Cross-posted to BlogsCanada election blog.
As I indicated about a week ago, I voted for the Green Party today. As I said then, I had no illusions about them even securing a seat. They did, however, make vast improvements. As the CBC reports, in their last election, they received a laughable 1100 votes, about 0.08% of the popular vote (the CBC got it wrong, they received about 100,000 votes or 0.8%). In this election, that increased to about a half-million, more than 4% of the popular vote. Some of those votes may have been disillusionment with the major parties, but they mean signficiant money to work with for the next election. Just as importantly, it goes a long way to establishing the party’s credibility.
As Green Party leader Jim Harris pointed out, the Reform Party received all of 2.1% of the vote and one seat in their first election in 1988. In the subsequent campaign, they secured 52 seats. I’m not making any such predictions for the Greens, but it’s an encouraging result for this fledgling party.
In general terms, I’m satisfied with the election result. A minority will keep the Liberals honest, a Liberal-NDP coalition will extend the latter party’s influence, and the Conservatives didn’t get into power. In fact, the Conservatives lost a big chunk of popular support.
I’m also smugly pleased to see how badly wrong the pollsters got this election. Hopefully this is the last time I mention polls for at least a month or two.
DarrenBarefoot.com 
Very good result. I was sorry to see Saskatchewan go to the bloody Conservatives, (save for the Liberal finance minister’s seat) but very pleased that on the whole the conservatives were handed a message that, yes, maybe they are a little to right field for most the comfort of most people.
B.C. had a good showing for the Green party, they earned 6% of the popular vote here.
I think I’m going to get involved with the Green Party actually. Their campaigning in my riding was absolutely terrible – I didn’t see a single sign for my Green party representative anywhere. I had to look up the name of my riding rep on the Green Party website, there was hardly any information about his own views or experience, and I found out later that his riding office isn’t even IN the riding. I think it’s important that they improve their PR dramatically, not just for the next election but in the meantime so they can raise their profile.
Darren,
It’s going to be interesting come next election to see what the Greens can do. They are now entitled to just over $1 Mil annually until the next writ is dropped, thanks to almost 5% of the vote and new Elections Canada funding rules. It’ll be interesting to see how they use it. Some well thought out riding-by-riding organization is probably the first order of business. The home-made signs just ain’t gonna cut it much longer.
Remember, the “Refooorm” party got off to a slow start too back in….well who cares…when they got 1 seat and then next election came back with a good chunk of seats from the west.
You taking wagers on how long this government lasts??