you know what, WE are the minorities. we, asian, urbanites, pseudo tree huggers (only coz we have no trees), are not the majority of canadians who are mostly white, 10th generation settlers from europe, farmers, with lots of land waiting to be developed.

that's why harper won. i think any party who has a city agenda will lose from now on. rural vs cities...we're never going to win.

i think our "diversity" sometimes costs us unity.

Regardless of our "minority" status as tree-hugging asian urbanites, the reality as we can see in this election is the major political shift to the West.

They will be where the new wealth is in our country, and just like how Toronto gained from Montreal's losses in the 1970s, the Calgary-Edmonton corridor will take our competitive advantage away.

Another thing I can say is that, you're right, there is this increasing political shift of power rural areas. For example, all Conservative seats in Ontario and Quebec are away from urban cores. I feel this dangerous, since the lifeblood and the core of our social problems and economic activity lies in cities.

Diversity definitely costs us unity, but given our geographic size, and having provinces each with different demands, I don't think we should really expect unity. Especially as per the recent realization that the majority of Canadians clearly prefer individual prosperity over social benefits, how could be possibly unite and work together?

You're right, if you take a look at the outcome of this election, you can see the urban areas of Greater Vancouver, Greater Toronto and Montréal are either Liberal or NDP.

Increasingly, there is this great divide of left-wing City-folk and right-wing Country-people. However, I don't believe this necessarily spells doom for the urban centres of Canada.
We have a very fragile conservative minority with the balance of power resting on the NDP once again. Also, our Prime Minister really needs the support of the Liberals to make things happen.

We are not united by any means, but I think it accurately represents the wishes of Canadians.

As much as I admire Paul Martin, and his passion for a great country, I do think that it is best for him to step down as leader and have a fresh face for the Liberal party that doesn't correlate with "corruption" that many voters see. But I guess the question is whom.

Not Belinda, she's too inexperienced. Not Ignatieff, he's too controversial. Maybe Ujjal Dosanjh? No, he's not popular enough.

The debate in January really mades made my vote this time around. Paul Martin has a very personable nature that really attracts me. I vividly recall, Martin proclaiming, you will not take my home away from me. Stephen Harper is always very composed, which further makes people think that he has an "agenda", as for Layton, his "you have a third choice" was getting boring.

Nevertheless, I can accept a "thin blue line" as the Globe puts it in today's paper. We will definitely not get radical reforms to health care, to our cities, to tax without some sort of compromise with the other parties. So in that sense, I don't think we will have all too much to worry.

I am willing to see what the new PM has to offer for us urbanites, and from those outcomes, and then we will have a better answer on a national level as to which party really brings leadership to our country.

Regarding the comments about Joe Li:

I HATE HIM! Okay, maybe hate is too strong of a word and MAYBE my intense dislike from him comes from seeing his mug every morning on my way to the bus stop (as Lesley once said, he looks like a special needs kid.. not to insult special ed kids by associating them with him).

Oh gawd. WHere to start? First, he is VERY UNQUALIFIED! Look at his bio at his site. He only has a high school education, in India. Then he opened up a restaurant supposedly in Sweden (not that we can verify this) and then delievered mail at Canada Post. Then he got some job with insurance companies or something (I can't remember). It's not even the extreme lack of education thing that bugs me, but that the dude wasn't even actve in the community at all (social or political sense) and suddenly, HEY I WANT TO BE MP! His bio said that after he lost his riding in Scarb. and Markham, he decided "hey, I am gonna get involved in the community now!!" -- only so he could win! He is just doing it for the salary and pension, not for any other non-selfish reason. Not only that, the dude has HORRID ENGLISH SKILLS (I saw him on the news at Market Village's debate)! Had he won, I'd be embarassed that a man (a Chinese man, no less) is representing me/my electoral district in Ottawa.

Oh yeah, and a few of his supporters (Chinese ones too, unsuprisingly, who are most likely ONLY supporting him b/c he's the same ethnicity and not b/c it's related to the *gasp* issues) came by my polling station yesterday --I worked with Elections Canada yesterday-- and man, some of 'em are bitchy, incoherent meanies. They were "candidate representatives"/scrutineers who come to check the list to see who's voted and to supervise the counting of votes... one of them, snapped at me when I asked for MY sheets back to let the Lib. scrutineer look at it. She's like "I COULD FINISH IF YOU WAITED, IM ON THE LAST PAGE" (no she wasn't).

I hope he realizes he sucks and should stop effin' running for seats. Lost 3 times, get the hint???

(Sorry for the length and the Joe Li ranting...I JUST DON'T LIKE HIM)
p.s. a friend of mine said a Con minority could be good as they could team up with the NDP (since Bloc is apparently anti-federalist) so they can't go as right-wing then.

" It's not even the extreme lack of education thing that bugs me" -- to clarify, I meant in RELATION to the other candidates in this riding (Hagan and McCallum). Not to knock high school grads or anything,...

Bev,

You seem to have an interesting encounter with those
"scrutuneers." :P

You've been working for Elections Canada for quite a long time. Was there a Wilclay polling station this time around?

My station was moved to Armadale this election.