not manage to gain the balance of power in the house. The NDP and conservatives actually have some common ground on issues of electoral reform and accountability legislation, but together the two powers do not have enough seats to push through any legislation.

Their only victory is a larger share of campaign finance dollars the next time around (as a result of their increased popular vote count).

Green:
Once again managed to increase their popular vote count, but did not manage to win a seat in the house. However, if there is electoral reform that would allocate seats based on popular votes, the Green may finally make a breakthrough.

andre